Yet Another Cycling Forum

General Category => On The Road => Topic started by: Jakob W on 03 October, 2018, 12:08:55 pm

Title: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jakob W on 03 October, 2018, 12:08:55 pm
...Appears to be the Maybot's latest wheeze to convince the great British public that she really cares about us normal hard-working plebs families. I've seen figures suggesting that this will cost the treasury ~38 billion over the next three years; is there anyone actively campaigning against the freeze? (Greenpeace?)
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: sib on 03 October, 2018, 12:31:18 pm
it's been frozen for 9 years..IFS reckon the cost is £9bn p.a.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Canardly on 03 October, 2018, 03:15:01 pm
Don't forget taxes are set to rise to pay for the NHS.......sigh.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: rogerzilla on 04 October, 2018, 10:10:18 pm
The price has gone up so much that they're getting lots of extra VAT, so they don't *need* to raise duty.  Nothing to see here.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Basil on 04 October, 2018, 10:16:57 pm
But.  Anyone got an idea what the price would be today if the freeze hadn't been for the last few years.

No agenda, just wondering.

And cba to work it out for myself.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 04 October, 2018, 10:59:47 pm
How could I afford a Wank Tank if I had to pay more for fuel  ??? ???
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: spesh on 04 October, 2018, 11:12:55 pm
But.  Anyone got an idea what the price would be today if the freeze hadn't been for the last few years.

No agenda, just wondering.

And cba to work it out for myself.

The average price of a litre of unleaded last week was 131p, so that works out at just over 51p before duty and VAT. Osborne scrapped a planned 4p rise on duty from 58.95p/litre to 62.95p/litre (a 6.7% increase) and cut a penny instead, which is where it's been ever since.

<plays with Excel for a few minutes>

If we assume that Osborne went ahead with the 4p rise in 2011 and duty had gone up by 4p a year thereafter, fuel duty would have risen to 90.95p/litre this year, giving a forecourt price of around 170p/litre.

If duty had gone up by a similar percentage each year after the planned rise in 2011, you'd be looking at around 175-182p/litre.

ETA - had the escalator been kept after 1999, with an inflation+6% rise each year:

Average annual inflation for period 1989 to 2018 = 2.58% (source: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi)

Fuel duty in 2000 was roughly 51p/litre.

Applying a 8.58% increase in duty year-on year from 2000 would put fuel duty at 224.4p/litre.

Assuming a pre-tax price of 51p/litre, you'd be looking at 330.5p/litre!
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 04 October, 2018, 11:20:27 pm
Our economy relies on low fuel prices, but our planet doesn’t.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: trekker12 on 05 October, 2018, 01:29:38 pm
It's a little off topic but some of us rely on high fuel prices.

Earlier this year (or might have been end of last year) Brent Crude was around $50 it's now in excess of $80. For those of us working in companies supplying the oil and gas market, this is a good thing. At the beginning of the year our order book was 1/3 of what it is today and our products take six months to manufacture so we have hardly invoiced this year. Next year should be better and I can rely on keeping my job for another year or so.

I cheer when the petrol station sells me petrol at 130p. I know others don't but ying and yang and all that.

Although as highlighted above, tax is tax, as long as the VAT on it is covering the freeze it's a moot point. It all goes into a big chamber under the house of commons.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 October, 2018, 02:36:11 pm
The price has gone up so much that they're getting lots of extra VAT, so they don't *need* to raise duty.  Nothing to see here.
This didn't seem right to me, so I googled. The price now is lower than it was between 2011-14 and barely more than in 2009.
https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 05 October, 2018, 09:21:26 pm
Fuel is so cheap that people can sit there, going nowhere, and not feel the need to switch their engine off. Of course, the costs of that kind of behaviour to everyone else are high.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 05 October, 2018, 10:29:27 pm
Fuel is so cheap that people can sit there, going nowhere, and not feel the need to switch their engine off. Of course, the costs of that kind of behaviour to everyone else are high.

I think that's because people who are mostly using their car for bicycle journeys don't really associate use of the engine with having to fill the tank once an n; cars just get hungry and need feeding some Expensive Car Food occasionally.

Which is a symptom of fuel being cheap, of course.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: citoyen on 05 October, 2018, 10:39:58 pm
Which is a symptom of fuel being cheap, of course.

Every time I see some cunt sitting with their engine idling in Tesco’s car park or at a level crossing, I have to resist the urge to knock on their window and ask if fuel isn’t expensive enough for them.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: hubner on 06 October, 2018, 11:29:24 am
Why not set it as a percentage of the price per litre?

It seems most other taxes and duties are, eg income tax, NI, VAT, import duties etc.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 06 October, 2018, 01:42:18 pm
... cars just get hungry and need feeding some Expensive Car Food occasionally.

For me, a sign of how wealthy people are is when they tank themselves up with Starbucks/Costa/Café Nero coffee at around £9 per litre. Petrol, on the other hand, is less than a sixth of the price at around £1.33 per litre.

Yes, I don't really understand that, either.  I mean, sometimes you accept overpriced coffee as the cost of somewhere warm to sit with loos and WiFi, but getting a takeaway Costabucks on every commute seems like bad planning.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: hatler on 06 October, 2018, 02:15:25 pm
I work in an office that has its own professional piece of coffee making kit, and still people walk in the door every morning clutching (yet) a(nother) cardboard cup of unbelievably expensive coffee from one of the chains.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 06 October, 2018, 02:24:40 pm
Makes sense.  If they went to the effort to carry a re-usable container, they might as well fill it with Brown Drink before they leave.

I can't help thinking that this is about fashion, rather than caffeine.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 07 October, 2018, 10:33:56 pm
... cars just get hungry and need feeding some Expensive Car Food occasionally.

For me, a sign of how wealthy people are is when they tank themselves up with Starbucks/Costa/Café Nero coffee at around £9 per litre. Petrol, on the other hand, is less than a sixth of the price at around £1.33 per litre.

Yes, I don't really understand that, either.  I mean, sometimes you accept overpriced coffee as the cost of somewhere warm to sit with loos and WiFi, but getting a takeaway Costabucks on every commute seems like bad planning.

To be fair, it's a lazy convenience, it's nice to have a hot coffee handed to me before I get on the train. That said, I'll use the machine on the mothership. It's not the greatest coffee ever but it's wet, caffeinated, drinkable, and free. Silly price, of course.

That said, fuel will be expensive when it costs more than coffee and beer.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Greenbank on 08 October, 2018, 09:06:37 am
People still buy bottles of water at close to £1 for 750ml, that's about the same as petrol right now.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: trekker12 on 08 October, 2018, 09:58:23 am
Further off-topic, there's a Costa drive through opened near us. Holding a piping hot drink whilst negotiating the large double roundabout next to said drive through really encourages keeping both hands on the wheel and concentrating on the road ahead at all times.

I refuse to use it but presumably you hand your re-usable cup through window 1, get it passed back at window 2 from where you are encouraged to park in the car park and enjoy your coffee whilst listening to Popmaster?
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: rogerzilla on 08 October, 2018, 10:02:04 am
The Big Red Wagon likes Shell V Power unleaded (it has a 14:1 compression engine; it will run on normal unleaded, but it's a bit close to the edge of the envelope).

