Fuel costs

rhext

Actually, scrapping Trident to allow investment in this sort of thing would get my vote. As would maintaining fuel duty to help create the impetus for people and manufacturers to change behavior.

Presumably there are people in government even more pessimistic about resource competition in the future than I am, however, who could see a potential deterrent use for these systems. Let's hope they're not right eh, because they have a lot more information on which to base those judgements than I do!

rhext

yeehaamcgee wrote:

rhext wrote:

I think that most of the solutions are there, but they're not very attractive primarily because not enough people are using them.

No, they're not attractive because people have to sacrifice what they have come to expect as "normal" expectations, in order to use them. They have to decide to reduce their standard of living, which, as a while, people don't, and won't do.

...unless they're forced to! That's kind of my point.

Stevo_666

MrChuck wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

alfablue wrote:

It is a shame to find that members of this forum use the "car tax" / "road tax" misnomer. VED (Vehicle Excise Duty) is an environmental tax, it is based on emissions.

Call it what you want - in reality it's road tax. If you don't pay it, you can't drive a car on the road. Simple really.

So it's a tax on driving a car on the road. It's not a tax on using the road.

Well thanks for that little gem :roll: And the main purpose of roads is what, exactly? Don't bother, you answered it in your first sentence.

Anonymous

rhext wrote:

yeehaamcgee wrote:

rhext wrote:

I think that most of the solutions are there, but they're not very attractive primarily because not enough people are using them.

No, they're not attractive because people have to sacrifice what they have come to expect as "normal" expectations, in order to use them. They have to decide to reduce their standard of living, which, as a while, people don't, and won't do.

...unless they're forced to! That's kind of my point.

This is precisely WHAT I am disagreeing with. Forcing people out of pocket. It's just not working. People are putting themselves into debt to try and maintain their situation.

What you're effectively stating is that our government(s) is(are) waging war on the populace.
But we've HAD insane levels of tax for years, before any of this was a concern.
Well, we're answering "FUKK YOU, enough is enough"

rhext

yeehaamcgee wrote:

rhext wrote:

yeehaamcgee wrote:

rhext wrote:

I think that most of the solutions are there, but they're not very attractive primarily because not enough people are using them.

No, they're not attractive because people have to sacrifice what they have come to expect as "normal" expectations, in order to use them. They have to decide to reduce their standard of living, which, as a while, people don't, and won't do.

...unless they're forced to! That's kind of my point.

This is precisely WHAT I am disagreeing with. Forcing people out of pocket. It's just not working. People are putting themselves into debt to try and maintain their situation.

What you're effectively stating is that our government(s) is(are) waging war on the populace.
But we've HAD insane levels of tax for years, before any of this was a concern.
Well, we're answering "FUKK YOU, enough is enough"

But it is working. Who'd heard of hybrid cars 10 years ago? How much work were the major motor manufacturers seriously sinking into developing electric cars, hydrogen cars? Why are my local council spending cash on improving cycling and pedestrian provision when they're cutting everything else? Why am I even thinking about replacing my 2.2 litre exec saloon with a Smart car for g*ds sake? Why do you think that you can now get £0 vehicle exise duty on a car which will probably cost you less per mile than anything you could have bought 10 years ago, despite the increased petrol prices? Why am I actively searching out car-share arrangements every time I have to make a journey that other people may find useful? Why do rail usage figures keep rising despite the pretty appalling state of the infrastructure in some areas?

Just because people find it uncomfortable doesn't mean it's not working.

I'm not saying the government are waging war against the populace. I'm saying that they're doing their job: which is to look after the future of the country regardless of the fact that some of what they have to do short term will be uncomfortable and unpopular.

Thewaylander

Yee, I don't think the fuel cell in it's curret itteration is the answer.

And there is a simple reason why i think this. The materials used in making the cell are farily rare, if we figured (in the world now) to replace all cars with a hydrogen fuel cell simply there isn't enough materials on the planet to do it...

