RE: Hybrids are the 'next diesel': Tell Me I'm Wrong

[Evilex]

RobDickinson said:

UK Government makes £35bn plus from motorists, 30billion or so is from fuel duty.

Switch to EV's and they will claw that back somewhere else.

Precisely. VED hike, regardless of emissions, anyone?

[otolith]

RobDickinson said:

Hydrogen fuel cells are a smoke screen from big auto, unreachable unusable tech with a massive infrastructure cost and 4 times more energy required than EV's

It doesn't make environmental or economic sense, so I'm not sure why it's still being pursued.

[otolith]

Evilex said:

RobDickinson said:

UK Government makes £35bn plus from motorists, 30billion or so is from fuel duty.

Switch to EV's and they will claw that back somewhere else.

Precisely. VED hike, regardless of emissions, anyone?

Is there any reason ab initio why that money should be collected on the basis of how people travel?

[fenster]

bhstewie said:

Incidentally, and no idea how true this is, but apparently 15 of the worlds largest cargo ships are supposed to emit as much at all the worlds cars combined.

It's something I read and doubtless somewhere there's a counter article but if it's even half true it does show a little of the futility of anything we can do as motorists.

"supposed to emit as much.....". As much what? What you read is fake news from the Daily Mail (and also quoted elsewhere). To make it true, they referred only to emissions of sulphur, which cars basically barely emit but ships, by burning heavy oil, emit a ton of. The world's cars emit more CO2 than the all world's ships

Cars are a reasonable part of the CO2 emission picture, although heating and cooling for homes is bigger still.

[RobDickinson]

otolith said:

It doesn't make environmental or economic sense, so I'm not sure why it's still being pursued.

Because its a carrot dangled in front of the environmentalists by big auto, one that would always be 'nearly there'. GM had a great EV program decades ago but killed it, now regrets.

Very much like Kodak, Nokia etc

Have a look at this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Elect...

[Gorbyrev]

Interesting perspective. Firstly, compression ignition is an elegant and efficient means of propulsion for cars. I get the issues related to city pollution which is as much to do with congestion as anything else. If our cities are gridlocked then we need other propulsion solutions for the inner city. Diesel on the other hand has allowed families like ours, where budgets are tight, to have real world 50+mpg family vehicles. There is much to be said for that. My 2006 C5 1.6HDi is worth £750 with an MOT. That makes for cheap transport. Petrol cars still struggle to get close to that. The original Insight is a fantastic vehicle but only solves transportation for two. I agree that hybrids are a stop gap. But the Panamera Hybrid will be sold in tiny numbers to a clientele whose attention is elsewhere. It is a halo model for those who want it. If it is the most powerful and extends the distance between pitstops it will sell. What I would like to see is a simple energy retrieval system that can recycle braking power through a starter motor that can also apply power to the flywheel. I know this exists but it seems to be an elegant solution for more efficient motoring. As for EVs and hydrogen their time will come but Leaf-o-nomics still doesn't make sense for us and the FCX et al are still a distance off.

[lord gapp]

We purchased a Cayenne Hybrid.
No, we get no tax advantage as privately owned. Big advantage over our previous Cayenne Turbo S as we can do the a.m. school run on electric only, plug in during day and do p.m. run on electric. Result is no petrol use during week but we still have a car for weekends to go to Yorkshire or Devon without having to worry about finding a charging point while away, unlike Tesla. (Do try not to look too smug when we turn up silently at school).

[RobDickinson]

otolith said:

Evilex said:

RobDickinson said:

UK Government makes £35bn plus from motorists, 30billion or so is from fuel duty.

Switch to EV's and they will claw that back somewhere else.

Precisely. VED hike, regardless of emissions, anyone?

Is there any reason ab initio why that money should be collected on the basis of how people travel?

No, but tax is historically hard to shift around. What would you do hike VAT? Then people who dont own cars etc would complain etc etc.

[carlpea]

RobDickinson said:

otolith said:

Evilex said:

RobDickinson said:

UK Government makes £35bn plus from motorists, 30billion or so is from fuel duty.

Switch to EV's and they will claw that back somewhere else.

Precisely. VED hike, regardless of emissions, anyone?

Is there any reason ab initio why that money should be collected on the basis of how people travel?

No, but tax is historically hard to shift around. What would you do hike VAT? Then people who dont own cars etc would complain etc etc.

Isn't this happening already with the new tax rules?

£310 a year for a Tesla Model S in years 2 - 5 because it's over £40,000 (£0 year 1).

Edited by carlpea on Monday 20th March 22:26

[RobDickinson]

dunno guess so for VED, not my country so I dont tend to pay much attention to it lol

[carlpea]

RobDickinson said:

dunno guess so for VED, not my country so I dont tend to pay much attention to it lol

I didn't notice your location. Yes, from 1st April there is an additional charge of £310, years 2 - 6 (Last post was wrong!), on any vehicle registered that's over £40,000. This is on top of the actual cost of tax based on emissions, which has also been radically changed.

