Buying a car when you’re vegan
Being vegan is easy. Buying a car when you’re vegan is hard.
Sometimes being vegan is about best endevours — it’s probably impossible to buy a car that is 100% cruelty-free due to the way they’re made. One way I can try and influence the market is by purchasing a car that does not have leather in. This is hard to do. The problem isn’t just upholstery which is easier to avoid, it’s leather steering wheels and gear knobs that come as standard in over 90% of cars on the market.
Buying a car should be enjoyable, but it was needlessly frustrating. I have spent days searching websites and brochures for the tiniest mention of leather. Most of the time I’m looking for an absence of a tick in a table cell. Why can’t models be clearly labelled non-leather?
Also, why can’t I have a nice car? It seems that as soon as you go a model above the base, you get leather. Want a built in Sat Nav? You get leather. Want that sporty body kit? You get leather. Want extra safety features? Here, have some leather.
It seems that no-kills equals no-thrills.
If you have the money buy a Tesla, otherwise [like me] you may end up doing days of research. There is some information out there but it was hard to find, so to try and help others, here is my own collated list of car model trims I found to be free of leather.
List of non-leather cars
66 reg, UK
This list has been curated from my own research in October 2016 on new cars (66 reg) in the UK. It is important to make note of the specific model trim listed, as trims of the same model that aren’t listed include something made of leather as standard.
Audi A1 SE, A1 Sportback SE
Ford B-Max Studio, Fiesta Style, Focus Style, Ka+ Studio
Honda Jazz S, Jazz SE, Jazz SE Navi, HR-V S
Hyundai i10 S, i10 S Air, i10 SE, i10 SE Blue, i20 S, i20 S Air, i20 S Blue, i30 S
Kia Cee’d ‘1’
Mazda 2 SE — This is the new car I purchased after making this list.
Nissan Note Visia, Pulsar Visia, Qashqai Visia — This is my main family car.
Seat Alhambra A, Ibiza E, Ibiza S A/C, Leon S, Mii S
Toyota Aygo X, Yaris Active, Auris Active, Prius Active
Vauxhall Viva Design, Corsa Design, Astra Design
This list is hopefully not complete. Please let me know of any other non-leather cars you find in the comments and I will add them. Thanks :)