I paid £1.65 a litre to fill it up on Saturday.  Luckily it does 45mpg.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: djrikki on 30 October, 2018, 08:55:21 am
What the country needs is a massive fuel cut - not a meaningless freeze. Commuting by car is so expensive.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: yoav on 30 October, 2018, 09:14:27 am
Well, ride a bicycle then.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 30 October, 2018, 09:19:21 am
What the country needs is a massive fuel cut - not a meaningless freeze. Commuting by car is so expensive.

For everyone, yes.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: djrikki on 30 October, 2018, 12:15:14 pm
Well, ride a bicycle then.

Not everyone works close to home ruling out travel by bike.  And given how busy the motorways are every morning there are many other people do not have that option either.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 30 October, 2018, 12:19:20 pm
People make choices based on what they can personally afford, not what their community or the environment can afford.

For this reason fuel duty should not be reduced.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 30 October, 2018, 12:20:04 pm
Well, ride a bicycle then.

Not everyone works close to home ruling out travel by bike.  And given how busy the motorways are every morning there are many other people do not have that option either.

Cheaper fuel would make motorways busier.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: djrikki on 30 October, 2018, 12:30:24 pm
Thats BS.

Putting taxes up serves one purpose - to increase revenue for the IR.

If I save money on my weekly commute I can spend that money elsewhere; a car is still a necessity for the vast majority.

And it's not just about commuting... am sure we'd all love to go around the UK on weekend breaks and explore the British Isles whenever we wanted and see what our own country has to offer - but the cost to do so is prohibitive. So instead people have to highly-selective on were they go.  So I hear you say "take the train"... prohibitive also.. the cost of train travel is ridiculous as is public transport as a whole.

I looked into taking the train into work every day - it's around the same price - that is not right. So much wrong with transport in this country.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 30 October, 2018, 12:33:18 pm
That's fine, but you should pay for that. The costs you for the privilege of driving are nowhere close to being covered by the direct taxes and duty you pay.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 30 October, 2018, 12:37:37 pm
Thats BS.

Putting taxes up serves one purpose - to increase revenue for the IR.

If I save money on my weekly commute I can spend that money elsewhere; a car is still a necessity for the vast majority.

And it's not just about commuting... am sure we'd all love to go around the UK on weekend breaks and explore the British Isles whenever we wanted and see what our own country has to offer - but the cost to do so is prohibitive. So instead people have to highly-selective on were they go.  So I hear you say "take the train"... prohibitive also.. the cost of train travel is ridiculous as is public transport as a whole.

I looked into taking the train into work every day - it's around the same price - that is not right. So much wrong with transport in this country.

I’m afraid it isn’t bs.

Have you been somewhere where everyone gets to do what they want when they want? It isn’t possible. You cannot get 65m people in one place at one time in this country.

Personal choice comes with a cost. Suck it up.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 30 October, 2018, 01:06:46 pm
Well, ride a bicycle then.

Not everyone works close to home ruling out travel by bike.  And given how busy the motorways are every morning there are many other people do not have that option either.

This is about job security and cost of housing.  The cars are a symptom.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Ham on 30 October, 2018, 01:09:11 pm
Thats BS.

Putting taxes up serves one purpose - to increase revenue for the IR.

If I save money on my weekly commute I can spend that money elsewhere; a car is still a necessity for the vast majority.

And it's not just about commuting... am sure we'd all love to go around the UK on weekend breaks and explore the British Isles whenever we wanted and see what our own country has to offer - but the cost to do so is prohibitive. So instead people have to highly-selective on were they go.  So I hear you say "take the train"... prohibitive also.. the cost of train travel is ridiculous as is public transport as a whole.

I looked into taking the train into work every day - it's around the same price - that is not right. So much wrong with transport in this country.

Also, taxes serve two purposes, as they also are intended to influence personal choice, for example tax on booze and fags, penalising the most inefficient vehicles while promoting more efficient ones etc
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Paul H on 30 October, 2018, 02:04:51 pm
I looked into taking the train into work every day - it's around the same price - that is not right. So much wrong with transport in this country.
So you have a choice and pick the one that suites you, maybe an increase in fuel costs and a decrease in train costs might cause you to pick the other option.  There is something seriously wrong when the two cost the same.
Quote
And it's not just about commuting... am sure we'd all love to go around the UK on weekend breaks and explore the British Isles whenever we wanted and see what our own country has to offer - but the cost to do so is prohibitive. So instead people have to highly-selective on were they go.  So I hear you say "take the train"... prohibitive also.. the cost of train travel is ridiculous as is public transport as a whole.
That's just complete nonsense, I doubt there's much of the UK I haven't seen by bike and train.  Traveling on your own, off peak, is nearly always cheaper than driving, more could be done to even that out when there's more than one.  The train also frees you from the need to return to the start point, which opens up loads of opportunities to explore.

It's a shame so many motoring costs are fixed, it does make the use too cheap, why else are nearly 70% of car journeys under 5 miles?
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 30 October, 2018, 02:40:48 pm
Driving is massively subsidized. Think of the costs of the road and infrastructure required to make journeys possible (and having to drive everywhere doesn't benefit the people who drive – it benefits businesses, who pass the cost onto everyone else). This often pointless sprawl has a cost. It's picked up by all taxpayers. Then there are the costs of pollution, of accidents (around 180,000 thousand people will be killed or injured in some way each year), damage to the roads, road furniture, and then harder to quantify effects being forced into a driving lifestyle that makes it difficult for people to walk, cycle, or take public transport. Oh, and don't forget are the direct subsidies and bailouts governments make to car manufacturers.

Of course, the government will say that train passengers should pay more of their cost (which actually I agree with in principle, there's no reason we should travel for cheap, it just adds to that sprawl) while providing a huge subsidy to keep people driving.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Samuel D on 30 October, 2018, 04:39:57 pm
I’m confident the £30bn for new roads over five years will at last solve the UK’s congestion problems once and for all. Road tax should be spent on roads as anyone who can read the label would tell you.

This fuel duty freeze is a heartening interlude on the war on motorists. Don’t forget that faceless ‘motorists’ are usually nurses or electricians who commute across two counties to work every day, sometimes twice a day to two jobs to afford last year’s iPhone for their kids. Driving may soon be cheap and attractive enough to enshrine this unprecedented mobility in British custom if not human rights law. Such mobility enables, nay, practically guarantees economic growth and personal fulfilment. I am very clear that that is what the last half century has taught us.

These improvements probably explain why Hammond didn’t find it necessary to mention electric cars in his new budget.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 October, 2018, 04:42:45 pm
What the country needs is a massive fuel cut - not a meaningless freeze. Commuting by car is so expensive.
We don't have particularly expensive fuel compared to the rest of Europe but we do have some stupidly long commutes, probably due to the hire-'em-and-fire-'em job market these days.  I have some sympathy for people who are made redundant and can only find an equivalent job 50 miles away.  It costs many years' worth of petrol to move house and the other half may still have a job near the current home, kids at school etc.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: hatler on 30 October, 2018, 04:50:08 pm
Thatcher. She facilitated a house-owning / insecure employment / massive cost of moving environment with the obvious result we see playing out before us.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 30 October, 2018, 04:56:27 pm
Driving is massively subsidized. Think of the costs of the road and infrastructure required to make journeys possible (and having to drive everywhere doesn't benefit the people who drive – it benefits businesses, who pass the cost onto everyone else). This often pointless sprawl has a cost. It's picked up by all taxpayers. Then there are the costs of pollution, of accidents (around 180,000 thousand people will be killed or injured in some way each year), damage to the roads, road furniture, and then harder to quantify effects being forced into a driving lifestyle that makes it difficult for people to walk, cycle, or take public transport. Oh, and don't forget are the direct subsidies and bailouts governments make to car manufacturers.

