Let's not forget here that a regular Mondeo 2.0 Auto also fits into the highest tax band (218 g/km, highest band starts at 210 g/km).
Does it even vaguely make sense to tax the owners of such a vehicle £150 a *month*??
Wouldn't a much simpler system would be to just take the CO2 output (g/km) and double it for the tax.
i.e. a car outputting 100g/km costs £200 a year to tax, whereas a car outputting 600g/km would cost a more appropriate £1200 per annum.
That would be much fairer and far more logical. I appreciate concepts such as fairness and logic often elude government thinking...
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Or even better (in terms of deterring polluting vehciles), square the CO2, divide by 100 and call that the tax:
CO2 Tax
50 £25.00
75 £56.25
100 £100.00
125 £156.25
150 £225.00
175 £306.25
200 £400.00
225 £506.25
250 £625.00
275 £756.25
300 £900.00
325 £1,056.25
350 £1,225.00
375 £1,406.25
400 £1,600.00
425 £1,806.25
450 £2,025.00
475 £2,256.25
500 £2,500.00
525 £2,756.25
550 £3,025.00
Makes sense to me, at least in the stated goals of the idea. As a driver who likes big, powerful engines it sucks. But the idea does have merit for promoting sensible choice of cars.
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>>As a driver who likes big, powerful engines it sucks>>
My view is that the larger engined cars, especially from marques such as Mercedes and BMW, are actually much more efficient in real terms than the average 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 and two-litre offerings.
For instance, I used to drive a pal's Mercedes-Benz S-Class 320 CDi and regularly averaged 35-37mpg on 400-500 mile trips down to Cornwall despite somewhat rapid progress for much of the time.
Even his previous petrol-engined 320 bettered 30mpg in general use - my 1.6 petrol engined Bora averages 40.9mpg.
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>>Or even better (in terms of deterring polluting vehciles), square the CO2, divide by 100 and call that the tax:
I think thallium81's idea for tax should be deleted as a member of the government might read it and think it a good idea.
>>But the idea does have merit for promoting sensible choice of cars.
In this country we have more fuel efficient cars than ever and yet no one seems to note this. Changing taxation does have some effect, that's why diesel cars are now more popular. The low rates of duty on LPG have attracted some drivers, but these rates can be quickly raised and the choice is less financially rewarding.
We have to remember that vehicle excise tax is a tax for owning a vehicle - not using it. The excise duty on fuel (and VAT) is the tax on using the vehicle. At present with petrol close to £1.00 a litre, there is certainly a feeling that breaking the magic number is a no no for garages at the moment. Yet if we look the other side of the Atlantic we hear they are very unhappy at $3.00 (£1.62) per US gallon. Perhaps it would be better if our politicians looked elswhere to direct their fury to reduce carbon emissions.
In todays Telegraph was a photo of our Foreign Secretary starting her holiday with her caravan. It was being towed by a Range Rover, so pot and black comes to mind.
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Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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Do they have CO2 figures for "older" cars?
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A Politician in power is a dangerous creature.
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>>if duty rises to that level she won't be able to pay>>
That was the only bit of the programme I heard (in the car at the time) and, in fairness, she and her family did live in the country. Public transport in many parts of the UK's countryside is a joke.
People don't have to give up the pleasures of life just because of a few environmental nutcases...:-)
There used to be far, far worse pollution in the past 200 years or so, industrial or otherwise, whilst many will remember, for instance, when smog was a common feature of big cities.
Re 4x4s. Many of them, despite appearances, don't take up any more room and some even less, than say a Mondeo or similar class car.
Emissions can be higher than most normal cars but this can be covered, as recently introduced, by much higher levels of road tax duties.
Even so I'd rather be behind a 4x4 than a diesel-powered bus or lorry...:-)
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Don't worry, it'll never happen - they were just suggestions. If there's a hint that it does happen, I daresay that there will be some effective violent protests which will solve the problem.
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Don't worry, it'll never happen - they were just suggestions. If there's a hint that it does happen, I daresay that there will be some effective violent protests which will solve the problem.
In France, yes but not here, if the past is anything to go by. We are just like lambs being led to slaughter as we usually accept all legislation that is thrown at us (well, except perhaps for the poll tax).
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"Don't worry, it'll never happen" Isn't the government going to drop road tax in the future in favour of road pricing & a little black box in the car?
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Victorbox. Maybe they are but how are they going to get me to fit it, who will pay for it and what bets that it can be 'fixed' by a computer hacker so that it doesn't register? I have already posted a query elsewhere re how to stop the GPS Box getting a signal. If somebody can create it someone else can 'fix' it! BTW how are the foreign lorries and tourists going to pay? Put the tax on the fuel, nobody can evade payment. Everyone who drives in UK will pay to use our roads = a fair deal!