Now this isnt to say if the cell is improved to be made with more mundain materials it wouldn't work, i think it would. But its not in a technology stage where it can replace the car completely.. Yet.

welshkev

rhext wrote:

yeehaamcgee wrote:

No, busses are not a workable alternative. A buss ticket round here, for example, costs more than a car journey does, takes five times as long, and you lose the ability to carry your luggage, or travel when you want to.
They also only cover certain routes, so you're left with a few miles to walk. Not ideal if you have kids, shopping, the weather's horrendous, etc.

People WILL NOT sacrifice their standard of living for things. Solutions need to be found that fit around people's current expectations of comfort and convenience.

But people's current expectation is that they walk 10 yards to a car, climb in it, and drive anywhere that they like. If there's not enough fuel for everyone who wants and can afford to do that, there comes a point where people have to change.

.....

can i just give you an example of what my journey to work would be if i had to catch public transport (i know not everyone is in my position)...catch a bus into town..around 80p. catch another bus to train station, another 80p, wait 20 mins for the train, pay £7.10 to catch the train to work, walk 1 mile the other end (quicker to walk than wait for a bus) now that adds up to £8.70 and takes me roughly 1hr 50 mins....if i drive it costs me about a fiver in petrol(yes i know tax, mot etc) and i can get there in 35/40 mins......public transport doesn't work around here, not because no one is using it but because it's crap!!! on the way home, there';s no train until 1hr 40 mins after i've finished work!!!!

i do it, yes, because it's convenience but the alternative is just a joke

Thewaylander

Did you also know that cars account for like few % of the use for fossil fuels by the way?

rhext

Thewaylander wrote:

Did you also know that cars account for like few % of the use for fossil fuels by the way?

Is that of fossil fuels generally or of those fossil fuels that are suitable for economic refinement for use by internal combustion engines?

alfablue

rhext wrote:

But it is working. Who'd heard of hybrid cars 10 years ago? How much work were the major motor manufacturers seriously sinking into developing electric cars, hydrogen cars? Why are my local council spending cash on improving cycling and pedestrian provision when they're cutting everything else? Why am I even thinking about replacing my 2.2 litre exec saloon with a Smart car for g*ds sake? Why do you think that you can now get £0 vehicle exise duty on a car which will probably cost you less per mile than anything you could have bought 10 years ago, despite the increased petrol prices? Why am I actively searching out car-share arrangements every time I have to make a journey that other people may find useful? Why do rail usage figures keep rising despite the pretty appalling state of the infrastructure in some areas?

Just because people find it uncomfortable doesn't mean it's not working.

I'm not saying the government are waging war against the populace. I'm saying that they're doing their job: which is to look after the future of the country regardless of the fact that some of what they have to do short term will be uncomfortable and unpopular.

Indeed, if it isn't uncomfortable it won't work. For behaviour to change, the alternative behaviour has to be significantly more rewarding or less aversive than the current one. Very few will change their behaviour just for altruistic / environmental or even common sense reasons.

Thewaylander

rhext wrote:

Thewaylander wrote:

Did you also know that cars account for like few % of the use for fossil fuels by the way?

Is that of fossil fuels generally or of those fossil fuels that are suitable for economic refinement for use by internal combustion engines?

Actually in terms of comlex hydro carbons, which would also include palstics and so on. which are our basic fuel sources, gas oil n so on. would have to go back through my e-mails for the last year for the report, but car;'s count for little on CO2 emmisions and actualyl usage of fuels. Industry and power burns the rest..

Thewaylander

the sensible question is transport infrastucture for industry apart from the private user, imagines loads of electric lorries/trains not burning fuel that would have more impact by a million miles.

The trading in a decent 40 mpg against a 60 MPG is not enviromentally friendly due transport costs and so on for producing the car. this is the true problem with the tax, with no true alternative were wasting more by trying to save a little. the scrapage scheme was the worst enviromental move by the old goverment possible

rhext

Thewaylander wrote:

rhext wrote:

Thewaylander wrote:

Did you also know that cars account for like few % of the use for fossil fuels by the way?