You forgot the fossil fuel industry subsidies.  Big tax breaks for north sea oil and gas in the latest budget.  Weirdly, this is seen as a Scottish issue, rather than a climate or transport one.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 30 October, 2018, 04:58:32 pm
What the country needs is a massive fuel cut - not a meaningless freeze. Commuting by car is so expensive.
We don't have particularly expensive fuel compared to the rest of Europe but we do have some stupidly long commutes, probably due to the hire-'em-and-fire-'em job market these days.  I have some sympathy for people who are made redundant and can only find an equivalent job 50 miles away.  It costs many years' worth of petrol to move house and the other half may still have a job near the current home, kids at school etc.

The hire and fire job market is made possible because cars.

Before mass car ownership companies nurtured, developed and trained staff.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 30 October, 2018, 04:58:50 pm
What the country needs is a massive fuel cut - not a meaningless freeze. Commuting by car is so expensive.
We don't have particularly expensive fuel compared to the rest of Europe but we do have some stupidly long commutes, probably due to the hire-'em-and-fire-'em job market these days.  I have some sympathy for people who are made redundant and can only find an equivalent job 50 miles away.  It costs many years' worth of petrol to move house and the other half may still have a job near the current home, kids at school etc.

But cars and a willingness to drive them made that possible. And all the benefits accrue to the businesses and car manufacturers and all the costs (in time and money) to the drivers and taxpayers. And yet drivers curiously demand more of the same...

(And yeah, I did skip the entire massive subsidies for fossil fuel industries, the other big beneficiary of making people dependent on cars.)
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 30 October, 2018, 05:00:19 pm
I’m confident the £30bn for new roads over five years will at last solve the UK’s congestion problems once and for all. Road tax should be spent on roads as anyone who can read the label would tell you.

This fuel duty freeze is a heartening interlude on the war on motorists. Don’t forget that faceless ‘motorists’ are usually nurses or electricians who commute across two counties to work every day, sometimes twice a day to two jobs to afford last year’s iPhone for their kids. Driving may soon be cheap and attractive enough to enshrine this unprecedented mobility in British custom if not human rights law. Such mobility enables, nay, practically guarantees economic growth and personal fulfilment. I am very clear that that is what the last half century has taught us.

These improvements probably explain why Hammond didn’t find it necessary to mention electric cars in his new budget.

Road building generally doesn't fix congestion.

Personal fulfilment comes at a cost. We can see that really clearly.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: rogerzilla on 30 October, 2018, 05:04:51 pm
I never understood how roads create traffic until they upgraded the A419/A417 from Swindon to Gloucester (ignoring the still-crappy bit at Nettleton...the pub there is excellent if you get stuck, though).  Over the next few years we suddenly had hundreds of people at work that lived in Cheltenham and Gloucester.  That had never happened before.

Apparently people judge whether a commute is worth the aggro purely by time, not distance.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 30 October, 2018, 05:20:40 pm
Yup.

And cost, which is why the fuel duty is essential.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 30 October, 2018, 05:31:09 pm
I enjoyed Samuel's post. Nice work.

I've joined the ranks of the horrible long distance drivers a couple of times now and I'm likely to persist, purely on financial grounds. Train tickets between York and Cambridge, when I need to travel, cost me £120. I can hire a new car for £47, put £40 of fuel in the tank and drive, total cost £87. Since that is a journey I do 3-4 times a month, the difference in cost mounts up fast.

It is horrible, I dislike driving and dislike burning fuel (no electric hire cars in Cambridge that I can find).
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Hot Flatus on 30 October, 2018, 05:36:07 pm
Very little about human lifestyles ( x 7 billion) seem sustainable to me.

It's when, not if.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: quixoticgeek on 30 October, 2018, 10:34:48 pm

"But I need a car to get to work!"

Do you? Do you have to travel to your place of work to work? Could you work from home? Do you have the job you have because of false pricing of transport? If your car cost you 3 times what it does now to run, would you have applied for that job in the first place? or chosen to move to the house you're in currently if you moved after you got the job?

We are going to reach a point very soon where we have to ask some very difficult questions as a society about how we work, how we travel, and how we live. Everyone driving round in metal death boxes powered by exploding dinosaurs is not sustainable, and not healthy. This is not a problem that can be solved with simple tweaking of the fuel tax dial on some control panel somewhere. We need to change the way we live, we need to change the way we work, and we need to change the way we design our streets.

And while we're at it, we could perhaps opt for a public transport system who's purpose is solely to transport the public, not to make a profit. If you didn't have to make a profit, if you gave public transport a blank cheque, it would be a lot easier for people to do away with their car. There is an article in the last week on the BBC about people living in new build developments that are trapped in car owner ship because there is no other option. How on earth did the development get planning permission if it doesn't have any local amenities? if it doesn't at least have a fucking bus stop! If you look at the various garden city plans that do the round occasionally where the government wants to start some new towns/cities. None of them are planned near a railway line. They have car use planned in from the start. This cannot be allowed to continue.

At a conference recently a speaker said:

Quote
"We take a job, that can be done from anywhere on the planet, and we pack it all into 8 square miles of real estate, in an earth quake zone"

This was talking about the tech industry and how it's centred in silicon valley. But it holds true of so much. How many of those who commute into London really need to be in the office to work? How many of those offices need to be in London?

Oh, and this is before we start talking about whether the jobs we all do really need to be done[1].

What we have is not sustainable. Things have to change, and the sooner the better.

The revolution will not be motorised.

J


[1] See Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber...
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: MacB on 31 October, 2018, 07:05:57 am
[1] See Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber...

Listened to a few of his talks and they do make you think, his history of debt is good as well. I find him excellent at bringing the human element into economic focus.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2018, 09:26:08 am
Fuel duty is tax revenue, of course. So the less of it there is, the more taxes have to be raised on something else, like VAT or income tax. Or the more services have to be cut.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 31 October, 2018, 09:32:59 am
There is an article in the last week on the BBC about people living in new build developments that are trapped in car owner ship because there is no other option. How on earth did the development get planning permission if it doesn't have any local amenities?
I read that article.

My sympathy for the people in the developments dropped when I read statements along the lines of "It is a mile to the nearest shop so I have no option but to drive everywhere."

Um, a mile. A whole mile. Wow. It would be great if there was an alternative to a car that was easy for a young person to use to travel a mile when they needed to pick up a pint of milk.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 31 October, 2018, 09:41:23 am
I never understood how roads create traffic until they upgraded the A419/A417 from Swindon to Gloucester (ignoring the still-crappy bit at Nettleton...the pub there is excellent if you get stuck, though).  Over the next few years we suddenly had hundreds of people at work that lived in Cheltenham and Gloucester.  That had never happened before.

Apparently people judge whether a commute is worth the aggro purely by time, not distance.

And we still do this. Surrey wants to build more roads because, erm, they don't actually know. The usual evidence-free blurb about vague 'economic benefits.' They seem to forget they also claim not to have the money to fix their existing roads. No one benefits other than business who can relocate to grim industrial parks and expect their staff to drive an extra half hour each way. Yet, we celebrate this – remind me who pays. Actually remind the people in the cars, because that's the bounds of their new 'freedom.' To sit in a car they probably can't afford (and more often these days, cars are just the literal vehicle of debt-based financial derivatives) – at least if you commute by public transport, it's time you can do something with. Time in a car is dead time. If you walk or cycle, you get exercise and you might enjoy it. You're unlikely to sit in traffic getting anything other than angry. Don't worry, you can repeat the activity at the weekend trying to get to the shops which deserted the high street.

