Petrol prices- when does the madness end?
Discussion
Funnily enough, walking back to my house earlier a chav passed me on one of these electric off road bikes doing about 30mph on a footpath. No safety gear on, no tax, no insurance, no MOT, probably never checks it over or maintains it either.
What could possibly go wrong? Copenhagen sounds great, but their mentality is different from that of a typical Brit. For whatever reason, people are more individualistic/selfish and entitled here. People complain about £500k being spent on cycle path improvements, never mind hundreds of millions to change the landscape of an inner city. A bike share scheme was trialled in Manchester a few years back and had to be pulled because so many of the bikes were getting vandalised and thrown in canals.
While ever we have a "me first" attitude, public transport and cycling infrastructure investment will always be piecemeal.
What could possibly go wrong? Copenhagen sounds great, but their mentality is different from that of a typical Brit. For whatever reason, people are more individualistic/selfish and entitled here. People complain about £500k being spent on cycle path improvements, never mind hundreds of millions to change the landscape of an inner city. A bike share scheme was trialled in Manchester a few years back and had to be pulled because so many of the bikes were getting vandalised and thrown in canals.
While ever we have a "me first" attitude, public transport and cycling infrastructure investment will always be piecemeal.
croyde said:
HustleRussell said:
croyde said:
So with petrol bought at £1.90/litre my daily commute is now costing me £4.54.
Half hour each way, door to door in the comfort of my own car.
The same journey by train is £9.00 and certainly not door to door.
2 trains each way with, quite often, a half hour wait when changing on the way home. Journey in is an hour, home is 1.5 hours at least.
Very often there are big delays and cancellations plus it's effing cold in the winter.
Thus petrol needs to get to well above £3.80/litre before I would even consider public transport.
This isn't a long journey. It's 8 miles across one side of London.
How much are you paying in annual rail tax, train insurance, maintenance, servicing and repairs etc etc? Half hour each way, door to door in the comfort of my own car.
The same journey by train is £9.00 and certainly not door to door.
2 trains each way with, quite often, a half hour wait when changing on the way home. Journey in is an hour, home is 1.5 hours at least.
Very often there are big delays and cancellations plus it's effing cold in the winter.
Thus petrol needs to get to well above £3.80/litre before I would even consider public transport.
This isn't a long journey. It's 8 miles across one side of London.
Good point, I'll add those up.
Depreciation is £0.00, actually it's negative as the car appears to be worth over £1000 more than its original list price.
£7.81 for a daily commute including the above costs. Still cheaper, more comfortable and a lot quicker than the train.
For now......
I’m just playing Devil’s advocate here really. If there was joined up thinking going on, trains for everyone would be half the price of driving
Shnozz said:
All well and good saying the car is an ornament and you cycle everywhere, but unless everything you buy is transported by bicycle, the I’m alright jack approach might find you’re less insulated from eye watering fuel prices as you proclaim.
I say that as someone who also has an ornament car and walks/cycles 99% of the week.
90% of the non food purchases I make are collected via my bike and trailer off local Facebook marketplace sellers, I try to buy second hand goods as much as possible, I can get much higher quality at a lower price than brand new badly made junk and it's better for environment, reuse and all that jazz. I say that as someone who also has an ornament car and walks/cycles 99% of the week.
Fusion777 said:
Funnily enough, walking back to my house earlier a chav passed me on one of these electric off road bikes doing about 30mph on a footpath. No safety gear on, no tax, no insurance, no MOT, probably never checks it over or maintains it either.
What could possibly go wrong? Copenhagen sounds great, but their mentality is different from that of a typical Brit. For whatever reason, people are more individualistic/selfish and entitled here. People complain about £500k being spent on cycle path improvements, never mind hundreds of millions to change the landscape of an inner city. A bike share scheme was trialled in Manchester a few years back and had to be pulled because so many of the bikes were getting vandalised and thrown in canals.
While ever we have a "me first" attitude, public transport and cycling infrastructure investment will always be piecemeal.
What makes you think it isn't maintained by the "chav" (please stop countering dissent by calling everyone a chav, thanks!) I'd be willing to bet my custom built Ebike is maintained far more often and to a higher standard than any piston headers shed! I maintain mines at least once per week usually twice - checks/torquing bolts to correct nm spec/oiling/ etc. Once every couple months I re-grease all the bearings on the bike and check for free play on all moving parts.What could possibly go wrong? Copenhagen sounds great, but their mentality is different from that of a typical Brit. For whatever reason, people are more individualistic/selfish and entitled here. People complain about £500k being spent on cycle path improvements, never mind hundreds of millions to change the landscape of an inner city. A bike share scheme was trialled in Manchester a few years back and had to be pulled because so many of the bikes were getting vandalised and thrown in canals.
While ever we have a "me first" attitude, public transport and cycling infrastructure investment will always be piecemeal.