Is that of fossil fuels generally or of those fossil fuels that are suitable for economic refinement for use by internal combustion engines?

Actually in terms of comlex hydro carbons, which would also include palstics and so on. which are our basic fuel sources, gas oil n so on. would have to go back through my e-mails for the last year for the report, but car;'s count for little on CO2 emmisions and actualyl usage of fuels. Industry and power burns the rest..

So there's plenty of them around and it's a puzzle why the costs keep rising then. Great, we can expect a price crash soon! I'll stop being a merchant of doom.

Anonymous

rhext wrote:

But it is working. Who'd heard of hybrid cars 10 years ago? How much work were the major motor manufacturers seriously sinking into developing electric cars, hydrogen cars? Why are my local council spending cash on improving cycling and pedestrian provision when they're cutting everything else? Why am I even thinking about replacing my 2.2 litre exec saloon with a Smart car for g*ds sake?

Hybrid cars are useless. They have worse fuel consumption than a modern diesel. But they get government tax cuts because they're "hybrid".
It's the same with windfarms. The reason companies are building them has nothing to do with a greener future. Wind power is totally impractical, and just cannot generate enough electricity to be of any use. BUT, they are being made by the truckload because they then get a tax relief on their business, for supporting green" technologies, even if everything else they run used children as fuel.

So, hey, how's about cutting us some slack on the fuel duty, and stop giving these insane tax breaks to super rich energy companies who would barely notice the change?
Oh yeah, can't do that, because that would mean hitting the rich, powerful energy companies in their wallets.

Electric cars have been in development for a long time. The first prototype I saw being tested was in the very early nineties, when I was still in school. They were being loaned to businesses to see how workable and practical they were.

Thewaylander wrote:

Yee, I don't think the fuel cell in it's curret itteration is the answer.

No, I quite agree. However, i firmly believe the answer is going to be something along those lines. Batteries will never work. Too much faff of charging overnight, and limited runtime, unless, as we discussed before (I'm sure you were in that thread), we have standardised battery designs, which can be removed from vehicles. So today's filling station would become tomorrows battery warehouse/charging facility. Turn up, they swap out your battery for another, stick yours on charge, then the next day, that one is available for the next guy.

rhext

Thewaylander wrote:

the sensible question is transport infrastucture for industry apart from the private user, imagines loads of electric lorries/trains not burning fuel that would have more impact by a million miles.

The trading in a decent 40 mpg against a 60 MPG is not enviromentally friendly due transport costs and so on for producing the car. this is the true problem with the tax, with no true alternative were wasting more by trying to save a little. the scrapage scheme was the worst enviromental move by the old goverment possible

Now that makes a lot of sense, but I think the hurdle is a lot higher for goods transport. I think it likely that the technological innovations and solution refinement will come from the car market rather than anywhere else. But the transport industry isn't immune to the cost pressures either: maybe we'll start to see less time-critical freight transferring to railways, even coastal shipping. Who knows, we might even start to see the canals opening up again.

Anonymous

The canals and railway were found to be financially impractical quite some time ago, when fuels cost very little by today's standards.
And even then, you're looking at the entire haulage industry going under, causing how much job loss?
And you're STILL maintaining that this tax is a good thing?

Thewaylander

Yee off shore wind actually works to a point.

I agree wind on land is pointless you cant have big enough or enough turbines to be of use, its down to goverment subisdies for a pointless process, but offshore you can have bigger fans with more constant wind and so on,
There not the solution for the grid, but they will help and the use of the new design smart grid will make good use of there ability to geneate power at non peak times. but not all power can be wind, as with all solutions these are one of many types of generation that will need to be in place.


Yeh have heard about the idea of hot swappable batteries but that does mean standardisation of batteries across all cars to make it work and that means making manufactureres agree on a standard.

rhext

yeehaamcgee wrote:

The canals and railway were found to be financially impractical quite some time ago, when fuels cost very little by today's standards.
And even then, you're looking at the entire haulage industry going under, causing how much job loss?
And you're STILL maintaining that this tax is a good thing?

