MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Wait until next year. If it's emissions are above 255 it'll be £2,000 per year.
Only £2000 for the first year, if it is registered after 1st April 2017
Then either £140 every year or £450 per year if the car cost more than £40,000
It'll never stop me moaning about London Public Transport No, in fact I could go on about how bloody awful it is riding around the Capital and breathing in the stink of poorly maintained Public Transport and include Taxis and Trucks and such.
The forthcoming emissions regulations were put back by two years because of the backlash of LT and the body that look after Taxis.. They said "whiney whiney blah di blah" so the Govt caved in and continued to suck their thumbs.
And we all know if you massage the figures to suit your own political leaning, you'll get the answer somewhere underneath that you are looking for.
So moan I will, thanks for pointing that out.
More seriously, there are two significant facts that are important here, and often missed:
1) The rules for EU "air pollution" were changed in 2008. Levels that are considered harmful were HALVED! Our city air quality has in fact been improving year on year across all the major pollutants (CO,NOx,PM) because of less industrial activity, less coal burning in households, and massively better engines in cars and buses/trucks etc. However, because of the new lower limit, some of our towns fail this limit on their worse days (in real terms they are still cleaner than they ever were of course!) You can go here:[url= http://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/advgraphs.asp ]LondonAirQuality[/url]
And plot data over the last 20 years for lots of london air monitoring sites
2) Modern diesels ARE cleaner than older ones. Despite all the rubbish spouted in the papers and by people who don't understand the science of vehicle tailpipe emissions (which, is most people). Banning "newly registered" deisels is, of course, idiotic, when banning a single 10 year old one will make something like 10x bigger impact on total tailpipe emissions.
For example, lets compare EU3 and EU6 diesel limits (in g/km):
EU3 (Passenger cars 2000->2005) CO: 0.64 NOx: 0.5 PM: 0.05
EU6 (Passenger cars 2014 onward) CO: 0.50 NOx: 0.08 PM: 0.005
% Reductions: CO: 22% NOx: 98% PM: 90%
Then we get to the fact which the vast majority of people miss, namely:
Tailpipe emissions are NOT linear with engine load
The official test cycle for emisisions is conducted across a range of speed and loads, with a "cold" engine start at the beginning, and a faster, "highway" section at the end of the test. The Tailpipe emissions are collected for the whole test, and averaged out over the distance travelled, hence they are in grams/km.
But a passenger car in our crowded city centre is not under ANY significant load, so it is not running combustion pressures and temperatures sufficient to actually produce, for example any significant NOx. (in fact at idle, it's practically impossible to actually measure the concentration of tailpipe NOx for a typical EU6 passenger car!) And at Idle, the engine AFR will be between 80 and 120 to 1, resulting is extremely low PM emissions too.
So, a gaggle of modern diesel cars in the city centre (those Audi's, Ewoks, BMWs mentioned earlier) will not be contribution in any meaningful way to the local air quality reduction.
IMO, the REAL reason we need to ban passenger cars from our city centres is simply due to a lack of space. Our population density and our classically layed out city plans means there is just no point trying to drive across a modern UK town or city in a private passenger car. All you do is spend 5 hours sat at a red light or in a queue of other people going nowhere fast!
wilburt
The key metric to vehicle efficiency and one almost never discussed is weight
Sorry, but, no, no it isn't.
Vehicle Mass does has a bearing on total tailpipe emissions, but it's not as critical as you might think. This is because energy stored in the vehicles KE is only lost when you brake (to heat in the brakes) so if you are driving for efficiency, you are not braking, so the KE is only lost to drag.
If we are talking about City centre driving, at low average speed and load, the most important factor is actually engine frictional and parasitic losses!
It'll never stop me moaning about London Public Transport No, in fact I could go on about how bloody awful it is riding around the Capital and breathing in the stink of poorly maintained Public Transport and include Taxis and Trucks and such.
Fill your boots: I find it's pretty common for Londoners to moan about something that's better than any other part of the country.
Modern diesels ARE cleaner than older ones
You're right: the latest diesels are only two to three times as bad as they claim to be. You also need to look at the percentage of diesel cars on the road compared with twenty years ago...
So, a gaggle of modern diesel cars in the city centre (those Audi's, Ewoks, BMWs mentioned earlier) will not be contribution in any meaningful way to the local air quality reduction.
Diesel is the dominant source of poor local air quality, because as you say, many of the other sources have been cleaned up or have disappeared. So we need to do something about it.
Reading this slightly guiltily because I've just bought an older diesel estate. But I don't run a company van...
the latest diesels are only two to three times as bad as they claim to be.
Link? I mean actual data not clickbait newspaper articles.
But a passenger car in our crowded city centre is not under ANY significant load, so it is not running combustion pressures and temperatures sufficient to actually produce, for example any significant NOx.