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This isn't about the environment its about tax.
Its just not acceptable to simply put up tax (especially income tax) any more. No government of whatever hue is going to come out and say "we need more money so we're going to put your tax up"
Its all done apparently for another purpose, such as controlling the rise in house prices (stamp duty land tax) or helping the environment (these silly road tax proposals).
If these rises were genuinely about the environment, they would be tax neutral (ie the total take would be the same)
They never are though are they?
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all these initiaitves are said to be in aid of reducing britain's "carbon emissions" and to help reduce global warming .
as i have said before, even if you take the extreme solution to nuke britain off the face of the earth - so that british contribution to carbon emissions is cut to zero - the effect on the global carbon and pollution levels will be zero. why? because within a few weeks britain's missing emissions will be more than made up by increasing pollution from china and india.
as always, british politicians come up with solutions to global problems ( iraq, afghanistan, lebabnon, climate change, world-poverty, etc.) where the only people who end up paying the price are british citizens. we are a nation ruled by masochist politicians. europe and the rest of the world pay lip service to the grand british ideas and initiatives; and then ignore all the rules and protocols and carry on doing what they weere before.
meanwhile the good old briton is made to obey the crazy rules by over-zealos civil servants.
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Man-made CO2 emmission are 7% of the global total, and of that 7% around 8% is from transport, of that 8% of 7% how much is from the UK?
Also, the government tell you not to fill your kettle up too much and then send millions of tonnes of battleships round the world and destroy the middle-east just to secure even more oil supplies, how much energy does that waste?
What hypocrites.
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If they forget to bump up the duty on 3-wheelers, ill try and buy back my old Reliant as that was only £60 a year and ill be damned if im gonna pay several hundred on road tax for a Mazda worth all of £300 that does a few thousand a year.
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£1800 seems a bit excessive and it would be wrong to single out 4x4s as gas guzzlers.
A big tax penalty might deter the chap who runs a 10 year old Discovery but it won't worry Mr. moneybags with his Bentley Continental GT!
It would be fairer to have a big tax on all cars weighing over 1.8 tonnes unladen (2 tonnes for MPVs with 7 proper seats) and/or with engines over 2.2 litres (Peugeot 2.2 HDi size).
As for the speed limits, it would be better to ensure that drivers obey the existing speed limits.
I see the big environmental problem being dwindling oil suppliesrather than global warming. Demand still grows, worldwide, using up the finite supplies quicker and quicker. In a decade or two, when oil really is in short supply, any human induced global warming will become self-limiting.
I would save my biggest tax for civil aviation. It would be best if the whole EU could agree, say, a flat-rate levy, say 50 Euros, on all air fares. That money could go towards renewable energy projects,even at the home-scale level, Cameron style, and subsidies towards more sustainable transport.
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Ashok - that was great - I had to laugh. You have pinpointed the huge inconsistencies in this global warming/CO2, emissions rubbish that we are being force fed!
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The global warming stuff we're being force-fed might be exaggerated but the fact that we're using up oil reseves quicker and quicker is undeniable. With China and India joining the west in the great oilfest, it will be over quicker that predicted.
Even if big new reserves are discovered, the'll get used up quickly.
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Re Global warming:
As I see it.
There is a slight discernable upward trend in global temperatures which might or might not be part of a natural cycle.
Burning fossil fuels adds to CO2 in the atmosphere and increased CO2 is thought, through the greenhouse effect, to increase temperatures.
But I don't think a definite link has been proved between human activity and the current temperature trend.
If, however, we are responsible for globalwarming, it could well be a result of our use until the mid 1980s of CFCs, which were banned because they were thought to damage the ozone layer. Their effect was said to be cumulative and would reach a peak years after any ban was introduced. People seem to have forgotten about CFCs but maybe their legacy is the melting ice cap over Greenland.
Nevertheless, pumping lots of extra CO2 into our atmoshere doesn't seem like a good idea, so we should take a precautionary approach.
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The global warming stuff we're being force-fed might be exaggerated
personaly, i don't think it is exagerrated at all. if anything, i agree with the latest research that shows that its speed and potential impact has been underestimated.
what i don't agree with are the "piddling in the wind" solutions being expounded here in the uk. it is a global problem requiring drastic global effort, rather than the self-harming steps that the uk is unilaterally following.
the best solution is to act like ostriches, bury our heads, and who cares about the future generations or the fate of the planet. enjoy life to the maximum. let the masochists suffer with self-imposed limitations on their lifestyle. drive the largest fastest most polluting 4x4 truck you can afford. who cares? why care? its your karma, you can do nothing about it.