I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
HustleRussell said:
bigothunter said:
How much are you paying to take a family of four on the train?
I can manage my commute on my own thanks, I have no need to bring my whole family. T1tsortyres said:
What makes you think it isn't maintained by the "chav" (please stop countering dissent by calling everyone a chav, thanks!) I'd be willing to bet my custom built Ebike is maintained far more often and to a higher standard than any piston headers shed! I maintain mines at least once per week usually twice - checks/torquing bolts to correct nm spec/oiling/ etc. Once every couple months I re-grease all the bearings on the bike and check for free play on all moving parts.
I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
And it’s still illegal on many levels. I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
unident said:
T1tsortyres said:
What makes you think it isn't maintained by the "chav" (please stop countering dissent by calling everyone a chav, thanks!) I'd be willing to bet my custom built Ebike is maintained far more often and to a higher standard than any piston headers shed! I maintain mines at least once per week usually twice - checks/torquing bolts to correct nm spec/oiling/ etc. Once every couple months I re-grease all the bearings on the bike and check for free play on all moving parts.
I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
And it’s still illegal on many levels. I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
T1tsortyres said:
What makes you think it isn't maintained by the "chav" (please stop countering dissent by calling everyone a chav, thanks!) I'd be willing to bet my custom built Ebike is maintained far more often and to a higher standard than any piston headers shed! I maintain mines at least once per week usually twice - checks/torquing bolts to correct nm spec/oiling/ etc. Once every couple months I re-grease all the bearings on the bike and check for free play on all moving parts.
I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
Your kind of ebike is one of the proper ones that assists pedal inputs up to 16mph. The other guy was probably talking about one of those twist and go electric bikes without pedals - which absolutely are ridden by chavs.I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
Square Leg said:
Mr Spoon said:
Square Leg said:
mk1coopers said:
Exactly what I'm doing, more fill-up's of smaller quantities before the prices go up, one of the local stations put it's prices up 3 times in one day 
I may be being a bit thick here, but how can they justify increasing the price 3 times in a day?Surely that fuel in their tanks has already been paid for at the cheaper (as in when they had it delivered) rate?
I love the stock in the tank brigade. You only come out on an increasing market.
Good for you
Most of us don’t have your insight as to how it works.
There are many models and methods, but lets assume you never sell your fuel for less than you paid for it. If you buy fuel for 10p and fuel goes up 1p every day for 10 days, fuel will now cost you 20p. So your 36,000L has gone from costing £3600 to £7200. (made up simplified figures)
You make a margin of 5p. So fuel is sold at 15p, and overall if prices are stagnant you will make £1800. However another garage nearby buys their fuel two days after you, so they are selling at 17p. They are close enough for others to notice and all of a sudden trade picks up and you clear out your stock quickly, because you were happy with your stock priced sale point.
You then go to buy your next load, assume its day 4, so now its £5040 for the same 36,000 (4ppl more than the first load) you add your 5ppl and are selling at 19ppl so everyone goes to the other garage for 17p... .
this doesn't actually happen like this.
Now take the days to weeks, and lets say you buy fuel based on an average published weekly price, lagged from the week before. On a rising market, every day you delay increasing your prices, you effectively loose out on opportunity margin. People call this profiteering for some weird reason. So you move your prices in line with other garages and the market movements, this protects stocks and keeps trade coming into the shop, and allows you to generate more cash towards the next load.
Now flip this into a falling market.
You buy on day 1 for £1. The market drops 1p per day for 10 days.
The competition buys on day 5 so can be 5p cheaper than you. Lets say they want to attract business and do just that, it forces you to lower your prices, but the stock price you say? Well this is where it gets tricky. You might end up being exposed to loses on a downward market.
If you hold your prices, sales will slow and take you longer to shift the fuel, in essence increase your potential loses.
So what do you do, offset some of the margin from the upward to get rid of the downward stock, then you buy again etc etc
now add into this market swings in the past 6 months like the industry has never seen before, the only thing can be done is keep prices up to protect the retail business from losing tens of thousands.
HustleRussell said:
…and is a return ticket double the price of a single?
I’m just playing Devil’s advocate here really. If there was joined up thinking going on, trains for everyone would be half the price of driving
Indeed I’m just playing Devil’s advocate here really. If there was joined up thinking going on, trains for everyone would be half the price of driving
If I need to travel from Galway to Dublin and back I can drive to the station ( admittedly about 20 miles ) park for free all day, walk up to the ticket machine and buy a return ticket for €28
It’s a no brainer set against fuel cost, road tolls, parking charges (300 mile round trip, £60 fuel, £10 tolls, £10 parking = £80 ish )
It admittedly becomes blurred if you’re travelling more than 2 up in the car, and assuming you don’t need to do various locations
Manchester/Leeds-London would be a very different picture though
bigothunter said:
HustleRussell said:
bigothunter said:
How much are you paying to take a family of four on the train?
