Of All The Half Baked Daft Ideas..

[ai_Droid]

I accept your quote that there has been a decline since 1997 in the UK, however you were selective about what you quoted. "Motor fuel sales boomed in 2006, but UK forecourts still closed at one a day rate. The latest UK Retail Marketing Survey, conducted by the Energy Institute (EI), shows that in 2006,

petrol sales reversed the progressive decline seen since 1997, with a year-on-year increase of

572,000 tonnes, or 3.1%."

 

Yes, there was a rise in 2006 that coincided with a price war on supermarket forecourts. The trend for the last ten years has been downward though.

 

Yes slim, i 'get it' (are you capable of debate without patronisation?), which is why I posted earlier in the thread about the need to reduce the effects of using petrol. Petrol usage worldwide however, will never reduce significantly enough worldwide UNTIL there are viable alternatives. It's a fantasy to think otherwise, unfortunately.

 

Slim?

 

I agree with what your saying, I just dont see how it conflicts with this tax. If somethings running out, you should conserve it, right?

[Mr. Sausages]

Heh, I just spotted this that you posted earlier

 

I agree, fuel tax increases are another way, but people wont notice a few quid extra when filling up, it certainly wont persuade them to change car, even if its a significant amount annually.

 

Which is exactly the point I was making. You sure like to argue...

[ai_Droid]

Which is exactly the point I was making. You sure like to argue...

 

I do like to argue, yes! We're talking about two different things. Tax on fuel may make people use less, but it wont give a clear message that a smaller car will result in lower taxes, which is the point you quoted.

[Mr. Sausages]

What I actually said with regard to big/small cars and the taxing thereof was this:

It might not be fair short term to those with old cars or big engines but it has to happen sooner or later and some people will always come off worse than others. Life's not fair. Never has been, never will be.

[Cambon]

Tax on fuel may make people use less,

 

 

Thank you.

 

At last you see. Using less fuel is the whole reason. The whole point. Use less fuel = less CO2 emmission. Annual tax will have no affect on this.

 

Thank you!

[ourtess]

Car tax should be abolished and replaced with an insurance sticker, given with your cover note and costing no extra.

 

The tax in the price of petrol is enough.

[ai_Droid]

At last you see. Using less fuel is the whole reason. The whole point. Use less fuel = less CO2 emmission. Annual tax will have no affect on this.

Thank you!

 

How do you know? The best way is to do both, the vehicle tax gets the message accross loud and clear that big fuckoff cars for a bloke who drives to work by himself are a bad idea.

[ai_Droid]

Car tax should be abolished and replaced with an insurance sticker, given with your cover note and costing no extra.

The tax in the price of petrol is enough.

 

Uh....the car tax is there for a reason you know, it pays for stuff.

[Cambon]

How do you know? The best way is to do both, the vehicle tax gets the message accross loud and clear that big fuckoff cars for a bloke who drives to work by himself are a bad idea.

 

Crap. When you buy a house, does the rateable value actually have any bearing on your wish or desire to own that property? No. If you can afford the property, you can afford the running costs. The rates are an annual inconvenience.

 

When you buy a car, do you even look at the annual tax amount? No. It has no bearing on your desire to own the car. The tax is a farce. fact! It is money for the government. Period. That money does not go into developing green fuels. It does not get put into public transport. It does not get donated to Green charities. IT IS A STRAIGHT FORWARD TAX.

 

Your engine size to MPG comparison is also not always the case either, and infact rarely is. I have 5 vehicles, 2 bikes and 3 cars. One of the bikes is a 250cc that gets 30MPG, the other is a much cleaner 600cc that gets 50+ mpg. 600cc costs more to tax. Fact.

 

3 cars. A BMW 328i manual - 32.4mpg, a BMW 316i Auto - 29mpg. 328i costs significantly more to tax but does better mpg. The third car is also a 1.6 that does 38mpg. These are not MPG figures plucked off dodgy web pages, these are real figures as they apply to driving in the IOM, and are fact.

[ai_Droid]

Crap. When you buy a house, does the rateable value actually have any bearing on your wish or desire to own that property? No. If you can afford the property, you can afford the running costs. The rates are an annual inconvenience.

 

It may look like I'm arguing for the sake of ut, but rates are a factor for me, I used to live in douglas, and part of the reason I dont now is the expensive rates.

 

When you buy a car, do you even look at the annual tax amount? No. It has no bearing on your desire to own the car. The tax is a farce. fact! It is money for the government. Period. That money does not go into developing green fuels. It does not get put into public transport. It does not get donated to Green charities. IT IS A STRAIGHT FORWARD TAX.

 

You're wrong, can you produce figures to prove your right? Since the uk introduced registration tax banding for environmental reasons, sales of 4x4's have dropped and sales of supermini's have soared. This admittedly is in a period where petrol prices have risen, but that's also partly through taxation.