We've built an expectation around owning a car – it's symbolic of other things, hence the urban battle tanks where the main combat role is squeezing into dwindling parking spaces and manoeuvres around supermarket car parks. The power of advertising. Again, it just sucks the money out of things, you don't get to a supermarket any better in a £10k car than a £30k SUV; if anything, given the costs, parking etc. it's a lot worse.

A bit of financial tinkering won't change of this, it needs fresh thinking at all levels. At least there is more willingness to work from home, have things delivered etc.

Still, I was reading yesterday about our super proposed new town centre development. Parking woes again. It's directly across the road from the train station and between two supermarkets and on the high street.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: MacB on 31 October, 2018, 09:56:29 am
Fuel duty is tax revenue, of course. So the less of it there is, the more taxes have to be raised on something else, like VAT or income tax. Or the more services have to be cut.

Not digging at you but this sort of view is so ingrained, as long as we have no shortages of material or labour then cuts are a choice. In terms of efficiency a very poor one at that.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2018, 10:08:50 am
Fuel duty is tax revenue, of course. So the less of it there is, the more taxes have to be raised on something else, like VAT or income tax. Or the more services have to be cut.

Not digging at you but this sort of view is so ingrained, as long as we have no shortages of material or labour then cuts are a choice. In terms of efficiency a very poor one at that.
Not sure what you mean? Obviously cuts, and increases in spending, are a political choice, but if you've decided to spend £xbn then if you don't raise it from here, you raise it from there.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 31 October, 2018, 10:27:10 am
Fuel duty is tax revenue, of course. So the less of it there is, the more taxes have to be raised on something else, like VAT or income tax. Or the more services have to be cut.

Not digging at you but this sort of view is so ingrained, as long as we have no shortages of material or labour then cuts are a choice. In terms of efficiency a very poor one at that.
Not sure what you mean? Obviously cuts, and increases in spending, are a political choice, but if you've decided to spend £xbn then if you don't raise it from here, you raise it from there.

Except that's not really how it works (it's just how they like you to think it works).
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: MacB on 31 October, 2018, 10:43:41 am
Fuel duty is tax revenue, of course. So the less of it there is, the more taxes have to be raised on something else, like VAT or income tax. Or the more services have to be cut.

Not digging at you but this sort of view is so ingrained, as long as we have no shortages of material or labour then cuts are a choice. In terms of efficiency a very poor one at that.
Not sure what you mean? Obviously cuts, and increases in spending, are a political choice, but if you've decided to spend £xbn then if you don't raise it from here, you raise it from there.

Ian has it, and with the upsurge in interest around MMT, job guarantees and basic incomes, it's becoming harder to advocate the 'traditional' view. There is no need to raise it at all, not with a sovereign currency, there are real limitations but those are in materials and labour. We cannot run out of the make believe bit but we allow that bit to dictate.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Greenbank on 31 October, 2018, 11:35:09 am
Not all new developments. Most of the new stuff (blocks of flats, not houses) being built around here (SW15) have no or limited parking provision (at most one space per flat in a basement car park) and, more importantly, the residents have no right to apply for on-street parking permits. Most of the blocks have zipcar or similar parking places right outside. The nearest areas where you can park for free (i.e. no CPZ) 24h a day are at least a mile away.

All of this is possible because the local transport links are excellent.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2018, 02:31:24 pm
Fuel duty is tax revenue, of course. So the less of it there is, the more taxes have to be raised on something else, like VAT or income tax. Or the more services have to be cut.

Not digging at you but this sort of view is so ingrained, as long as we have no shortages of material or labour then cuts are a choice. In terms of efficiency a very poor one at that.
Not sure what you mean? Obviously cuts, and increases in spending, are a political choice, but if you've decided to spend £xbn then if you don't raise it from here, you raise it from there.

Ian has it, and with the upsurge in interest around MMT, job guarantees and basic incomes, it's becoming harder to advocate the 'traditional' view. There is no need to raise it at all, not with a sovereign currency, there are real limitations but those are in materials and labour. We cannot run out of the make believe bit but we allow that bit to dictate.
Fair enough, but we have other threads for economic theories. Present fuel duty (and other budget elements) currently operates within whatever the accepted idea is here and now. The On the Road effects might be different.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: MacB on 31 October, 2018, 03:45:52 pm
Fuel duty is tax revenue, of course. So the less of it there is, the more taxes have to be raised on something else, like VAT or income tax. Or the more services have to be cut.

Not digging at you but this sort of view is so ingrained, as long as we have no shortages of material or labour then cuts are a choice. In terms of efficiency a very poor one at that.
Not sure what you mean? Obviously cuts, and increases in spending, are a political choice, but if you've decided to spend £xbn then if you don't raise it from here, you raise it from there.

Ian has it, and with the upsurge in interest around MMT, job guarantees and basic incomes, it's becoming harder to advocate the 'traditional' view. There is no need to raise it at all, not with a sovereign currency, there are real limitations but those are in materials and labour. We cannot run out of the make believe bit but we allow that bit to dictate.
Fair enough, but we have other threads for economic theories. Present fuel duty (and other budget elements) currently operates within whatever the accepted idea is here and now. The On the Road effects might be different.

 ;D and I'm not trying to start yet another economics hobby horse but when I see a statement using factually incorrect points to 'accept' that services have to be cut, I feel the need to call it out.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: quixoticgeek on 31 October, 2018, 11:01:00 pm
I read that article.

My sympathy for the people in the developments dropped when I read statements along the lines of "It is a mile to the nearest shop so I have no option but to drive everywhere."

Um, a mile. A whole mile. Wow. It would be great if there was an alternative to a car that was easy for a young person to use to travel a mile when they needed to pick up a pint of milk.

Right. Let's play this one out.

If you have a car, but no bike, a mile to the shops to pick up milk == 2mile round trip. Average human walks at 3mph. So that makes it a 40min round trip, maybe 5 mins in the shop, that's 45 mins to get a bottle of milk. Or about 10 mins by car, assuming good parking. That's an easy one to pick.

Now if the person in question had a bike, then it's about 10-15 mins. *BUT* that is predicated on:

- Having a bike in the first place,
- Having somewhere safe to lock up the bike that is quick and easy to get the bike in and out of.
- Having a safe place to cycle it. For many muggle cyclists, riding down the edge of a busy road to get milk is way too scary.
- There being somewhere convenient to lock the bike up at the shop

In an ideal world, everyone on these housing developments would have a nice cargo bike with a box on the front, locked up securely in an easy to get to bike shed. They could then ride to the shops, along a segregated bike lane, lock it up in front of the shop at the Sheffield stand, then after buying milk, they can ride back along the same segregated bike lane, put the bike back in the shed, and resume making the custard for the pie that they needed the milk for.

*BUT* if you miss out any one item in my list of 4 above, you're not going to ride, even if you did have a bike. We need to change the way we build our towns and cities. Developments like this where active travel isn't at the forefront of the design is always going to encourage car ownership.

Even in one of the most cycle centric cities in the world, even tho it's under 2km to the nearest supermarkets, I still often take the metro or tram, rather than cycle, because it's either a faff to get the bike out, or a pain to lock it up. Tho fortunately it would be impossible to drive to said supermarket. There's nowhere to park... and the 5 year wait for a parking permit at home means I don't actually own a car. When I need to drive to Ikea, I just hire a greenwheels for a couple of hours.