If that's the case, then perhaps 20mph limits would do more than banning diesel? It's so easy to get to 20mp it would force people to stay off the pedal and spend more time in the low NOx zone.
I provided a link the last time we discussed this... I can't find it now so try the forum search.
More seriously, there are two significant facts that are important here, and often missed:
Pfft. Who needs facts when you have the internet.
maxtorque - MemberMore seriously, there are two significant facts that are important here, and often missed:
Now now Max. Stop all this talking sense from an educated and fact based position please.
Cars are bigger and heavier in a large ( 😉 ) part to pass / score highly in the crash tests
Philjunior nailed it here:
There are also issues with idling, traffic calming causing heavy footed driving, traffic light phasing often being suboptimal to allow smooth driving and so forth. And, of course, a massive deficit in good infrastructure to allow safe, fast and convenient travel by bike within cities (I challenge anyone to find a cycle path scheme that doesn't take longer to navigate than just sticking to the main roads - which will be likely to be better maintained and gritted in winter etc.)
Edinburgh being one of the worst for this when you take into account it's completely unintuitive and relatively unsignposted road system. Just turning off red lights in quiet hours would improve things immensely (flashing amber instead).
Maxtorque also has good points.
The other point nobody seems to wants to address is that these emissions are primarily problems in cities where the air is relatively still and the concentration is greatest. Out in the country its much less of a problem.
IMO, the REAL reason we need to ban passenger cars from our city centres is simply due to a lack of space. Our population density and our classically layed out city plans means there is just no point trying to drive across a modern UK town or city in a private passenger car. All you do is spend 5 hours sat at a red light or in a queue of other people going nowhere fast!
Agreed.
I commute into West London every day. (Isleworth, near Twickenham) Couldn't do it in a car as it would double my journey time, train isn't feasible (Last time I looked) despite the fact I'm within a mile of 3 stations at home and within 100 yards of one at work, so I commute buy motorbike. (12,000 miles a year) which happens to be by far the cheapest way to do it as well, at £6.39 a day* for a round trip of 52 miles. The car would be £7.59/day for fuel alone.
Slightly annoyingly, if my Honda was taxed in the same bracket as a car, it would be free.But as it's a bike it costs £82. No sense in that at all.
*That's all running costs but not tax/insurance
The other point nobody seems to wants to address is that these emissions are primarily problems in cities where the air is relatively still and the concentration is greatest. Out in the country its much less of a problem.
I'm pretty sure it is being addressed hence the low emission zone in London etc.
You only have to drive around London (like I did yesterday) to see the layer of grime on everything/everywhere. I have a little sign in my car that comes up when the air quality is poor. It stayed on almost all the time inside the M25. It can't be much fun inside your lungs either.
It never comes on around the Pennine area unless you are stuck behind a bus.
BTW, i do 32miles a day in my i3 into MK and back, although that's mostly cross country rather than in town driving, has zero tailpipe emissons, and it costs me just 1.8p/mile in 'lecy.. Call it 64p a day........ 😆
what is this "road tax" that everyone keeps banging on about ... I
thought we were in 1976 not 1937 !!! ... 😉
as one of the unfortunates I will still be driving around in my 15 year
old diesel as I can't afford to replace it anytime soon, unless of
course I get a tax break .... and back in the room !
ScottCheggIt never comes on around the Pennine area unless you are stuck behind a bus
Hmm, i see a correlation here...... 😉
[b]I'm pretty sure it is being addressed[/b] hence the low emission zone in London etc.You only have to drive around London (like I did yesterday) to see the layer of grime on everything/everywhere. I have a little sign in my car that comes up when the air quality is poor. It stayed on almost all the time inside the M25. It can't be much fun inside your lungs either.
But it's not. Everyone seems to be calling for diesels to be completely banned when in fact they are nothing like a problem when you get outside of cities. That's my point.
The problem in cities isn't private cars per-se. It's a complete lack of functional and/or affordable mass transit and alternative transport infrastructure.
BTW, i do 32miles a day in my i3 into MK and back, although that's mostly cross country rather than in town driving, has zero tailpipe emissons, and it costs me just 1.8p/mile in 'lecy.. Call it 64p a day.......
It's probably a touch more expensive to buy/lease than a motorbike though.
The other point nobody seems to wants to address is that these emissions are primarily problems in cities where the air is relatively still and the concentration is greatest. Out in the country its much less of a problem.
Well yeah, but then the people in the country drive into the city...
can I get my landrover registered for veg oil?
Slightly annoyingly, if my Honda was taxed in the same bracket as a car, it would be free.But as it's a bike it costs £82. No sense in that at all.
PP - I was thinking that just the other day when I took my NC in for it's service. At 80mpg+, our CO2 emissions ought to put it in the "free" bracket no?
