His car does not go unnoticed. And for good reason, Claudie has been driving a Peugeot 205 Roland-Garros cabriolet for years, much sought after by collectors. Or rather was driving. Because this resident of Balma, a town in the Toulouse conurbation, had to invest despite herself in a much more recent vehicle to comply with the Low Emission Zone (ZFE) of the Pink City. Since January 1, the circulation of Crit’Air 4, 5 and unclassified, ie those put into circulation before 1997 for gasoline and 2006 for diesel, are indeed prohibited from circulating on almost the entire city.
An expense that this housekeeper would have done well without. “My 205 will be thirty years old by the end of the year and will become a collector’s item. But in the meantime, to go to work in Toulouse, I had to buy a car,” she says.
Few used Crit’Air 1 and 2 at an affordable price
Like hundreds of concerned car owners, she surfed the Internet at the end of last year to flush out the rare pearl: an affordable Crit’Air 2. “I thought to put 5,000 euros but I found nothing. My husband and my son also looked at garage owners and on ad sites, but everyone did as we did and individuals sold too much. I paid 9,000 euros for my new car, but it is from 2011 and has a lot of kilometres. At 64, I had to spend a whole part of my savings there, it’s unfair, ”she criticizes.
Motorists faced with the same problem as Claudie, Jean-Luc Bressolle, director of the Toulouse site of SN Diffusion, distributor and agent of new and used cars, has seen plenty of them in his premises lately. “We have more and more requests from people looking for a Crit’Air 1 petrol or a Crit’Air 2 diesel at less than 5,000 euros. These are people with small budgets who ask us for something that does not exist, ”says the man who has worked in vehicle sales for more than thirty years.
The establishment of the ZFE in Toulouse has indeed come on top of a phenomenon born of the Covid-19 crisis. “The automotive sector has been impacted by the lack of semiconductors. Today, the factories are still idling and this has an impact on the sale of new vehicles because we do not know the delivery times. As the new market is not supplied, it is as many people who do not put their second-hand vehicle up for sale and thus, in cascade, the market for vehicles at less than 5,000 euros has been exhausted. The ZFE complicates this phenomenon since even more of them are asking for Crit’Air 1 and Crit’Air 2”, notes this specialist.
Explosion of prices on the second-hand market
If you have to have a lucky star to find a used vehicle authorized to drive within the perimeter of the ZFE for a reasonable budget, the commodity is also rare for those a little more upscale. Patrick, owner of an old Golf Crit’Air 3 recently broke his clutch. Given the costs he had to pay to repair it and the new restrictions due to the ZFE, he said to himself that he was going to invest in a new Japanese hybrid.
“The dealer told me that at best it would be delivered at the end of the year, beginning of next year. On occasion, on the same criteria, they had nothing. I went to a used vehicle dealer in Lavaur and he told me that many Toulouse residents came to him looking for second-hand cars for Crit’Air ZFE reasons. I looked on an online ad site and I found a car with 40,000 km at the same price as new, it’s insane, ”notes the fifty-year-old. Second-hand prices that have been in the elevator for two years. After soaring to more than 40% in 2021, they were still up 19% in the 4th quarter of 2022 according to the La Centrale observatory. To the point that the Argus had to revise its ratings to be in line with the market.
“I can afford it, but those who don’t have the means, how do they do it? asks Patrick. This observation, he is not the only one to draw it up. Pierre Chasseray, the general delegate of the national association 40 million motorists heard hundreds of such testimonies when he started his tour of France to talk about the ZFE, especially in times of inflation.
“The problem is that the ZFE will soon affect half of the rolling stock. However, it would take more than ten years to renew it, it is just impossible. On January 1, 2025, in just under two years, in all urban areas with more than 150,000 inhabitants, only Crit’Air 1 and 2 vehicles will be able to drive in the ZFE. All the metropolises, which want to apply it before, want to buy an environmental image, but the Crit’Air sticker is not a classification of vehicle pollution but of age, ”recalls this defender of motorists.
A market for Crit’Air 3 outside agglomerations
And for some, it’s even an ecological nonsense since all the old jew’s harps that don’t have their yellow or purple sticker could still have been rolling for many years. For now, they are still being sought. “15-year-old cars are even selling very well. People will give them up in the big cities and this will be of interest to those who live outside these low-emission zones, more in the countryside or in small towns”, underlines Laurent Hérail, president of the Tarn group Surplus Recyclage, specializing in the spare part but also the reconditioned vehicle.
If a few years ago, people were reluctant to turn to the cars that he refurbishes, today they find takers without difficulty. Some see it as a way to access a recent and affordable vehicle while doing something for the planet. But there are not enough of them to satisfy everyone who needs a car on a daily basis.
“The government should push back the deadline for the ZFE everywhere by a year. We had indicated that this was going to be a problem and I think that he had not measured the impact, ”continues Laurent Hérail, who is also the regional representative of the trade union for distribution and automotive services. Mobilians.
While many are asking for this postponement, others hope that the concept of the Crit’Air sticker itself will be reviewed and corrected. Pierre Chasseray of 40 million motorists will thus continue to lobby in order to change the regulations. He hopes that the “environmental compliance certificate”, which could classify the vehicle according to its pollution during technical inspections, will be included in the framework of a bill.