J
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: mattc on 01 November, 2018, 10:34:34 am
Not all new developments. Most of the new stuff (blocks of flats, not houses) being built around here (SW15) have no or limited parking provision (at most one space per flat in a basement car park) and, more importantly, the residents have no right to apply for on-street parking permits. Most of the blocks have zipcar or similar parking places right outside. The nearest areas where you can park for free (i.e. no CPZ) 24h a day are at least a mile away.

All of this is possible because the local transport links are excellent.
I'm wondering if it is possible to sell such housing even in areas with quite poor transport links.

(My motivation:
- Bus routes always seem to operate in a free market, so operators would lay on more buses through an estate where no one has a car. And
- Strength in Numbers; if a load of cyclists move into an area, it will encourage their neighbours.
)

Lots of people don't have a car, cannot drive, do not want to drive, and/or are choosing their home cos it's walkable/rideable from their new workplace. So SOME people would always want these places.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 01 November, 2018, 11:01:32 am
Not all new developments. Most of the new stuff (blocks of flats, not houses) being built around here (SW15) have no or limited parking provision (at most one space per flat in a basement car park) and, more importantly, the residents have no right to apply for on-street parking permits. Most of the blocks have zipcar or similar parking places right outside. The nearest areas where you can park for free (i.e. no CPZ) 24h a day are at least a mile away.

All of this is possible because the local transport links are excellent.

Sadly, that's atypical (though encouraging). Here, not so many miles from London, it's a parking free-for-all. There are no on-street parking permits, every development becomes a fight over parking spaces (and the inevitable overflow into surrounding streets which makes a mockery of any planning permissions, people always buy or rent on the assumption they'll find parking somewhere). Ironically, we don't lack for public transport (it's mostly a commuter town, four trains an hour to London), regular bus service to Croydon, less regular to Redhill, East Grinstead and places south. Shuttle bus that runs around the town, and it's mostly compact and walkable (the one thing it generally isn't, is cyclable, too many hills).

No one will, of course, do anything to change the status quo even though it's profoundly negative – too much traffic, too much parking, too much pollution, etc. and all these cars do is enable people to drive somewhere else, thus depleting the local economy.

Of course, the best way to cut back on car reliance is to cut parking...
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: DuncanM on 01 November, 2018, 11:06:51 am
One of the reasons why we live where we do is because there are great bus links into Oxford and that's convenient for my wife. We couldn't live out in one of the villages because of the lack of busses.
On the other hand, there are relatively few tech jobs in that direction, so they are almost irrelevant to me and I drive (or cycle occasionally).
Busses need to be regular and go where you want to go.  If either of those conditions are not met, people won't use them. Parking permits are highly variable - there are none around here, so it's a complete free-for-all. My parents have the same issue local to them - there are plans for new flats on the main road with 1 parking space per 2-3 bedroom flat. The flat occupants will just park around the corner on the other residential roads, completely clogging them up (they are bad enough as it is). Permits don't exist.

I'm someone who drives the 3/4 mile to get a pint of milk. Fundamentally it's because it's supposed to be convenient, and if I'm going to that shop it's because I need the thing I'm buying immediately. In the car, I can be there and back in 5-10 minutes - that's probably quicker than getting a functioning bike out of the garage, finding a suitable bag to carry the milk, my waterproof (it's always raining when I need milk!) and a lock, and neglects the hill I would need to travel up on the way back. There's somewhere to lock the bike at the other end (though I wouldn't want to leave it there for more than a few minutes), and the road isn't too evil. Maybe I'm just lazy?
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 01 November, 2018, 11:53:21 am
People will always take the path of least resistance, it's human nature, which is why they need the nudges (and why they are utterly terrified of anything that might change that status quo). I live a ten-minute walk from the train station, I confess if I'm back in the evening I'll sometimes just jump in a taxi. I'll mostly walk to town rather than cycle – by the time I've got the bike out of the garage and down the drive and into town, locked to the inconveniently located stand, it's just easier too. Plus it's a narrow heavily parked road and ever journey or two you'll meet an aggressive motorised twunt which while usually not dangerous is just a little bit depressing.

Of course, we picked this place because we didn't want to be confined by driving, we wanted local buses, a train station etc. That involved making a sacrifice on other things.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: JonBuoy on 01 November, 2018, 12:47:35 pm
There is an article in the last week on the BBC about people living in new build developments that are trapped in car owner ship because there is no other option. How on earth did the development get planning permission if it doesn't have any local amenities?
I read that article.

My sympathy for the people in the developments dropped when I read statements along the lines of "It is a mile to the nearest shop so I have no option but to drive everywhere."

Um, a mile. A whole mile. Wow. It would be great if there was an alternative to a car that was easy for a young person to use to travel a mile when they needed to pick up a pint of milk.


The quote that caught my eye was from the couple living in a new build development on the edge of Loughborough:

Quote
It can take us up to 20 minutes to drive a mile-and-a-half to work. It's often really hard to turn on to the main road from ours because of the heavy traffic both ways

...erm - you are part of the problem!




Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: vorsprung on 01 November, 2018, 09:03:06 pm
The quote that caught my eye was from the couple living in a new build development on the edge of Loughborough:

Quote
It can take us up to 20 minutes to drive a mile-and-a-half to work. It's often really hard to turn on to the main road from ours because of the heavy traffic both ways

...erm - you are part of the problem!

but it's chicken and egg.  It's too dangerous for average person to ride 1.5 miles because there are too many vehicles
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: hubner on 01 November, 2018, 09:40:23 pm
I’m confident the £30bn for new roads over five years will at last solve the UK’s congestion problems once and for all. Road tax should be spent on roads as anyone who can read the label would tell you.

This fuel duty freeze is a heartening interlude on the war on motorists. Don’t forget that faceless ‘motorists’ are usually nurses or electricians who commute across two counties to work every day, sometimes twice a day to two jobs to afford last year’s iPhone for their kids. Driving may soon be cheap and attractive enough to enshrine this unprecedented mobility in British custom if not human rights law. Such mobility enables, nay, practically guarantees economic growth and personal fulfilment. I am very clear that that is what the last half century has taught us.

These improvements probably explain why Hammond didn’t find it necessary to mention electric cars in his new budget.

That's got to be a spoof of some right wing free market nuttary...at least I hope so.




Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 01 November, 2018, 10:14:36 pm
The quote that caught my eye was from the couple living in a new build development on the edge of Loughborough:

Quote
It can take us up to 20 minutes to drive a mile-and-a-half to work. It's often really hard to turn on to the main road from ours because of the heavy traffic both ways

...erm - you are part of the problem!

but it's chicken and egg.  It's too dangerous for average person to ride 1.5 miles because there are too many vehicles

To be fair, a mile each way is probably teetering on the edge of inconvenience. Possibly that's because we'd become accustomed to having a convenient car, but it's a truism. I live a mile from the train station, I'd say we're outliers for walking there (and even then we'll get a taxi back from the station of an evening, mostly because we want to be home soon-as).

Plus it's not an especially nice walk or cycle. The pavements are blocked, the road narrow. You might get wet and cold, you'll have to step around litter and dog shit. All the stuff you don't get (and don't see) in a car. And all the money we've not invested in the alternatives has been invested in town centre parking (two big car parks by the supermarkets) which still isn't good enough because people, of course, have to pull up right outside. No one is going to park their car properly to go to KFC, they'll stop right outside. That's it's on double-yellows on a roundabout. Well, they're only going to be a minute.