I had been considering getting rid of my diesel car for some time. I to was sort of swayed by the consensus ( at the time) that the modern ones were ok.
The government promoted them really with low road fund tax, and I was pulled in by it.
Over time, I realised the environmental impact , and the fact that a diesel was the wrong car for us.
Sold it last week.
Bought a Nissan Leaf yesterday.
Considered a petrol / hybrid car, but the Leaf makes a lot of sense for our driving and the environment.
We are fortunate that we have solar panels on the roof to offset the electricity generation from the grid also.
Lovely car to drive, drive slower on the motorway and sit back and relax.
Understand that it's not for everyone, and the cost isn't too bad compared to a Golf sized petrol car of about one year old.
At 80mpg+, our CO2 emissions ought to put it in the "free" bracket no?
It's to offset the extra cost of clearing up the accidents you cause and treating smashed up motorcyclists in hospital.
*runs away*
The other point nobody seems to wants to address is that these emissions are primarily problems in cities where the air is relatively still and the concentration is greatest. Out in the country its much less of a problem.
Where most kms get done. So out there a low CO2 car would be of more benefit than a low NOx car.
what is this hybrid/electric/hydrogen sorcery cars you all banging about? until it drives and sounds like a straight six tell them lots to go back to the drawing board and stop pestering the roads with glorified golf carts
8) 
All we're really discussing here is moving the problem from one place to another.
What we need to do is reduce our energy consumption rather than just transferring it, but this will never happen as people are lazy and selfish.
Except me, who has taken a large pay cut to ensure that I can walk to work and stop using cars.
Honestly, my levels of smug are so high they've actually attained mass, which ironically means I need more energy to get about.
until it drives and sounds like a straight six
V8 FTW.
Unfortunately the nature of today's world means that selfishly people HAVE to live miles from work if their partner works somewhere else.
Until telecommuting becomes both viable and practical for most people we will still subject ourselves to the ridiculous rush twice a day to get to a desk we typically never leave and then do a job that could be equally as well performed from our own homes.
Until telecommuting becomes both viable and practical for most people we will still subject ourselves to the ridiculous rush twice a day to get to a desk we typically never leave and then do a job that could be equally as well performed from our own homes.
Works in theory, not so much in practice.
I could do a large proportion of my job from home, but being lazy and unmotivated i'd end up spending my whole day putting off work and end up doing nothing. I suspect this applies to quite a large % of the population
Sbob has it. People are lazy bastards, me included but there are degrees of laziness..
Take my work for example: Office block in Newcastle city centre, pain in the arse to get to by car, cheapest parking is £5/day and a 10 min walk away, we have two really nice shower rooms and "leisure" lockers, secure underground bicycle racks with CCTV with card access (I don't even lock mine to anything) and there are only 2 people (out of maybe 300) that cycle to work regularly... we have a shower room EACH! The amount of people that are genuinely bamboozled by me cycling not even 12 miles round trip a day is staggering! A number of people have said stuff like "What's up with your car? Is it in the garage?". "How do you cycle in the rain?". "But it's dark outside?". Mental.
Anyway, I must replace that rear wheel on my commuter as there's only been 1 person cycling to work recently and it ain't me!
I spend every afternoon in TCs with US I'm in one right now. It makes no difference where I sit. I sometimes do them from the pub they have good WiFi just don't tell my boss or my wife.
Works in theory, not so much in practice.
I could do a large proportion of my job from home, but being lazy and unmotivated i'd end up spending my whole day putting off work and end up doing nothing. I suspect this applies to quite a large % of the population
That's the kind of attitude adjustment that's required before we can make progress.
Not meaning to come over as too smug, but it is about enforcing behaviour change.
We won,t be able to carry on with our fossil fuel burning habits due to the impact on the environment, plus they will run out in the near future.
We need to protect the environment for the future generations ( who knows how history will portray us) who may very well see us as being stupidly lazy and selfish.
The climate has already changed, but can be slowed down.
It's probably in the realms of governments making us change our behaviours now.
V8 FTW.
Indeed, straight six did seem an odd target. Mine's pretty boring and doesn't make much sound at all (E90 325i). It cost loads to tax and insure, doesn't go hugely fast and it's currently sat on 23mpg.
With the new 2017 tax setup I want Mustang GT, after the initial lump sum payment you're only paying £140 a year. A 3-4 years on and the new system is cheaper than the old one. The people getting shafted are those buying new, low emission, cars. Bonkers.
Sorry, miles off topic now. Boo! Down with dirty diesel cars!
Edit: I feel terrible posting this after the previous post, hehe. If it helps at all, I walked in to work today!
No.I bought my diesel on the basis that it was greener than petrol.
Why should I be penalised?
I can't afford a new vehicle and the value of the current one will drop.
Public health concerns trump your personal financial loss.
It's that simple.
