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I see the new Olympics site will be "traffic-free"-no cars allowed.Whats the betting MP's will go there by car?-"for security reasons".
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and their vehicles will need to be gas guzzlers.
What exactly quantifies a GAS GUZZLER? someone doing 3000 miles a year in a V8 or someone doing 15000 miles a gear in a 1.6?
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I think the people who are going to be hurt by this are farmers who actually need some high emission vehicle (Landie or whatever) to conduct their business and make a living. Also it doesn't seem fair that people who already own such vehicles should suddenly be caned with a tax increase. The mechanism exists, or could be easily created, to apply such punitive levels of taxation to new vehicles bought after a certain date. Then people would know what they were letting themselves in for, rather than being mugged by Robber Gordon. I bet none of the extra money raised will be spent on anything to do with planting trees, CO2 reduction, affordable public transport or anything even vaguely useful. No change there then!
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Whinge whine whinge tax moan whinge politician whinge.
The top band G was introduced only for new cars from March 2006, which is basically what you were asking for. Anyone buying band G after that date should have known they were leaving themselves exposed to punitive tax rises.
And all the bands were only introduced for new vehicles. There's plenty of moaning in the other direction from people whose cars would have been band B, but were bought before 2001, so have to pay more...
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KMO- If I drove a Hummer then I wouldn't complain, but a family saloon is run by.....families! The great global warming swindle continues. Perhaps we need a 'poll tax' style revolt. Everybody I speak too is getting heartily sick of Brown and his 100 tax rises. I wouldn't spit on him if he was on fire!
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Can't be many family saloons in band G, surely. Part of the reason for band G's introduction was to separate off the real guzzlers ready for punitive taxation.
A quick check of the Toyota Avensis, choosing a family car at random, reveals the following choices:
Band C: 2.0 D4-D
Band D: 2.2 D4-D, T180
Band E: 1.8 VVT-i manual
Band F: 1.8 VVT-i auto, 2.0 VVT-i manual & auto
So quite a lot of choice there that avoids bands F and G, which are going to be the main targets.
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I know an automatic 2.0 Mondeo qualifies as a "gas guzzler"........
>>
When will an extra tax be put on ALL conventional automatics cos they use more fuel ?
( I now drive an 98 2.0 Mondeo auto after driving manual cars most of my life)
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My 2.4 Volvo s80 does far better mpg than my 2.0 SAAB 9-5. Naturally I pay a higher tax rate on the Volvo.
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What does Bully Brown care? He doesn't drive and, I believe, doesn't have a driving licence. One of the first things he did as Chancellor was to freeze the VED exemption for classic cars so that it stopped rolling forwards on a 25-years-old basis -- petty, spiteful, the act of a detail nurd with a grudge. And he's going to be PM -- words fail me.
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> What does Bully Brown care? He doesn't drive and, I believe, doesn't have a driving licence.
That's a specious argument. I don't have a disability but I'm glad the state makes some provision for those that do.
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As I've said in other posts, Brown only knows how to figure out ways to ask for more money cus he can. Whether this money is wisely spent seems to totally elude Brown and his government. Brown considers anyone with a family income of over £15,000 a year to be decadent and to be targeted to the hilt. Brown is like most of our local government politicians in that he is a car hater and wants to inflict his personal view on the nation, again cus he can. Talk about meglomania !!
Okay if people choose to drive a 6 litre V8 perhaps they should get stung a little, but these budget hikes are just a thinly veilled new way of getting another billion £ for the Blair junta to waste on nonsense.
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>> I know an automatic 2.0 Mondeo qualifies as a "gas guzzler"........ >> When will an extra tax be put on ALL conventional automatics cos they use more fuel ? ( I now drive an 98 2.0 Mondeo auto after driving manual cars most of my life)
It's there already, though not labelled as such. If the automatic version has higher emissions than a manual one, then the increase may push it into a higher tax bracket. Not all autos are more polluting (some CVTs and DSG automatics get about the same results as a manual car), and not all conventional autos seem to have the same effect on CO2 emissions, so it makes more sense to just measure the actual emissions rather than worry about why they are higher or lower.
My Nissan Almera 1.8 automatic has CO2 emissions of 187g/km, against 183g/km for the 1.8 manual ... so the manual ends up in band E, and the automatic in Band F ... which is a bit embarrassing for me, because I end up in the second-highest current band: see www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/HowTo...4
A Mondeo 2-litre manual emits 193g/km, and the automatic emits 218g/km, so although the difference is wider, both are in the same band. That sort of effect is inevitable in a banding system, and if you really want to pay more VED, that could be achieved by narrowing the bands.
(As an aside, I wonder why putting an automatic gearbox in a Mondeo increases the CO2 emissions so much more than in an Almera? Unless the Almera figure is a freak caused by a bad test, it does suggest that not all conventional autos have the same effect on emissions).
I think that the banding is a good idea, but so far it has mainly been used to give discounts to less-polluting vehicles: everything below band E has had it VED reduced under the CO2-based scheme. (It's probably one the lesser-noticed points of the current system that it has mainly been used to give discounts; it looks likely o me that the total VED take has so far been reduced by this scheme).
It's illogical that there should be only four bands below the "average" band E, but only only two bands above the "average" ... and also illogical that the increase in VED rates for more polluting cars does is proportionately less than the discount for the least polluting.
Since the intended purpose is to drive people towards less polluting cars, there should be several higher bands: H, I, J, etc. The current banding lumps together everything over 225g/km, and there ought to be higher bands at at (say) 250, 300, 350 to increase the penalty for the most polluting vehicles.
