Month: January 2023

• 45% of Londoners polled said they won’t be able to afford to pay the £12.50 to drive in London’s expanded Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ)
• Only 25% of Londoners polled, are aware the expansion has been confirmed for August 2023 
• The cost-of-living crisis means two thirds of motorists can’t afford to switch to an electric vehicle or compliant petrol car

Research commissioned by used-car marketplace Motorway has revealed that nearly one third (31%) of Londoners plan to sell their vehicle in the next six months because of costs associated with the confirmed ULEZ expansion alongside the rising cost of living. 

Londoners are growing increasingly concerned about the expansion, with two thirds (67%) admitting they are worried about how it will affect their personal finances. Two thirds (65%) of those surveyed won’t be able to afford to switch to an electric vehicle or compliant car, before the zone is expanded. 

With the current cost of living crisis, 30% of Londoners would be more likely to sell their vehicle in the next six months, with many more set to follow suit. When asked about the reasons for selling their petrol or diesel car, over one third (37%) of Londoners said they would sell in order to buy an electric vehicle in light of the potential expansion of ULEZ.  However, due to the rising cost of living, many will be unable to afford to make this switch.

What’s more, the data reveals that three quarters (75%) of those in the capital are unaware the planned ULEZ expansion for August 2023 has now been confirmed.

While many people are not aware of the changes to come, since the zone expansion was announced, Motorway saw a 150% increase in car owners checking their vehicle’s ULEZ compliance in one weekend alone.

Alex Buttle, co-founder of used-car marketplace Motorway, said: “With the current cost of living crisis and the confirmed extension of London’s ULEZ in August 2023, more drivers who use the zone are questioning their current car ownership and driving habits. With big changes on the horizon, for any car owners affected, they can check their car’s compliance with Motorway’s ULEZ checker – and if they need to sell, we can help them get a great price.”

To value and sell your car, visit motorway.co.uk.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Research conducted in December 2022 by Censuswide with a sample of 1,000 British car owners aged 18+ from London and Greater London.

About Motorway

Motorway is the UK’s fastest-growing used car marketplace. We connect people selling their car directly with our network of more than 5,000 verified car dealers, matching each seller on our platform with the dealer who most wants to buy their car. We help car owners sell their cars 100% online for a great price in as little as 24 hours, with their car collected from home for free, while supporting our car dealer partners to easily acquire the best used car stock.

At Motorway, we help thousands of UK car owners sell their vehicles every week so it’s important we have diverse teams to represent the customers we serve.  We are focussed on promoting equality, diversity and inclusion among our teams, and on continuously shaping  the company behaviours, processes and policies required to do this.

It should go without saying we are committed to equal pay: the payment given to men and women doing the same job at the same level. 

As a company that has rapidly scaled to more than 250 people, this year we are reporting our gender pay gap for the first time – the difference between the average hourly pay of men and women across all roles at Motorway.  

Like many tech companies, our gender pay gap has been impacted by an ongoing shortage of women in the UK tech sector, which often limits the number of female candidates applying for open roles.   This shortage has led to a gender imbalance at Motorway, where more than a third of our teams are technical specialists such as engineers and product developers. Currently, whilst a third of our Motorway team is female, the percentage is lower in our tech and leadership teams, and this has contributed to our gender pay gap being higher than we would like, at 19.7 percent.

We want to do better than this.  We need to continue to build a pipeline of talented women entering the business, particularly into specialist tech and leadership positions, as well as supporting our existing female employees to develop their careers and progress into more senior roles in the company.  Actions we are taking include:

• Partnering with progressive organisations to support our focus on recruiting specialist female tech talent such as She Can Code and Black Girls in Tech
• Ensuring female candidates are interviewed for all senior management and leadership positions, with a minimum of one female on each shortlist
• Ensuring our hiring managers undertake training on how to recognise and avoid unconscious bias
• Helping more junior women and men at Motorway progress to more senior roles  through our learning and development programme
• Giving every high potential senior level team member, regardless of gender, the opportunity to partner with an executive team mentor who can advise, champion and support them in their careers (2023)
• Investing in our Diversity and Inclusion Committee which comprises a cross section of our teams and is focussed on making Motorway an even more diverse and inclusive place to work

We will be reviewing our plan to reduce our gender pay gap on a quarterly basis and our hiring plans monthly at executive level, to ensure we remain focussed on taking action and improving over the next 12 months and beyond.