 

Here's some choice quotes:

 

"The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) figures come as a survey showed car buyers wanted better information about the environmental impact of models. "

 

"SALES of superminis soared last month as drivers appeared to be taking the "green" message on board. Registrations of cars such as Ford Fiestas and Renault Clios in January were up 18.7 per cent on the same month a year ago"

 

"The supermini's rise follows a recent decline in sales of 4x4 off-road vehicles."

 

 

 

Your engine size to MPG comparison is also not always the case either, and infact rarely is. I have 5 vehicles, 2 bikes and 3 cars. One of the bikes is a 250cc that gets 30MPG, the other is a much cleaner 600cc that gets 50+ mpg. 600cc costs more to tax. Fact.

 

Show me. Here, I'll show you:

 

http://www.fuel-economy.co.uk/mpg.php

 

Pick some popular cars, thats what we're talking about here:

 

1.4 golf urban mpg 32 156g/km emissions

2.0 golf urban mpg 26 187g/km emissions

 

1.25 fiesta urban mpg 34 142g/km emissions

2.0 fiesta urban mpg 27 177g/km emissions

 

In fact I can't find a single example comparing like for like where the bigger engine has less emissions or mpg.

 

3 cars. A BMW 328i manual - 32.4mpg, a BMW 316i Auto - 29mpg. 328i costs significantly more to tax but does better mpg. The third car is also a 1.6 that does 38mpg. These are not MPG figures plucked off dodgy web pages, these are real figures as they apply to driving in the IOM, and are fact.

 

The manufacturer figures from bmw don't agree, try them. You may have some anecdotal differences depending on your driving style if you're hammering a 1.6 vs hammering a 2.8 or if your 316 has buggered tires etc. But that's not a good comparrision for a whole population. The 316 was always a fairly silly engine for the sise of car anyway. There's going to be individual exceptions, but in the main, smaller cars are more fuel efficient and less emissions.

[ourtess]

I suppose it does keep poor people in their place. Flimsy little cans packed with kids. Whilst the richer chap can have a nice strong car to himself.

[Cambon]

You're wrong, can you produce figures to prove your right? Since the uk introduced registration tax banding for environmental reasons, sales of 4x4's have dropped and sales of supermini's have soared. This admittedly is in a period where petrol prices have risen, but that's also partly through taxation.

 

Here's some choice quotes:

 

"The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) figures come as a survey showed car buyers wanted better information about the environmental impact of models. "

 

"SALES of superminis soared last month as drivers appeared to be taking the "green" message on board. Registrations of cars such as Ford Fiestas and Renault Clios in January were up 18.7 per cent on the same month a year ago"

 

"The supermini's rise follows a recent decline in sales of 4x4 off-road vehicles."

 

Petrol prices - pure and simple. Uk road tax is cheaper than here anyway, but you only see it once a year. Petrol prices are in your face and hit your pocket everyday.

 

 

Show me. Here, I'll show you:

 

http://www.fuel-economy.co.uk/mpg.php

 

Pick some popular cars, thats what we're talking about here:

 

1.4 golf urban mpg 32 156g/km emissions

2.0 golf urban mpg 26 187g/km emissions

 

1.25 fiesta urban mpg 34 142g/km emissions

2.0 fiesta urban mpg 27 177g/km emissions

 

In fact I can't find a single example comparing like for like where the bigger engine has less emissions or mpg.

 

3 cars. A BMW 328i manual - 32.4mpg, a BMW 316i Auto - 29mpg. 328i costs significantly more to tax but does better mpg. The third car is also a 1.6 that does 38mpg. These are not MPG figures plucked off dodgy web pages, these are real figures as they apply to driving in the IOM, and are fact.

 

The manufacturer figures from bmw don't agree, try them. You may have some anecdotal differences depending on your driving style if you're hammering a 1.6 vs hammering a 2.8 or if your 316 has buggered tires etc. But that's not a good comparrision for a whole population. The 316 was always a fairly silly engine for the sise of car anyway. There's going to be individual exceptions, but in the main, smaller cars are more fuel efficient and less emissions.

 

Then the manufacturers figures are wrong. A BMW316i Auto is thirstier than a 328i manual driven in the same manner by the same person.

[ai_Droid]

Petrol prices - pure and simple. Uk road tax is cheaper than here anyway, but you only see it once a year. Petrol prices are in your face and hit your pocket everyday.

 

But how do you know it's petrol prices? The uk changed to emission based annual tax, and sales of 4x4's went down, and sales of small cars went up. What have you got to prove that it's petrol pricing?

 

UK road tax isn't cheaper than here. I just did my car, it's £120 quid to tax it in the uk, quite cheap because it's efficient. It's £100 to tax it here.

 

Another example, a nice common vw golf as above, £182 in the uk and £100 here. Explain to me how the UK is more expensive?

 

How about a big car, BMW X5 Petrol in the UK will set you back £300 in tax, here it's a snip at £260.

 

Then the manufacturers figures are wrong. A BMW316i Auto is thirstier than a 328i manual driven in the same manner by the same person.

 

Either way, it doesn't matter, as I've said there are a few exceptions and a silly 1.6 engine in a stupidly big car is one of them. BMW don't seem to make the 316 anymore, right?