This all said, we cycled through some developments near Ebbsfleet the other year. Just endless houses, no facilities to be seen. Cruddy box-ticking cycling infrastructure painted on the pavements. Despite driveways, there were already cars littering the pavements. I guess that's the modern home-ownership dream. I'd rather eat my own eyeballs.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: tonycollinet on 02 November, 2018, 06:44:20 am
And all this will be fixed in the medium future by technology.

Self driving cars will eventually make personal car ownership as outdated as personal horse ownership. Just call a car from an uber like app.

They'll be able to move without causing jams, by cooperating at junctions, and no residential parking will be required (or allowed). My estimate a few years ago that people would no longer be allowed to drive by 2055. I've more recently seen estimates as low as within 20 years - not sure I believe that though.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 02 November, 2018, 11:20:49 am
And all this will be fixed in the medium future by technology.

Self driving cars will eventually make personal car ownership as outdated as personal horse ownership. Just call a car from an uber like app.

They'll be able to move without causing jams, by cooperating at junctions, and no residential parking will be required (or allowed). My estimate a few years ago that people would no longer be allowed to drive by 2055. I've more recently seen estimates as low as within 20 years - not sure I believe that though.

I'm not sure the change will be quick as we think – cars are very tied up in identity, esteem, and status. People don't buy huge main suburban battle tanks because they're practical or necessary.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 November, 2018, 11:42:11 am
Self-driving cars are likely to increase the total number of cars, I reckon, and increase the use of each individual car. Once it's easy to drive, or be driven, while doing other stuff (work, shopping, netflix, sleep, breakfast), we'll be able to travel at times when we'd otherwise be doing those things. And we'll be able to load the kids into their car and have it take them to school.

But that's all still a long way off. Long before we get to that stage, we'll have electric cars as the norm. Much cheaper to own, so more of them. And releasing lots of now-unwanted fuel cars on to the market at bargain prices, so further increasing the pool of affordable vehicles* but without the funds to keep them in decent condition.

*Probably lots will get exported to countries without EV infrastructure, compressing half a century of popular motoring growth into a few years. I've already seen this happen with used imports when Poland joined the EU. It's not pretty, and neither are the smashes.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: ian on 02 November, 2018, 12:54:49 pm
I think significant nudges will be required before people willingly give up the status symbol parked outside.

New car economics (regardless of what powers them) are weird anyway. New cars generally aren't affordable, leastways the ones people want, so they're effectively tranches of debt to be suitably derivatized by the financial markets.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: quixoticgeek on 02 November, 2018, 01:04:09 pm
But that's all still a long way off. Long before we get to that stage, we'll have electric cars as the norm. Much cheaper to own, so more of them. And releasing lots of now-unwanted fuel cars on to the market at bargain prices, so further increasing the pool of affordable vehicles* but without the funds to keep them in decent condition.

And with it, a big change that will effect long distance cyclists. Petrol stations will become redundant.

Currently in much of Europe, each village large enough, will have a petrol station. Said petrol station doubles as a local shop for essentials (Milk et al), and in many cases as the local kebab shop. On my way to Hell in September, I ate a hot meal in gas stations twice a day for 10 days as it was the only place open serving food in the remote areas I was in.

These gas stations are sustained because each village of 100ish houses has 100+ cars each of which needs regular top ups with fuel. Once we move to Electric Vehicles, they will get their charge at home. Some gas stations will be able to adapt to become rapid chargers with the accompanying shop, but for the most part, due to the large change in what the clientele are doing, it's going to finally kill off a lot of these gas stations. Which could make things interesting for audaxers and long distance cyclists. Where are we going to have a control at 3am if we don't have 24 hr gas stations?

J
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: trekker12 on 02 November, 2018, 01:07:26 pm
Use the Supermarket delivery service as a support vehicle. Have your shopping delivered to convenient control points in a window you should arrive there and have him stamp your brevet card as proof of passage as well  ;)
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: quixoticgeek on 02 November, 2018, 01:10:40 pm
Use the Supermarket delivery service as a support vehicle. Have your shopping delivered to convenient control points in a window you should arrive there and have him stamp your brevet card as proof of passage as well  ;)

I don't think Sainsburies deliver at 3am... tho I have had them deliver to a car park before...

J
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: DuncanM on 03 November, 2018, 09:35:58 am
Addison Lee think they will have a self driving taxi in 2 years. When I asked my brother in law (who works in the field) he laughed and said level 5 autonomy is many years away.
Currently, personal car usership is limited to people who can drive, and who can afford to hire or own/insure/tax a car. As taxi prices come down (and self driving cars are essentially automated taxis), that will open up car usership to many more people, thus increasing the number of cars on the road. I find it hard to believe that current car owners will switch to a self driving taxi. Having your own car means you can fill it with your own junk (useful with kids etc), and many people use them as status symbols. Price doesn't really come into it - just because a self driving tax will be cheaper than owning a Focus doesn't mean that an Audi driver is going to want to give up their 4 ringed badge of honour err...
Electric cars are the near future, if the battery supply problems can be sorted. You can order a Hyundai Kona with a 300 mile summer range for around £30k now (delivery next year sometime). The only parts of the reviews that a 2016 Tesla Model S comes ahead of it is in speed (irrelevant) and charging infrastructure (and with 300 miles, how much do you need?).
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 03 November, 2018, 09:44:24 am
Self driving cars could reduce the number of cars on the road if they were used publically, like taxis, rather than privately, like cars are now.

That could happen with legislation, or fuel price increases, and the latter is the most likely of those!
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: DuncanM on 03 November, 2018, 09:53:03 am
It could. I suspect that they will be as the younger generation come along who are used to Uber, rolling phone contracts and the like.
However, it's a huge step for someone who has owned a car, sat on their drive for 10, 20, 30, even 40 years, to get rid of it and have the driveway sitting empty, relying on technology to deliver a car when you need it.
The bigger the takeup of EVs (and it's tiny right now), the less impact fuel (pump) prices will have. Unfortunately, the idea that government is going to be able to up fuel prices to drive behavioural change is dead (for a couple more political cycles at least), as the title of this thread demonstrates!
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 03 November, 2018, 09:57:06 am
Yes, good points.

Out of interest, do you (or anyone!) think EVs will ever be as many in number as Dino fuelled ones?
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 November, 2018, 10:07:26 am
Once a certain point is reached in the scale of manufacture and the charging infrastructure, they will become the standard quite quickly, I reckon, and outnumber dino cars simply to cheapness. Hard to say when that point will be reached, but as various governments are mandating something around 2035, we can assume it will be up and running before that through momentum of manufacture. But that's in the shiny countries, on a global scale it could be very different. Reliable electricity supplies seem harder to do than tankers full of petrol diesel.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 03 November, 2018, 12:46:07 pm
Out of interest, do you (or anyone!) think EVs will ever be as many in number as Dino fuelled ones?

Yes, obviously.  They just need to be cheaper and/or better, and people will stop buying new ICE vehicles.  Then it's just a matter of time for the existing ICE vehicles to disappear.

The 50% point will happen faster than we expect.  The last 10% (enthusiasts, and niches where dino fuel really does have an advantage) will take a lot longer.


But that's in the shiny countries, on a global scale it could be very different.

Indeed.  China (who have an incredibly strong incentive to go electric) are way ahead of us.  Meanwhile other countries are going to carry on with the West's unwanted ICEs for a good time yet.