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Tail pipe emissions are a distraction from the real cause of pollution - manufacturing of the vehicle in the first place! The toyota prius is a fine example of a gross polluter with low tail pipe emissions.
Fuel tax is the only fair way as it hits those with heavy right foots, large mileages and inefficient cars in exact proportions. What is forgotten in all this is that some asthmatic 1 litre car will probably last only 80k before conking out but the 2 litre + cars will probably last at least 250k before expiring. It is far more wasteful to keep on building new cars than it is to look after older vehicles. Anything vehicle over 15 years old should be tax exempt to discourage people buying newer cars and encourage them to keep their cars much longer and save energy that way. Luckily everything made before 2000 is in a flat twin rate - either above 1.5 litre and above or not. You could also reduce road tax for people who have owned their vehicle for longer so that it encourages people to stick with what they've got rather than keep changing it.
If tax rates are hiked too far then the rate of evasion is going to increase even more. There are already 2 million uninsured drivers floating around so there must be at least those people not taxing their cars, others declare sorn and others will be plate cloning to avoid the hassle.
If this stupid idea is taken to its logical conclusion then there are going to be thousands of people cramming their families into unsuitable vehicles just to save on tax.
If manufacturers all produced all their cars in the low emission band right now HMG would have a fit as the green argument is just an excuse to steal people's hard earned to fill their budget deficit.
teabelly
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Tail pipe emissions are a distraction from the real cause of pollution - manufacturing of the vehicle in the first place! The toyota prius is a fine example of a gross polluter with low tail pipe emissions.
Very true: the Prius a brilliant piece of marketing, but no answer to pollution problems: all it does is to displace them.
Similarly, I wonder if the rush towards common-rail diesels is really a good thing. Will the reduced emissions when they are in use make up for the number that have to be scrapped when their complex injection system becomes economic to replace, when an old-fashioned non-turbo, non-CR diesel would still be chugging away? It'd be interesting to see a comparison of energy used over the life-cycle.
I don't think you are right, though, that fuel tax is the only fair way to reduce emissions. Increasing the standing charge on having a vehicle outside in the street is a disincentive to buy a more polluting car in the first place.
Nor are economical cars necessarily going to wear out more quickly: many a Peugeot diesel with an XUD engine did 300,000 miles plus.
If this stupid idea is taken to its logical conclusion then there are going to be thousands of people cramming their families into unsuitable vehicles just to save on tax.
The definition of suitable is rather subjective. The roads are full of MPVs and 4X4s carrying families which, a generation or two ago, would have been delighted to climb into a a Ford Anglia or a Vauxhall Viva, vehicles smaller inside than today's Fiesta. In the seventies, my dad sold his old Cortina when he inherited a nearly-new Vauxhall Chevette, and it coped remarkably well with two teenagers+dog; we just carried less luggage. The assumption that a family has to have a Mondeo or an MPV is a product of affluence, not need.
If manufacturers all produced all their cars in the low emission band right now HMG would have a fit as the green argument is just an excuse to steal people's hard earned to fill their budget deficit.
I doubt it. There are about 30 million cars on road, and I dount that more than 10% of them would fall in to any new band which was sited above the current band G (which starts at 225g/km). New bands would probably start at about 250g/km, and if all those cars pay an extra £100 a year, that's 3 million cars at £100 each -- which means only £300million to the Treasury, or about 0.1% of the government's total revenue.
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The definition of suitable is rather subjective. The roads are full of MPVs and 4X4s carrying families
>>which, a generation or two ago, would have been delighted to climb into a Ford Anglia or a Vauxhall Viva, >>vehicles smaller inside than today's Fiesta.
Yes but the world has changed a little since then. People are not all size 0 and there are a few more kiddy seats around today. :-)
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The toyota prius is a fine example of a gross polluter with low tail pipe emissions.
Untrue. The Prius certainly is a bit more expensive to build+dispose of, in energy and pollution terms, than a bog-standard petrol car but not that much. Maybe 15-20% tops.
But construction and disposal only account for about 10-15% of a car's total lifetime CO2 emissions. The Prius is still a clear net win over a conventional petrol car; 2-3% extra because of construction, netted against 20-30% off because of efficiency. Probably not so clear-cut against diesels though.
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The Prius is still a clear net win over a conventional petrol car; 2-3% extra because of construction, netted against 20-30% off because of efficiency.
Not according to a study conducted recently in the US, and certainly not when total environmental impact is taken into consideration alongside emissions.
www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=artic...1
Cheers
DP
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DP: is this the same study that "found" that a Jeep uses fewer resources overall than a Prius? The same one that weighted the figures so that the extra construction costs of the Prius outweighed the savings made on the running costs, so "legitimising" gas guzzlers?
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nortones - could well be. I don't claim the study to be unbiased or scientific, just that it offers another view.
It does raise some interesting points though. The environmental devastation around the nickel smelting plant in Ontario where Toyota source nickel for the Prius batteries has been well documented by the BBC and other non-stakeholders. It's also quite true that a Prius in typical everyday driving conditions uses more fuel than a good modern small capacity turbodiesel, and barely any less than a modern lean burn small capacity petrol engine. Various magazines have seen considerably less than 50 mpg from their test examples.
I don't know whether their other claims are accurate, but the two fact based shortcomings above are enough for me to dismiss the Prius, and other similar hybrids as little more than a "right on" fashion statement.
Cheers
DP
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I disagree with your statement about small engined cars conking out - I had a 1 litre VW polo that did 150K while I had it, my cousin then used it for few years and took it up to 180K, he then sold it and its still been seen driving around.
But I do agree that the major source of emissions is making the cars in the first place, we should be encouraged to make our cars last longer.
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