RE: 'Toxin tax' tactics, PH style
Saturday 8th April 2017
By now you will have heard about Mayor of London Sadiq Khan's plans to place an additional levy on certain cars on top of the congestion charge. From April 2019 petrol cars that fail to meet Euro4 emissions standards and diesels worse than Euro6 will be subject to an additional £12.50 to drive in the capital.
Well the choice has improved in recent yearsApparently the move has been forced following pressure about pollution from the European Commission, though understandably many diesel owners are cross having bought their cars on supposed environmental kudos. Given Euro6 was only introduced in September 2015, that's a heck of a lot of cars that stand to be penalised. It will be especially galling for those diesel divas that Euro4 - the emissions standard that petrol cars will have to meet - was introduced a decade earlier.
Fun, eco friendly, modern and getting cheaper...A really good Panda 100HP is available for £3K, and CO2 emission of 154g/km mean that it will cost £190 year to tax. Not a bad start on a budget. A current 1.6 Elise is rated at 149g/km, meaning annual tax of £150 and exemption from the additional levy. The 139g/km Mazda MX-5 1.5 qualifies for a £135 charge, while a Fiesta Ecoboost sneaks in below 100g/km and therefore its road tax is a nice round £0.
'Toxin tax' tactics, PH style
Want to use a fun car in London that doesn't cost £1m to either buy or drive in the capital? We have a few suggestions...
Well the choice has improved in recent years
Frustrating for both will be the cars that are exempt from the charge because of their ability to perform on the NEDC test. Y'know, the test that is known to be entirely unrepresentative of real world conditions. The one that is allowing cars to be purchased on false environmental virtuosity and taxed at a much lower rate. A situation not dissimilar to diesels a while back, in fact, and discussed in Dan's recent blog. We're now in a consumer market where two-tonne V8 hybrids can be perceived as more 'green' than much smaller cars thanks to a skewed test.
So what's the solution? Well there will be no getting away from the regular congestion charge, given the current criteria requires less than 75g/km and will likely be more strict from 2019. In fact the only cars we can think of that conform to that and have some PH interest are the BMW i3 and i8 plus the Tesla Model S. Not exactly cheap cars though, even if the i8 is now not far off half its original price.
It seems wise to avoid diesel for fear of further penalties, so what are the petrol possibilities? What we need is fun, Euro5 compliant, fairly affordable to tax (remember cars up to March this year had the staggered CO2 tax bands) and cheap to buy too. Hmm...
Fun, eco friendly, modern and getting cheaper...
So there are ways to not be clobbered with this new charge in both new and used cars. All other suggestions are welcome too, of course... Finally, you could do what so many PHers have done (including our own editor) and import a car from Japan. Tax is cheaper than a UK domestic market equivalent, and there's no mention yet of additional JDM penalisation... More on the actual news story as it develops; there's surely plenty to work out between now and 2019!
Discussion
I cycle through London every day - by far the worst offenders are black cabs, 2-stroke mopeds and buses, the latter of which also completely f*ck the road surface. All of which can carry on belching out crap with impunity.
The politicians taxed us all into privately-owned diesels, myself included, and now they're going to tax us all back out of them, despite them contributing to only 5% of NOx in central London.
The politicians taxed us all into privately-owned diesels, myself included, and now they're going to tax us all back out of them, despite them contributing to only 5% of NOx in central London.
HardtopManual said:
The politicians taxed us all into privately-owned diesels, myself included, and now they're going to tax us all back out of them, despite them contributing to only 5% of NOx in central London.
I am looking at this from the opposite direction to you. The way I see it, the people were given tax breaks to buy diesels (relative to petrol), to reduce CO2 emissions. Now they're getting tax breaks/scrappage incentives to get out of them again (ignoring congestion/parking charges - I'll return to this). Diesel drivers reaped the benefits on BIK and VED, and now are going to be getting further financial aid to walk away. Doesn't seem very balanced (I have owned a diesel and regularly drive them too before anyone jumps in accusing me of petrol-bias).Separate to this is the plain stupidity of penalties for diesel (congestion/parking/'toxin tax'- whatever ridiculous catchphrase the media want to use) - encouraging people to go in a direction, then penalising them when they do is moronic. The whole situation is a horrendous, farcical about-turn. But it does seem to prove one thing - people will pay anything in depreciation (to a car manufacture abroad), but will do anything not to give a few extra quid to the government.