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I'm on the environmental side in this debate, I just think that dwindling resources is the overwhelming problem facing us, and that will take care of any human-induced global warming anyway as oil and gas consumption goes into decline.
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Not entirely true Spud. We have so much coal left in the world, that even if oil and gas vanished tomorrow we'd still have a good go at wrecking the environment.
Unfortunately, with oil becoming more scarce, coal usage will increase to compensate. Therefore, peak oil could prove disasterous for the environment.
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Not entirely true Spud. We have so much coal left in the world, that even if oil and gas vanished tomorrow we'd still have a good go at wrecking the environment. Unfortunately, with oil becoming more scarce, coal usage will increase to compensate. Therefore, peak oil could prove disasterous for the environment.
SUVs - pah! Wait 'til we all go to work on coal-fired steam traction engines a la Fred Dibnah (the Great).
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The best way to tackle global warming is to rate ALL green house gases for their warming effect. That is if methane produces more warming that CO2 than it is more heavily taxed. We should be aware that global warming is not just an automotive issue but an issue that spans across all human activity and thus demands a unified framework of taxation. Two plausable implications are tax on household fuel (something the conseritives dropped in the early 1990's) that would prove unpopular and a tax on dairy farmers. The vitriol directed at the airline industry is odd considering that we reject a tax on household fuel. The real problem is that we are paying 65% tax for our petrol and a fraction of that tax for fuel in both domestic and industrial use, even though the fuels may have the same impact on global warming.
As many of you have said global warming is a mulilateral issue concerning all countries of the world. This implies a global framework should be implimented, as many people have concluded. Mulilateral co-ordination is however faught with difficulties. How many people dream a global energy trding system, overseen by governments, but turn decidedly eurosceptic when the issue of EU tax harmonisation is muted by our contiental friends?
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The July we have just had was the hottest since 1911 - so, it was this hot 95 years ago! I think we can agree that there is warming taking place but it could be part of a known long term cycle of hot and cold spells, Ice ages or whatever one cares to call them This could be an entirely normal stage of an existing and repeating cycle of climate change.
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I think I will be in the market for a mid sixties rolls royce - road tax exempt - the saving will pay for the 12mpg!
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The July we have just had was the hottest since 1911 - so, it was this hot 95 years ago!
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armitage - i can only suggest you read the faq by the metoffice and decide for yourself who to believe based on your own expertise or prejudice:
www.metoffice.com/faqs/#q2
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Dalglish I have little expertise, other than using met as a pilot, and no prejudice! I just mention that it was this hot 95 years ago! People can draw their own conclusions based on what they know, read, conclude and have been force fed!
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I have little expertise, other than using met as a pilot, and no prejudice! I just mention that it was this hot 95 years ago!
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in which case, the metoffice link answers your question, plus many others which have been raised in this forum in countering the global-climate-change theories.
i would only add that, and you may already know:
statisticians refer to "once-in-100 years" or "one-in-1000 years" events, and that when these start to become "once in 50 years" and then "once-in-10-years" (i.e. increasing frequency), it is at that point that you have to start believing that something extra-ordinary is taking place which cannot be explained by natural long-term variability.
then even if you believe that the stated event is really occurring, whether you can do anything about it or whether you wish to be bothered by it, well that is a matter of personal choice. i believe that it is karma and you nor your yoga teacher can do nothing about it. even though the blair god may wishfully think that he can.
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I think this proposal is madness. I am against people having fashion 4x4's, and I am not against them being taxed if they want a large polluting vehicle for vanity's sake. But some people use a 4x4 as part of their job or lifestyle. Farmers and smallholders, some of whom might be largely self sufficient, will need a 4x4 for working their land. Nature Trusts use 4x4's in the upkeep of their reserves. Lifeboat institutions will doubtless use 4x4's. The list goes on. And many of these people are not exactly wealthy. So how do we distinguish between someone who needs a 4x4 and someone who owns one for fasion's sake? The hole idea is a typical New Labour botch job. Good intentions, but poor execution. Oh and I drive a Ford Ka.
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Apologies for the inadvertent smelling mistakes.
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If this is an exercise to reduce pollution, why don't they start by removing all speed humps and building more roads to reduce traffic jams, IMO that would reduce pollution by 25% at least. I may be wrong but it seems to me that most fuel is wasted during stop start driving.
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Getting all those unlicenced drivers off the road would be good for the environment as well as road safety. I mean the people who drive without a driving licence. I forget the figure but it's a lot, supposedly.
Also, more use should be made of permanent disqualification of licenceholders who are persistent serious motoring offenders or those who have shown by their actions and the results of those actions that they are psychologically unfit to drive.