 

It's by no means the norm as you'd suggested. In pretty much every other example a smaller engine car has a higher mpg and less emissions.

[Amadeus]

then you would probably end up paying 30k for a small city car and I doubt people would be willing to do that.

 

Care to cite your source on that? I'm calling bullshit I'm afraid. I recon it's the other way around, that manufacturers couldn't afford to build presteige models without selling their mainstream cash cows. Your top of the line car may cost 90 grand, but they only sell a few thousand worldwide, care to do the maths vs a toyota yaris at 8k selling millions?

 

Fact is that any new technology is first introduced into the top-spec cars at all manufacturers - from the Airbag in the 80's (Mercedes S-Class) to the stuff today. In a sense, buyers of these cars are guinea pigs trying out new advances and paying a large chunk of the development in the process - certainly proportionately more than the buyer of a lower spec/smaller car later on. The important point to remember is that not all ideas make it in the long run, so if something turns out to be unpopular or not as good as they thought, it won't make it into larger production later on or has to be changed before it does (ask BMW and their original "iDrive" on that one). It's obviously easier and cheaper to introduce something in a relatively small-volume product and perfect it there before passing it on, especially if you can still sell that product at a premium. If you scrap all the bigger models and only stick with the very high volume ones, then you're risking a lot more when introducing new features - not entirely fair to use your highest paying customers to try out the new stuff, but that's how it is. I'll gladly take you along to Germany and meet some of the engineers that work high up in the industry - quite often there are "open" lectures at a few universities near the major car cities where everyone can sit in and listen - interesting and highly recommended. Funnily enough, these blokes are some of the highest paid people in development, yet pretty much all of them drive old cars, mostly from the 80's. On asking why, the answer was that they don't trust all that new technology - the technology they themselves are developing

 

I really had to laugh when I saw that the Prius comes with Aircon as standard, though - what a green car that is....

I'm not a big fan of the prius personally, mainly because the lifespan of the batteries really puts its greenery into jepardy, but an aircon in a hybrid is theoretically better than an aircon that runs purely from petrol.

Practically, any aircon increases fuel consumption, quite often considerably.

 

To be honest, I wouldn't mind paying that increase in tax if people like the DoT or Government as a whole would lead by example, or if at least we would know that the extra money is going to be used to improve their own environmental performance, but as long as they're still bollering around with old lorries, I stick with my opinion that it's simply another pr stunt to appear green and justify a straight-forward tax increase through it.

 

The main problem with that is "run of the mill" cars these days (Renault, Peugeot, Lemon) don't last 10 years. They are designed to last 8 years. It used to be 10. Some cars (E.g. BMW, Lexus) are designed to last 18 years.

Until not so long ago, the development cycles for a new European car was 8 to 10 years - a new S-Class would come out every 10 years as there was no need to chuck a new model out every few years. The Japanese market, however, has always been geared towards higher numbers of new cars at shorter intervals - part of the reason for that is the Japanese MOT or "Shaken", which appears to be super-strict and expensive - new cars need one after three years and many people rather buy a new car by that time then go through the hassle - that's one of the major reasons why Japanese manufacturers bring out new models every 3 years on average (and why second hand models are pretty cheap and get exported a lot).

[ai_Droid]

Fact is that any new technology is first introduced into the top-spec cars at all manufacturers - from the Airbag in the 80's (Mercedes S-Class) to the stuff today. In a sense, buyers of these cars are guinea pigs trying out new advances and paying a large chunk of the development in the process - certainly proportionately more than the buyer of a lower spec/smaller car later on.

 

I dont disagree that new tech is going into expensive cars, what I disagree with is that discouraging big cars through taxes kills this innovation. This is just typical early adopter type stuff, new gear is put into high value cars simply because it's expensive and a top of the range new car can bear the cost more than a regular model, simple as that. Taxing these expensive cars wont make a jot of difference to their sales, so this is pretty irrelivant. The tax is going after large mainstream cars.

 

I'm not at all suprised in your revalation that car geeks want to drive old shit. We've seen from this thread that so called enthusiasts are stuck in their ways.

 

Practically, any aircon increases fuel consumption, quite often considerably.

 

Yep, it's not ideal in the prius, but it's better in a more efficient car than an unefficient car.

 

To be honest, I wouldn't mind paying that increase in tax if people like the DoT or Government as a whole would lead by example, or if at least we would know that the extra money is going to be used to improve their own environmental performance, but as long as they're still bollering around with old lorries, I stick with my opinion that it's simply another pr stunt to appear green and justify a straight-forward tax increase through it.

 

True, they could be doing more, and it might be a cynical ploy to get taxes or a pr stunt. It does help the cause though, so I support it.

 

Until not so long ago, the development cycles for a new European car was 8 to 10 years - a new S-Class would come out every 10 years as there was no need to chuck a new model out every few years.

 

You've missed the point there, he's talking about the lifespan of the car to its owner, not the lifespan of the model to the manufacturer.