They were only financially impractical because internal combustion fuel costs were so low. If you increase fuel costs, they suddenly look a more attractive. They're actually extremely fuel-efficient ways of moving large quantities of bulky non-time-critical goods (like coal, construction materials, new cars) etc around.

The entire haulage industry won't go under, but it might have to change character. And I don't maintain that the tax is a good thing, simply that I feel it might be less bad than the alternative.

Anonymous

Making manufacturers agree on a standard shouldn't be too hard. That's what organisations like ISO are for. It's also the reasons why individual cells are the specific dimensions they currently are.
A stumbling block, maybe, but a minor one.

rhext, the only reason internal combustion costs are prohibitively high now is because of the insane tax. Trains are also powered by fossil fuels in the main, because they're either diesel electric, or full electric, and the full electric ones are powered by power stations.
Of course, the grid is near capacity as it is. Dumping a whole extra load on it is not something you can "just do".

I can;t see how trains are going to solve the fuel crisis, more than electric vehicles.

As for "less bad than the alternative", we STILL haven't really been given ANY workable alternatives, yet we're on page 9.

rhext

We're not talking about the same 'alternative'. 'Alternative' in my context is reduce fuel tax, allow people to continue to behave as currently until underlying fuel costs render this impractical, and either replace the revenue by increasing some other tax or cutting expenditure even further than the eyewatering cuts which are generating such debate at the moment.

Tax might make up a large proportion of our fuel costs, but it's not the reason the price has shot up recently. If we were confident that supply/demand was going to sort itself out eventually then there might be a case for temporary relief. I think it's just going to get worse and we're better off dealing with it now than later.

Anonymous

rhext wrote:

Tax might make up a large proportion of our fuel costs, but it's not the reason the price has shot up recently.

Tax isn't helping, and it HAS gone up, repeatedly. Oil companies keep putting the price up, and keep pulling in record breaking profit after record breaking profit.
It's not supply and demand, it's fukking ransom money.

The government spending cuts should be getting made already, regardless of this issue. Which is the point we're making. They're so inept at looking after the country's coffers, yet they take it out on us through fuel tax.
Taxing something to roughly 80% is absolutely insane, and well beyond any justification.

ThePriory1978

My beliefs are that cars should be progressing to electric power and oil companys should be progressing towards electric by building a robust infastructure, maybe when particular oil rigs run out of resources, replacing them with electric rigs which I guess run on fossil fuels but should be suplliment powered by wave, wind etc. Again all this does is really move a problem from one place to another.

To really solve or streamline the problem, cars need to be electronically controlled with less driver input, maybe using GPS. Speed and the GPS will instantly ticket you and charge it to your credit card. We should be able to join a motorway, travel at 70mph inch’s away from one another, changing lanes etc all computer controlled. Would save a lot of space. Also imagine traffic lights that go green and a cue of 30 cars simultaniously pulling away at the same time, no human reaction time. The aeroplane systems work (most of the time) safest way to travel.
I feel currently the system is wasteful, we waste huge amounts of energy not moving, if we can hone the system we can reduce consumption hugely.
The joy of driving is gone. Its now just transport. Lets remove human error as much as possible by taking away the human interaction. Other than in our local streets cars should be automated and controlled by computer. Could travel closer togeher, slower but still arrive quicker, fuel consumption would increase (by that time we'd be fully electric anyway) and you couldn’t have boy racers who want to go faster as they wouldn’t be able too. Just sit back, enjoy your coffee and read the news on your holographic iPad 101.

At some point intime we changed from horse to car tech which was a huge change and cost. We should just accept every road need to be replaced with the next evolution. Automation. Automation would also mean profits for fuel companys as they could charge for all sorts of stuff and governemts could tax it.

No change of any significant meaning will happen until more profit can be obtained from electric/alt fuels than fossil which is not going to happen unless governments intervene or fossil fuel runs out which is a loooong way off contry to popular belief. I cant see we will Ever get away from doing something or other damaging to the environment to make our vehicles move. Maybe we should just recycle and clean our air.