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>>>If this is an exercise to reduce pollution, why don't they start by removing all speed humps and building more roads to reduce traffic jams, IMO that would reduce pollution by 25% at least. <<<
Speed humps might waste fuel but they are designed to slow unsafe drivers down and the safety benefit outweighs the savings. That is not to say that there might be some unneccesary humps but in general they are a good idea. A nuisance, yes, but a good idea nonetheless.
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>>the safety benefit outweighs the savings.
Except I have to get down under 5mph to get over some of them without leaving bits behind. Ok, my car is low, but its still a car. Why put a bump in a 30mph limit which I can't get over at more than walking pace ? Why wouldn't a bump in a 30mph limit be safe at, say, 25mph ? If its a bump which can only be taken at 4mph, then why not have a 4mph limit ?
Or would that make the ridiculousness obvious to even the most hard of thinking ?
They wanted me to not drive an SUV and now I don't, but surely they should do their bit and make roads I can navigate.
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I imagine they will have a different system for cars built pre-CO2 taxation? And what about vans? My little Suzuki is just charged the usual £180 odd a year, no mention of C02 and its a 1300cc.
More interesting on the subject of vans, is as Top Gear highlighted, they are more common than cars on our roads, so surely these are equally to blame?
I wish though, that if this government wants us to drive hugely efficient cars, why dont the legislate so that they become available as i dont think 70 odd mpg is much progress from 20 years ago
( not withstanding improvements in safety ). If its a choice between saving the enviroment and having a car thats somewhat less safe if you drive into things and or being safer but taxed off the road, I think id choose the former.
Think of all the millions of people who drive cars over ten years old - maybe if there was a car available that didnt come forcefed with impact beams, airbags and the like ( which I survive without everyday ) but was stripped of all the stuff you dont ask for, thus improving economy, many would convert.
Id love to buy a new, basic car that did 100 mpg and I think its quite possible if the restraints of europe were lifted.
I wouldnt be any worse off in such a car than in my 20 year old Mazda, which manages to get me around without airbags, impact beams, or no end of little rules to stop idiots who walk infront of moving cars hurting themselves.
I also do without power steering, ABS, electric windows or even central locking. I do have a radio, but thats about the only luxury I have. But can I buy a car this basic now? Not a chance.
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Excellent post stunorthants. With you more or less all the way.
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Thanks Lud. If I win the lottery, ill try building such a car.
Funny but Reliant Robins ( last of the line ones anyhow ) did around 100 mpg and circumnavigated the european rules for a long time by virtue of their low weight, so maybe some young engineer out there could design a more sensible proposition that joe public wouldnt feel silly driving?
Aslong as you keep the weight under 450kg, you get the lower tax dont you? I know that you are exempt from emissions testing if the car falls below that weight as far as MOTs go.
Reliant went under because of europe funny enough, although the set up is still there to build the cars, the guy just needs funding to redesign for legislation. Maybe a four wheeled one could be developed?
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If our betters are proposing this sort of level of fuel tax, what is being done to restrict/prevent people flying around in helicopters?
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There was a guy in Namibia who developed a special pickup on a light spaceframe with aluminium panels for antelope hunting. The point was this thing, which had special long-travel suspension arrangements, went like the wind, was stable on rough ground and cost and consumed a fraction of what a powerful 4wd would have cost and consumed. He used toyota bits and pieces and fabricated others I believe. Always quite fancied one of those for the London speed bumps although I suppose they'd be illegal here (no airbags).
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Sounds a bit like that plywood effort - was it is the Africar?
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>> Sounds a bit like that plywood effort - was it isthe Africar?
Not like the Africar which used Citroen bits I believe, and never progressed beyond a couple of prototypes before running into all sorts of administrative and legal doodoo. A lightweight, sporting, all-metal RWD pick-up truck with desert racer suspension mods... I wd think the dampers and springs might be the most costly items.
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Funny but Reliant Robins ( last of the line ones anyhow ) did around 100 mpg and circumnavigated the european rules for a long time by virtue of their low weight, so maybe some young engineer out there could design a more sensible proposition that joe public wouldnt feel silly driving?
Phew, Stu!!! Until you got to the bit about 'wouldn't feel silly driving', I thought you were going to make out a case for the C5 (Sinclair, not Citroen) ;>)
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You can't make a case for the Citroen C5, even Clive could not have invented an uglier car.
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I heard a lady on the Jeremy Vine show complaining that if duty rises to that level she won't be able to pay, she 'needs' a 4x4 to take her daughter and pony to gymkhana's.....
She probably does, if she wants to continue having a legal passtime. What's wrong with that? Surely it's not because she's perceived as being middle class is it? Shock horror!
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she 'needs' a 4x4 to take her daughter and ponyto gymkhana's.....
Yes and wouldn't it be gut-wrenching for her not to be able to get to the gymkhana !
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