Thing is, diesel has always been a more polluting choice than petrol, and frustratingly the 2002 tax changes killed off proper development of LPG - arguably the better fuel for minimising urban pollutants. For that reason I refused to jump on the diesel bandwagon, whilst accepting the increased costs of running petrol cars. I don't have much sympathy for those who bought the diesel hype either.
But on the flip side, the financial incentive to choose an 'environmentally friendly' diesel has seemingly had the effect of pushing many to diesel, raising driver's expectations of how quick a car should be. Without that, the current generation of EV's might not exist in the form they do now.
But on the flip side, the financial incentive to choose an 'environmentally friendly' diesel has seemingly had the effect of pushing many to diesel, raising driver's expectations of how quick a car should be. Without that, the current generation of EV's might not exist in the form they do now.
delta0 said:
How does importing a JDM car avoid tax? I'm curious
Who said it avoided tax? The article just says it's cheaper, presumably because they won't be taxed on CO2 output but rather use the older two tier fixed rate system which depends on whether engine size is above or below 1549cc.Mr2Mike said:
Who said it avoided tax? The article just says it's cheaper, presumably because they won't be taxed on CO2 output but rather use the older two tier fixed rate system which depends on whether engine size is above or below 1549cc.
This is what I'm trying to understand. Importing a new or used JDM car somehow reduces the tax that needs to be paid (therefore it is avoiding tax, perfectly legal!) However I don't understand how this works.HardtopManual said:
SystemParanoia said:
its easy to not drive in london.
It is if it's only yourself you need to get from A to B. If you regularly need to take equipment with you, even if it's just a laptop, projector and whiteboard, you can't use public transport.Whilst I don't disagree that the situation is, shall we say, unfortunate, can we please refrain from complaints about "real world conditions"? There are no real world conditions. It's a scientific test. It cannot, and should not, be able to represent your heel & toe antics on the way to the paper shop. The only thing that matters is that every vehicle is subject to the same test. With the exception of hybrid cars that are clearly able to skew the results massively. I don't doubt that in 2017 the world requires a new system, but whether or not it represents your own personal fuel consumption is moot.
Which leads me onto the wider topic of "mpg" - it's not the same as pollution.
Thanks
Which leads me onto the wider topic of "mpg" - it's not the same as pollution.
Thanks
Kenny Powers said:
Whilst I don't disagree that the situation is, shall we say, unfortunate, can we please refrain from complaints about "real world conditions"? There are no real world conditions. It's a scientific test. It cannot, and should not, be able to represent your heel & toe antics on the way to the paper shop. The only thing that matters is that every vehicle is subject to the same test. With the exception of hybrid cars that are clearly able to skew the results massively. I don't doubt that in 2017 the world requires a new system, but whether or not it represents your own personal fuel consumption is moot.
Which leads me onto the wider topic of "mpg" - it's not the same as pollution.
Thanks
While I agree with your sentiment, if we're going to base government policies and financial incentives off the scores from certain tests, then those tests should be representative of how the cars are actually used by average users. If they aren't, then you end up with ridiculous situations we have now where incentives are given to buy products with the aim of having wider reaching effects on society, but that are simply not performing as the tests said they would because they are so non-representative. Which leads me onto the wider topic of "mpg" - it's not the same as pollution.
Thanks
We should absolutely make them more closely aligned to how the average driver will use the car in its working life, because then the results will more closely align with the actual performance, and the governmental steering of public purchasing decisions will in turn have results in line with what they set out to achieve.
It is like having the General Election only be open to votes from people who live in one particular village! Yes it's still democracy, but entirely unrepresentative and disproportionate.
Edited by Venturist on Thursday 6th April 08:51
delta0 said:
Mr2Mike said:
Who said it avoided tax? The article just says it's cheaper, presumably because they won't be taxed on CO2 output but rather use the older two tier fixed rate system which depends on whether engine size is above or below 1549cc.
This is what I'm trying to understand. Importing a new or used JDM car somehow reduces the tax that needs to be paid (therefore it is avoiding tax, perfectly legal!) However I don't understand how this works.How much it'd cost to drive into London and where it fits on the proposed scale of polluting cars I'm not sure but it goes to show a car that's 'off the radar' of the conventional scales MIGHT duck under the radar!
Cheers,
Dan
eliot said:
HardtopManual said:
SystemParanoia said:
its easy to not drive in london.
It is if it's only yourself you need to get from A to B. If you regularly need to take equipment with you, even if it's just a laptop, projector and whiteboard, you can't use public transport.
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