Brown goes green?

As I understand it there is some sort of Honda thingy that falls into band A. The only problem is that there were only six of them sold last year! (I don't know if this was UK only or worldwide).

Presumably it is some sort of milk float derivative and therefore of no interest to anyone except the occasional tree hugger who lives less than 100 yards from their workplace. Maybe I'm too cynical.

Mark

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They do exist, I have a zero rated vehicle. Its a Bedford CA Camper built before 1973.

:-))

Mart>> New £210 VED rate for the most polluting vehicles, offset by a zero

Presumably commercial vehicles are exempt?

Yet another reason we are glad we ditched company cars back in the early 1990's.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

Gents,

I still believe that it would be fairer to put 10p on the price of a litre of fuel and have a zero-rated disc for all vehicles.

This would effectively charge vehicles for the amount of CO2 they emit which is directly linked to their fuel consumption. It would also be a quick solution to those that chose to avoid paying road tax.

A typical 40mpg car would pay about =A3136 a year, and a large SUV or Range Rover used as a Chelsea Tractor would pay considerably more.

It would effectively be a pay as you go system, and would be easy to implement without the need for a small army in Swansea to c*ck-up the paperwork.

If you look at the DVLA excise bands you will see that we have a situation which makes it cheaper to tax a 25 tonne truck, than a pre-2000 average family car.

regards,

Ken

"Mark_Howard" wrote (snip):-

hugger who lives less than 100

Ahem, I resemble that remark! OK I'm no fanatic, but I do try to observe the "Please leave this planet as you would wish to find it" principle.

Mark,

Yes, you are too cynical.

In the 1990's I built a 4 seat electric car that was used for commuting the 22 mile round trip to work. It had a top speed of 85mph and a useful range of 40 miles.

It used standard 100Ah lead acid batteries and a 10kW series would traction motor salvaged from an industrial electric truck. It would cruise at 60mph on the level with just an 80A draw from the battery.

It cost me no-road tax and when recharged overnight from my white meter, it cost a penny per mile to run, compared to 7.5p per mile for my diesel car.

It suited me, at the time, for the job I built it for. Is this not what we all want from the vehicles we choose to drive?

Ken

To those who live in london with half million pound plus houses and fifty grand four by fours which occassionally go as far off road as mounting the pavement or the waitrose car park, you can raise fuel duties or RFL as much as you like, they will still be able to afford it better than anyone else and so be the last and least affected.

DO not forget, these are people who but a lexus 4x4 hybrid, horribly complex and expensive to maintain, simpky because this saves them the HASSLE of the congestion charge, not cost, hassle.

The real problems lie in urban areas and city centres, here in exeter the air is clean, it won't get any cleaner with a 4x4 tax, and in the urban areas you have wealth and status, so to solve the problem you have to somehow target those people who can easily afford whatever measures you introduce and continue their lifestyle unchanged, while not punishing everyone who cannot afford it.

Ken's congestion charge is the way to go, but it should be =A31 per day per "X" where X =3D (displacement of your engine in cubic centimetres, squared / 10000)

90 cc moped =A30.81 day

850 cc car =A372.25 day

4 litre =A31,600 day

Answering my own question:-

Yes they do, Honda Insight and Smart diesel (which I didn't even know existed) apparently. The good old beeb got there eventually, couldn't actually find one for their evening news bulletin though! No mention of 'quadracycles' like Aixam (sp?) and Ligier Ambra (ideal for the commuter who needs to get from his front door to a public transport node), I wonder where they fall in the great scheme of things?

BTW Apologies for omitting OT tag on OP.

"Ken_Boak" wrote (snip):-

Way back when I was naive enough to believe that such things actually made a difference, I responded to the consultation paper on environmental VED pointing out that there was already a simple to collect, practically non-evadable graduated vehicle tax in place, so subtle that it even adjusts for the weight of the driver's right foot! Yes, loading the whole lot on to fuel duty does appear to be the fairest way of taxing transport. But there are very powerful lobbies which would resist any such move as demonstrated by the fuel protests of a few years ago (which ISTR eventually won a reduction of a few pence - soon lost in the 'background noise' of oil price fluctuations and forgotten about).

Still OT but along similar lines, I use a laptop to comunicate with the machines controllers I work with, some big fat moron announced yesterday that I am going to be taxed for using a tool of my trade because I bring it home :-((

Mart> Answering my own question:-

Yes, I noticed that one. If I understood correctly, the loan of a £2k laptop will be regarded as an extra £40 PA income?

Guy Fawkes,

Speaking of Exeter, I recently towed a trailer to pick up a CS engine from a farm near Paignton. The round trip was 450 miles and it cost me =A352 in diesel -so about 12p per mile.

My father in law, lives near Exeter and drives a BMW X5. He recently came across to visit us, and complained that his one way trip, had cost him =A360 in petrol.

I had zero sympathy for him, if you can afford a motor like that, you can't moan when it costs a fortune in fuel.

Nor had I sympathy for the city type who was moaning on Radio 4 "Up You'n'Yours" that his 4 x 4 was going to cost him an extra 25 quid in tax per year - sorry just 1% extra lost in the noise of the estimated =A32500 he was spending on fuel per year - not to mentin tyres, servicing etc.

Ken

Speaking of Exeter, I recently towed a trailer to pick up a CS engine from a farm near Paignton. The round trip was 450 miles and it cost me £52 in diesel -so about 12p per mile.

My father in law, lives near Exeter and drives a BMW X5. He recently came across to visit us, and complained that his one way trip, had cost him £60 in petrol.

I had zero sympathy for him, if you can afford a motor like that, you can't moan when it costs a fortune in fuel.

Nor had I sympathy for the city type who was moaning on Radio 4 "Up You'n'Yours" that his 4 x 4 was going to cost him an extra 25 quid in tax per year - sorry just 1% extra lost in the noise of the estimated £2500 he was spending on fuel per year - not to mentin tyres, servicing etc.

Ken

Some people just enjoy moaning about anything and everything.

Mike M

miley snipped-for-privacy@homail.com

See:

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

ah yes, the CS with radiator.... vbg

my trusty 150 quid (with 12 months ticket) ebay special renault 19 diesel (the second one in a row, the last was 205 off ebay) won't go below 50 mpg no matter what I do (unless I deliberately drove around in

2nd of course) and of course doesn't have the energy impact of manufacturing a new vehicle.

it says a lot about a car when you ride a pretty economical lowish tuned vee twin motorcycle and you can regularly beat the mpg you get on the bike.

Thanks Peter, looks like I was a factor of ten out there!

"Nick H" wrote

Has anyone noticed the anomalous situation that it now costs more to tax many motorcycles (surely the most efficient way of transporting one or two people, if not purely on fuel consumption then also considering road occupancy) than some cars!?

It doesn't look quite as simple as that, I'd say there's a difference between equipment 'provided for home use', and taking a laptop home after work. No doubt there will be arguments to settle where the line is drawn.

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

To add to the greyness, many corporate laptops are strapped down so hard both by the security setup on them and the employers IT policy that you can hardly use them for anything unrelated to work anyway, for example you don't have admin rights to install your own software because the laptop is going to be plugged into the corporate network at some time and that would be a security risk.

If the chancellor tries to charge me the tax on £500 simply because I come back from a site visit late and take the laptop home with me, removing it from the car because corporate insurers won't cover it left in a car over night, then I will insist the company makes other arrangements as I suspect most people in my position will. We're forbidden to use them for anything but work so why should we get taxed?, another idiotic tax.

Greg