MrChuck

Stevo 666 wrote:

MrChuck wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

alfablue wrote:

It is a shame to find that members of this forum use the "car tax" / "road tax" misnomer. VED (Vehicle Excise Duty) is an environmental tax, it is based on emissions.

Call it what you want - in reality it's road tax. If you don't pay it, you can't drive a car on the road. Simple really.

So it's a tax on driving a car on the road. It's not a tax on using the road.

Well thanks for that little gem :roll: And the main purpose of roads is what, exactly? Don't bother, you answered it in your first sentence.

You're welcome. You probably think I'm being pointlessly pedantic, but the fact is there is no tax to use the roads.

But you carry on making out use of the roads is impossible without your private car if you like.

Anonymous

ThePriory1978, by "electric rig", do you mean "power station"?
GPS as we currently know it will never be accurate enough to control our cars, it has an accuracy of +/- 30 feet or so.

Stevo_666

MrChuck wrote:

You probably think I'm being pointlessly pedantic,

Yes

MrChuck wrote:

but the fact is there is no tax to use the roads.

Legally, there isn't but that's just down to what the government chooses to call it. In reality (which is what matters) for anyone who drives a car, yes there is.

MrChuck wrote:

But you carry on making out use of the roads is impossible without your private car if you like.

That doesn't make sense.

rhext

Stevo 666 wrote:

MrChuck wrote:

You probably think I'm being pointlessly pedantic,

Yes

MrChuck wrote:

but the fact is there is no tax to use the roads.

Legally, there isn't but that's just down to what the government chooses to call it. In reality (which is what matters) for anyone who drives a car, yes there is.

MrChuck wrote:

But you carry on making out use of the roads is impossible without your private car if you like.

That doesn't make sense.

It makes sense if you follow the debates re poor driver behaviour on the commuting forum.

Cyclist: you knocked me off you b****d.

Driver: you shouldn't even be here. You don't pay road tax and I do, therefore I'm entitled to be on the road and you're not.

You don't need to pay a tax in order to be entitled to use the road: if you're a cyclist, pedestrian, horse-rider etc, you can use them by right. If you're a driver of certain types of vehicle you have to pay an excise duty in order to obtain permission. Subtly different, but not a road tax.

Anonymous

Okaaaay. Vast majority of people call it a "road tax" though. We all know what people mean by it.
But, what the fuck has this got to do with the topic at hand? We're discussing being overtaxed, and in that context, everybody, even the really anal spazzwangles, know what people mean when they say "road tax".
Even when I go to the post office to pay it, and ask to pay my road tax, they know precisely what I'm on about.

MrChuck

Stevo 666 wrote:

MrChuck wrote:

You probably think I'm being pointlessly pedantic,

Yes

MrChuck wrote:

but the fact is there is no tax to use the roads.

Legally, there isn't but that's just down to what the government chooses to call it. In reality (which is what matters) for anyone who drives a car, yes there is.

MrChuck wrote:

But you carry on making out use of the roads is impossible without your private car if you like.

That doesn't make sense.

Really? Why not?

I take your point that for the vast majority of people the difference between their VED and a tax to use the road is in the semantics only. But along with that goes drivers thinking they pay a tax to use the roads that cyclists are somehow dodging (morally if not legally) and I think that's quite unhelpful and divisive. Equating the two just reinforces that view so I don't think it's helpful.

rhext

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Okaaaay. Vast majority of people call it a "road tax" though. We all know what people mean by it.
But, what the fool has this got to do with the topic at hand? We're discussing being overtaxed, and in that context, everybody, even the really anal spazzwangles, know what people mean when they say "road tax".
Even when I go to the post office to pay it, and ask to pay my road tax, they know precisely what I'm on about.

Hey, I'm just trying to pour oil over troubled waters and perhas clear the decks for the tax discussion! I didn't start it.

Anonymous

Look, road tax has nothing (really) to do with this. Look up there at the top. See where it says what the thread title is? It says (take a deep breath)

FUEL COSTS