It can, however, work out better for cheaper cars as the tax brackets are:

Edited by carlpea on Monday 20th March 22:38

[NJH]

Saying things like clean slate approach is a dangerous idea in the context of individually owned and human operated transportation devices (cars/motorbikes). To cut to the chase I have believed for some time now that the only reason why we are allowed to own and operate motor vehicles is because the world had already evolved into a situation where we already have them, and all the related road infrastructure. In terms of system safety it would never be allowed to be created from scratch again as the risks would be deemed unacceptably high compared to any other form of transportation. Thus if anyone really does want a clean slate approach you better be comfortable with public mass transit systems and BO.

[Plug Life]

Gorbyrev said:

Firstly, compression ignition is an elegant and efficient means of propulsion for cars.

At 30-40% efficiency, with carcinogen and noise pollution? Elegant like a pile of dog turd.

[Evilex]

otolith said:

Evilex said:

RobDickinson said:

UK Government makes £35bn plus from motorists, 30billion or so is from fuel duty.

Switch to EV's and they will claw that back somewhere else.

Precisely. VED hike, regardless of emissions, anyone?

Is there any reason ab initio why that money should be collected on the basis of how people travel?

Going back to first principles? No. Walking, for example, is still free.
However, Governments of all political persuasions like to accrue and spend revenue. In this specific case (motor vehicles & VED), the mechanism is already in place and tolerated/viewed as a necessary evil that facilitates our use of the road network. How much of that revenue actually goes into road construction/maintenance/improvement is, at best, unclear. Nonetheless, it is likely that the road network maintenance cost would be the primary reason cited for the retention of VED after the decline of ICE road vehicles.

[suffolk009]

Evilex said:

Going back to first principles? No. Walking, for example, is still free.
However, Governments of all political persuasions like to accrue and spend revenue. In this specific case (motor vehicles & VED), the mechanism is already in place and tolerated/viewed as a necessary evil that facilitates our use of the road network. How much of that revenue actually goes into road construction/maintenance/improvement is, at best, unclear. Nonetheless, it is likely that the road network maintenance cost would be the primary reason cited for the retention of VED after the decline of ICE road vehicles.

My guess would be that at some point in the future (once we're all driving around in automated cars running on clean, free energy) VED will end up being massively increased. Currently most of the governments take from motorists is in tax on petrol. Once that disapears, they'll be taxing road usage in a different way. I'd hope it would be with some sort of smart-meter that charges per mile and is location specific, but joined up thinking isn't what governments do.

[kambites]

suffolk009 said:

My guess would be that at some point in the future (once we're all driving around in automated cars running on clean, free energy) VED will end up being massively increased.

I don't think that'll happen because there's no reason for it to - if the government has reason to want to reduce traffic levels (for example excessive congestion) road charging is a better way to do it; if they just need to raise the lost revenue, income tax is a better way to do it.

There's no doubt that they will need to keep raising the money from somewhere, but I personally think it's very unlikely that they'd do it via VED.

[rodericb]

lord gapp said:

We purchased a Cayenne Hybrid.
No, we get no tax advantage as privately owned. Big advantage over our previous Cayenne Turbo S as we can do the a.m. school run on electric only, plug in during day and do p.m. run on electric. Result is no petrol use during week but we still have a car for weekends to go to Yorkshire or Devon without having to worry about finding a charging point while away, unlike Tesla. (Do try not to look too smug when we turn up silently at school).

The thing with that is you have a barely used engine when the car is eventually scrapped.

[suffolk009]

kambites said:

suffolk009 said:

My guess would be that at some point in the future (once we're all driving around in automated cars running on clean, free energy) VED will end up being massively increased.

I don't think that'll happen because there's no reason for it to - if the government has reason to want to reduce traffic levels (for example excessive congestion) road charging is a better way to do it; if they just need to raise the lost revenue, income tax is a better way to do it.

There's no doubt that they will need to keep raising the money from somewhere, but I personally think it's very unlikely that they'd do it via VED.

It seems we agree. I also said: I'd hope it would be with some sort of smart-meter that charges per mile and is location specific

[otolith]

RobDickinson said:

otolith said:

Evilex said:

RobDickinson said:

UK Government makes £35bn plus from motorists, 30billion or so is from fuel duty.

Switch to EV's and they will claw that back somewhere else.

Precisely. VED hike, regardless of emissions, anyone?

Is there any reason ab initio why that money should be collected on the basis of how people travel?

No, but tax is historically hard to shift around. What would you do hike VAT? Then people who dont own cars etc would complain etc etc.

Once your "saving the environment" fox has been shot, I think it's easier to make a political argument for raising the money from the progressive part of our direct tax system - so some tweaks to income tax. Alternatively the same argument used to justify taxing road fuel could be made (though Sir Humphrey would describe it as "brave") to tax electricity generation on a CO2 intensity basis. The congestion argument could be resurrected to justify more widespread congestion charging.

[otolith]

Evilex said:

Going back to first principles? No. Walking, for example, is still free.
However, Governments of all political persuasions like to accrue and spend revenue. In this specific case (motor vehicles & VED), the mechanism is already in place and tolerated/viewed as a necessary evil that facilitates our use of the road network. How much of that revenue actually goes into road construction/maintenance/improvement is, at best, unclear. Nonetheless, it is likely that the road network maintenance cost would be the primary reason cited for the retention of VED after the decline of ICE road vehicles.

VED is a small slice of the cake, though. The big issue is fuel duty, and that mechanism will become redundant with a shift to electric vehicles.