I can manage my commute on my own thanks, I have no need to bring my whole family. "Oh you need a car for your family" "Oh your family can't possibly cycle or walk or use public transport" "What if you do have a family?" "Oh you might change your mind" you hear it trouted out so much so I'll say it quite plainly....no family NEEDS a car, not even a disabled family, nope! A car is a luxury NOT a right or a necessity and to state it as such is objectively wrong. My boomer parents are so full of this crap it's unreal.
knitware said:
It would raise revenue but why raise it specifically on EVs? Is the thought that a levy would reduce the tax, vat, on carbon fuels, because I would assume any 'chargers' put upon EVs would not make an iota of cost difference to running an Ice vehicle.
Tax on carbon fuels can only go in one direction and that's up. Even Rishi's 5p gesture has been more than offset by VAT on rapidly rising prices. ICEVs will ultimately be priced off the road except for the rich or occasional user.Which leaves scope for progressively increasing tax on EVs while still maintaining their economic advantage. The government will not miss such a lucrative opportunity.
Edited by bigothunter on Saturday 11th June 17:30
F20CN16 said:
Your kind of ebike is one of the proper ones that assists pedal inputs up to 16mph. The other guy was probably talking about one of those twist and go electric bikes without pedals - which absolutely are ridden by chavs.
Have you read what this ebike of his is? It’s anything but legal, it’s a self made twist and go that does 40mph he reckons. It’s a motorbike. F20CN16 said:
Your kind of ebike is one of the proper ones that assists pedal inputs up to 16mph. The other guy was probably talking about one of those twist and go electric bikes without pedals - which absolutely are ridden by chavs.
Nope, my ebike assists upto about 40mph and has PAS and throttle, but at the end of the day my car can do 99/100mph and is allowed on the road, it weights 840kg and is much deadlier than any bicycle ever will be. But just like I don't drive my car at 70mph through 30 zones I don't ride my ebike at 40mph on cycle paths, I do 25mph on the road and around 15/16mph on shared use infrastructure. FINE, I'll make a deal, I'll drive an ebike capable of no more than 20mph if you lot voluntarily electronically restrict your Audi's to 20mph.
Up for it? didn't think so! because as we all know pistonheaders lie to recklessly break the speed limits and justify it by saying "aaah it's country roads innit"
I'll drive a 20mph ebike when you lot drive 20mph max cars, so yeah, not going to happen.
There's a massive double standard whereby the irony is reinforced by the fact the car is far heavier and far deadlier than micromobility devices.
T1tsortyres said:
Nope, my ebike assists upto about 40mph and has PAS and throttle, but at the end of the day my car can do 99/100mph and is allowed on the road, it weights 840kg and is much deadlier than any bicycle ever will be. But just like I don't drive my car at 70mph through 30 zones I don't ride my ebike at 40mph on cycle paths, I do 25mph on the road and around 15/16mph on shared use infrastructure.
I only do 40mph out in the boonies.
FINE, I'll make a deal, I'll drive an ebike capable of no more than 20mph if you lot voluntarily electronically restrict your Audi's to 20mph.
Up for it? didn't think so! because as we all know pistonheaders lie to recklessly break the speed limits and justify it by saying "aaah it's country roads innit"
I'll drive a 20mph ebike when you lot drive 20mph max cars, so yeah, not going to happen.
There's a massive double standard whereby the irony is reinforced by the fact the car is far heavier and far deadlier than micromobility devices.
I only do 40mph out in the boonies.
FINE, I'll make a deal, I'll drive an ebike capable of no more than 20mph if you lot voluntarily electronically restrict your Audi's to 20mph.
Up for it? didn't think so! because as we all know pistonheaders lie to recklessly break the speed limits and justify it by saying "aaah it's country roads innit"
I'll drive a 20mph ebike when you lot drive 20mph max cars, so yeah, not going to happen.
There's a massive double standard whereby the irony is reinforced by the fact the car is far heavier and far deadlier than micromobility devices.
T1tsortyres said:
What makes you think it isn't maintained by the "chav" (please stop countering dissent by calling everyone a chav, thanks!) I'd be willing to bet my custom built Ebike is maintained far more often and to a higher standard than any piston headers shed! I maintain mines at least once per week usually twice - checks/torquing bolts to correct nm spec/oiling/ etc. Once every couple months I re-grease all the bearings on the bike and check for free play on all moving parts.
I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
I'm just thinking what the likelihood is that someone wearing no safety gear at all (not even a standard bike helmet), riding an illegal bike far too quickly would go to the trouble of making sure everything is working correctly.I've been doing car mechanics repairs on my own cars for over a decade, and helping mates fix theirs, I can assure you many of us ebikers maintain our own kit to a high standard.
Again, you may be that way inclined- many are not.
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