Quote
Reliable electricity supplies seem harder to do than tankers full of petrol diesel.

Yeahbut I'm not sure they're necessarily a barrier to EV adoption.  A lightly-used EV might charge just fine from an intermittently available supply.   And if your electricity supply is unreliable, a vehicle that can power your house becomes that much more attractive.  Perhaps some areas will skip the whole robustly engineered grid stage and will finally achieve reliable supplies due to wide-scale adoption of vehicle-to-grid or Powerwall type batteries.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 November, 2018, 02:40:33 pm
If you routinely have no electricity for a week, as is often the case outside big cities even in relatively advanced countries like India, charging anything might be hard. Electricity supplies are going to have to be made routinely reliable (they might not be constantly on, but if you know when they're going off and on, and that they won't be off for more than say 24 hours, that makes a big difference) before people will be able to use them in that way, I reckon.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Jaded on 03 November, 2018, 03:41:12 pm
Out of interest, do you (or anyone!) think EVs will ever be as many in number as Dino fuelled ones?

Yes, obviously.  They just need to be cheaper and/or better, and people will stop buying new ICE vehicles.  Then it's just a matter of time for the existing ICE vehicles to disappear.

I’m not so sure. Certainly not in urban areas. Charging a car now is so easy, 10 mins in a purpose built facility and you have a 500 mile range. Of course that might be replicated in  electric cars.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 03 November, 2018, 04:45:40 pm
Out of interest, do you (or anyone!) think EVs will ever be as many in number as Dino fuelled ones?

Yes, obviously.  They just need to be cheaper and/or better, and people will stop buying new ICE vehicles.  Then it's just a matter of time for the existing ICE vehicles to disappear.

I’m not so sure. Certainly not in urban areas. Charging a car now is so easy, 10 mins in a purpose built facility and you have a 500 mile range. Of course that might be replicated in electric cars.

Perfectly achievable if you relax the 10 minute requirement a bit because you're not actually going to be standing there holding onto the plug[1] while it charges.  Most users who can't plug in to AC supplies at home or at work will be able to combine their weekly trip to the rapid charger with a supermarket trip or similar.  The technology exists, it just needs more cars to be manufactured in order to become mainstream.

This is all a lot more realistic than people using more appropriate modes of transport for their day-to-day journeys.


[1] Admittedly I have sat in the car and waited for it to charge occasionally, usually when I just need a 10 minute top-up to get to my destination (occupational hazard of using outdated EV technology for something it isn't really designed to be any good at).  More usually it's a case of plug in and go to the loo/cafe/shops while it charges.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 03 November, 2018, 04:50:08 pm
If you routinely have no electricity for a week, as is often the case outside big cities even in relatively advanced countries like India, charging anything might be hard. Electricity supplies are going to have to be made routinely reliable (they might not be constantly on, but if you know when they're going off and on, and that they won't be off for more than say 24 hours, that makes a big difference) before people will be able to use them in that way, I reckon.

I was thinking in terms of daily outages of some number of hours (which is my experience of countries with poor electricity supplies), rather than week-long ones.  That makes things a lot harder, unless you actually want to drive around scavenging electrons with your battery-on-wheels, which is a really inefficient way to distribute power.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: MacB on 03 November, 2018, 05:22:29 pm
Aren't they trying to develop solar powered cars? or at least things that will top up charge while sat around.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 03 November, 2018, 05:35:18 pm
I don't think there's much enthusiasm for that[1], simply because - whatever their efficiency - solar cells perform better when they're out of the shade and pointed directly at the sun, and given the surface area and battery size of a typical car[2], the charge time will be measured in days.

Which isn't to say that there's no future in solar panels on vehicles to run auxiliary loads like refrigeration, or for niche applications where it makes more practical sense.  But in general, if you're going to spend money on solar panels to power a vehicle, it's better to put them on the garage roof than on the car (or the road!).  In countries with abundant sunlight, there's a strong argument for using the panels to shade the parked vehicles...


[1] Early Nissan Leafs had an optional solar panel to keep the auxiliary 12V battery topped up.  As with ICE vehicles, that remains a sensible thing to do if you're in the habit of leaving your car unused for weeks and not plugged into a mains supply.
[2] Move away from the usual definition of 'car' and it may become more practical, but that way lies Sinclair...
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Andrew Br on 03 November, 2018, 05:56:36 pm
  In countries with abundant sunlight, there's a strong argument for using the panels to shade the parked vehicles...




I'm pretty sure that the car parks at the Bentley factory in Crewe* do just that.
The irony isn't lost on me.

*Yes, I know: Crewe, not very sunny.

Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: quixoticgeek on 04 November, 2018, 03:44:35 pm
Addison Lee think they will have a self driving taxi in 2 years. When I asked my brother in law (who works in the field) he laughed and said level 5 autonomy is many years away.
Currently, personal car usership is limited to people who can drive, and who can afford to hire or own/insure/tax a car. As taxi prices come down (and self driving cars are essentially automated taxis), that will open up car usership to many more people, thus increasing the number of cars on the road. I find it hard to believe that current car owners will switch to a self driving taxi. Having your own car means you can fill it with your own junk (useful with kids etc), and many people use them as status symbols. Price doesn't really come into it - just because a self driving tax will be cheaper than owning a Focus doesn't mean that an Audi driver is going to want to give up their 4 ringed badge of honour err...
Electric cars are the near future, if the battery supply problems can be sorted. You can order a Hyundai Kona with a 300 mile summer range for around £30k now (delivery next year sometime). The only parts of the reviews that a 2016 Tesla Model S comes ahead of it is in speed (irrelevant) and charging infrastructure (and with 300 miles, how much do you need?).

I think the technology for fully autonomous vehicles isn't that far off. Unfortunately the level 10 issues of government regulation are decades away. Especially in the UK, which has decided to devote all legal and parliamentary time to a pointless exercise of of self harm... The legal hurdles, the approval, the harmonisation of regulations etc... are going to be crazy. That is what is going to be what holds fully auto autos up.

I was talking about this subject with a friend recently, he commented that one of the things he uses his car for is a bit like a handbag. He has everything in it, using it for storage as much as mobility. This is lost if we have communal hailed auto autos.

One thing that can help in the short term is car share schemes like greenwheels, zip car, etc... For many, who live places where pubic transport works, where they can't easily park, being able to use a car on the few days they need one, can really help. For me I an hire a car for one weekend every month, for less than I could insure a car for, and every car I hire will be pretty new, well maintained, and I don't have to worry about it's upkeep, just return it at the end of the hire.

This doesn't solve the problem that those of us who have good pubic transport and no parking are a very small minority.

Even with auto autos available for cheap, we still need to fix public transport, and we should start by making it so it's purpose is to transport the public, not to make a profit.

J
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: mattc on 04 November, 2018, 04:49:43 pm
I was talking about this subject with a friend recently, he commented that one of the things he uses his car for is a bit like a handbag. He has everything in it, using it for storage as much as mobility. This is lost if we have communal hailed auto autos.

I think we all know people like that!

But really it's another one of those things that car-owners do, not because they need to, but because they can; their lives wouldn't end without the facility.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2018, 05:10:29 pm
I was talking about this subject with a friend recently, he commented that one of the things he uses his car for is a bit like a handbag. He has everything in it, using it for storage as much as mobility. This is lost if we have communal hailed auto autos.

I think we all know people like that!

But really it's another one of those things that car-owners do, not because they need to, but because they can; their lives wouldn't end without the facility.

It's fair to say that a car's ability to function as a lockable metal box is incredibly useful, but its absence can generally be worked around with a bit of planning.  (Eg. when cycling, I'll visit the post office to drop off the parcel first, then the shops in order of how heavy/awkward the items I'm intending to buy are, whereas by car I'd plan based on a shorter journey.)

And yes, a minority of people actually need to do that sort of thing.  Tradespeople's vans are the obvious one, but there are edge cases like supply teachers who would simply do the job a bit less well if they couldn't hoick a bootload of random material with them.

It's mostly about habit.  If you don't use one form of transport consistently, you just spend a bit more time thinking about what you need to bring.  Unless you're one of those goes-everywhere-with-an-enormous- rucksack people, I suppose.  But only a car owner would think that having a mobile lockable box was essential.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Wowbagger on 04 November, 2018, 05:18:54 pm
Curiously, I bumped into a former colleague-governor from the kids' primary school this afternoon. Her daughter is a teacher travelling between 3 sites daily and doesn't drive. It's simle for her - because she doesn't "belong" on any of the three sites, she is expected to be off site rom 4pm.

Teachers don't need to cart huge piles of crap around with them. Much of is is the pressure of the job to appear to be doing something. Certainly, when my daughter was in her previous school, many of the essays she had to mark were sent by email. In her new school the classes are a lot smaller and she has a smaller teaching commitment si it's easier anyway.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: De Sisti on 04 November, 2018, 06:27:17 pm
But only a car owner would think that having a mobile lockable box was essential.
For a lot of people it's the convenience of having the car that they're prepared (and can afford) to
pay for. And they're contributing ££££s to the economy.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2018, 06:46:22 pm
Some teachers do need to carry stuff with them. Peripatetic music teachers need to carry their instruments, for example. (I don't suppose any are left in these days of product-focussed education and austrian* budgeting, but they might be reintroduced.)

As for electric cars, I discovered today that some friends have plug-in hybrid thing. Mitsubishi, I think. It's range on battery is only 30 miles, after which it fires up a little I.C. engine to function as a generator, but in practice they only ever drive on battery cos almost all of their trips are less than 30 miles (mostly to the supermarket and back). I forgot to ask how long it takes to charge, but they do it overnight from the mains.

*Cos austere is a misnomer.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2018, 07:29:28 pm
Sounds like the Outlander.  AUIU it achieves 4WD by having an electric motor drive the rear wheels, and a more standard hybrid drivetrain powering the front.  So the ICE can either make electrons to power the motors, or drive the front wheels directly, according to settings and driving conditions.  Shifting of power between the wheels for sensible off-roading can be done in software.  Quite clever really.

It's notable for being the first plug-in hybrid that can use a rapid charger, albeit disappointingly slowly (by pure EV standards) on account of the relatively small battery.  The rise of the Outlander caused Ecotricity to have to re-think their tariffs, as they were suddenly spending a lot of time at the chargers to suck up not a lot of electrons and save a few quid on fuel, to the general disgruntlement of the EV drivers who needed the charge to get home.  AIUI rapid charge times are comparable to a 24kWh Leaf, for half the battery capacity and a fair bit less range.  (AC charging at home will be the usual few hours.)

It's overkill, of course, because it's a wankpanzer designed for tax-dodge reasons.  But when people use a 4x4 for bicycle journeys, it's hard not to like one that can do it without using petrol.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2018, 09:28:38 pm
The irony is that they are cyclists! And not even purely leisure cyclists – Mike used to ride to work every day (he took early retirement last year). But I guess they're in the habit of doing a car-sized stupormarket shop every so often and feel good not spewing out noxious gases while they do it.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: quixoticgeek on 04 November, 2018, 09:43:06 pm
The irony is that they are cyclists! And not even purely leisure cyclists – Mike used to ride to work every day (he took early retirement last year). But I guess they're in the habit of doing a car-sized stupormarket shop every so often and feel good not spewing out noxious gases while they do it.

https://www.bakfiets.com/elektrische-bakfiets/cargotrike-classic-wide-steps

J
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2018, 10:17:29 pm
https://www.bakfiets.com/elektrische-bakfiets/cargotrike-classic-wide-steps

Well yes.  My bike trailer has more shopping capacity than the boot of the Fiat Of The Apocalypse did with the emergency tool kit removed.  And more importantly (and the one thing that non-cyclists consistently see as a real advantage), it's door-to-door rather than door-to-first-parking-spot-you-can-find-halfway-down-the-road.

But on the gripping hand, if I find myself with a hire car and a couple of hours before it has to be returned, I'll tend to do a bulk supermarket shop with it.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: quixoticgeek on 04 November, 2018, 10:50:15 pm
Well yes.  My bike trailer has more shopping capacity than the boot of the Fiat Of The Apocalypse did with the emergency tool kit removed.  And more importantly (and the one thing that non-cyclists consistently see as a real advantage), it's door-to-door rather than door-to-first-parking-spot-you-can-find-halfway-down-the-road.

But on the gripping hand, if I find myself with a hire car and a couple of hours before it has to be returned, I'll tend to do a bulk supermarket shop with it.

I have taken to doing supermarket home delivery. It costs €6.95, and has a min spend of €70. I do this once a month, and get about €80 worth of shopping, including all the heavy stuff like coke, and washing liquid, as well as all the bulky stuff like loo roll. Given it's about ~€1.30 return trip to a super market, it doesn't take me long for it to be cheaper than the tram. I could do the same run on the Brompton, but this has the added advantage of delivering to my door 6 floors up, so I don't have to carry things...

J
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2018, 09:16:19 am
I'm sure they're aware of box bikes and have almost certainly seen the same two I regularly see locally.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2018, 02:54:19 pm
As for electric cars, I discovered today that some friends have plug-in hybrid thing. Mitsubishi, I think. It's range on battery is only 30 miles, after which it fires up a little I.C. engine to function as a generator, but in practice they only ever drive on battery cos almost all of their trips are less than 30 miles (mostly to the supermarket and back). I forgot to ask how long it takes to charge, but they do it overnight from the mains.
It's not a Mitsubishi, it's an Audi. Not sure where I got the Mitsubishi idea from.  ??? And it's not an SUV thing, it looks just like any Audi family saloon with sporting pretensions, except it's red rather than the currently trendy black, silver or battleship grey.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Kim on 09 November, 2018, 11:39:44 pm
Government-subsidised plug-in cars may never have been charged (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46152853)
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 10 November, 2018, 08:42:11 am
Government-subsidised plug-in cars may never have been charged (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46152853)

The sort of unintended consequence that arises when you ignore the experience of those at the sharp end. All we can do is shrug, and wait for the next blunder.
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: MacB on 10 November, 2018, 09:37:07 am
Government-subsidised plug-in cars may never have been charged (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46152853)

The sort of unintended consequence that arises when you ignore the experience of those at the sharp end. All we can do is shrug, and wait for the next blunder.

Carrots and sticks, sometimes the stick needs to be bigger and pointier
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2018, 12:14:08 pm
Quote
"We unfortunately have got a situation where a poorly designed tax regime is driving some poor behaviours," said Toby Poston, ​the BVRLA's communications director.
No shit!
Title: Re: Fuel duty freeze
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 10 November, 2018, 05:11:49 pm
On the bright side, at least the PHEVs are paying back some of the subsidy on purchase price and VED through the fuel duty, as they're doing less mpg than their diesel equivalents.