...We won,t be able to carry on with our fossil fuel burning habits ... they will run out in the near future.
widely believed, but not true.
Sure, there's only enough crude oil to get us through the next 50 years or so. But that's the stuff that squirts out of the ground when you drill a hole in the desert.
(The world uses approx €100million barrels of oil per day, Saudi Arabia alone has at least 150billion barrels in the tank)
We've already seen oil selling at $100+ per barrel, and at that price we can afford to dig up, extract, process, etc. things like oil shale. And there's chuffing loads of that. At least enough to last a century or 2.
Which is quite worrying really.
Yup. A tactical error, that- a lot of the anti-carbon debate became about peak oil and lifespan, because it was seen as a persuasive argument to transition away. And it [i]was[/i] persuasive- just that instead of persuading people that we should stop burning oil, it persuaded people that it's OK to obtain it by any means from any location, because we're running out.
I agree with the challenge of folk living miles from work and commuting, as well as the work from home can mean slacking...
It is time to be creative -
Prudential near us has lack of parking and so offers free buses to the station, and the local towns. The fleet of 20-30 buses/coaches each night takes hundreds of cars off the road and connects with other transport. Plus, they sell it as a perk of the job, saving you transport costs.
Why don't we have shared office spaces in more places, helping folk be in a work like environment and not able to spend the afternoon [s]playing on the xBox[/s] putting a report together.
Offer free eBikes,
great showers and changing facilities,
use pool cars not company cars more,
pay mileage for walking and cycling on company business
I cycle about 5 miles each way to work pretty much every day, or get the train into town usually with my Brommie so's I can cycle back home or to the office via places I want to visit :wink:, but at the moment I'm also driving nearly 1000 miles a month to go to meetings for one of my projects. My nice new diesel estate gets about 58mpg on these runs. I could go by train but it'd add another hour- hour and a half each end of those days.
@awhiles yes indeed
At 80mpg+, our CO2 emissions ought to put it in the "free" bracket no?
It's to offset the extra cost of clearing up the accidents you cause and treating smashed up motorcyclists in hospital.*runs away*
But in all seriousness the emissions limits on motorcycles are slacker than on cars. That said, the tax system is based on CO2 emissions, so yeah, bikes should be tax free if they're low enough emissions.
Would it not be more effective to just reduce the number of cars. We treat them as a right not a privilege. And that's coming from someone living in the country, not on a bus route and no option but a 20 mile each way commute. Stopping leisure driving wouldn't half help. I'd love to see the hgvs reduced by a factor of 10 and everything on trains. Tough luck if we couldn't have next day delivery.
Mazda taking 3kg out of the loom is them doing the same as everyone else but making noise about it.
I'm not talking about the sort of weight savings that come from reducing production costs but a cap on private vehicles of say 2000kg or a weight per passenger of say 400kg. No need for anything above that and result would be more efficient safer transport.
Oh and weight is rarely listed even car tech specs people with an intrest in cars may be slightly aware but for most its just not on the radar.
Also..even an ardent car person surely doesnt still believe all that nonsense about polution being from industry, that was backward calculated from VW and the likes emmision stats which as we all know are fiction. Where I live there is absolutely no industry but I can smell a road from 100m and they stink.
Subaru just need to get better at fiddling the emissions for their petrol engines and bring in a 2.0 levorg, I would then be pursuaded back to proper fuel. As it is with the mileage I do anything petrol is much more expensive to run.
The problem is tax policy. It's crazy that you need to have loads of batteries and motors just to pay less tax. A Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV does 150 odd MPG and about 50g/km, yet when actually driven on a road gets 15MPG less than my Diesel X-trail. How does that make any sense!
People do seem to forget that the pollution caused making a new car is quite significant. Perhaps we should all drive 2cv's? Oh no, the tax would be too expensive!
How does that make any sense!
It can be driven in pure electric mode, hybrid mode or pure petrol. In electric mode you can do 30 odd miles or something. If your commute is less than 15 miles or you can charge at work, you need never get petrol at all. This is clearly a benefit.
Hybrid mode afaik is parallel hybrid mode. My mate who's just got one reckons he gets 60mpg in that mode. It's pure petrol only mode that's not so efficient.
So seems to make sense to me. The only thing that doesn't make sense is that it's shaped like a jeep, which is a stupid shape to be if you want to save fuel.
Regulate all vehicles so that they can only do 30mph maximum . That would stop people commuting miles a day , increase MPG , virtually eliminate deaths on the road , stop people driving like dicks . Police vehicles could be limited to 40mph so that they could catch other motorists easily . Massive extra spending on the railways which would become a much quicker option for travelling thereby reducing congestion on the roads .
Regulate all vehicles so that they can only do 30mph maximum .
Or make them have a man walk in front waving a red flag?
I'd love to see the hgvs reduced by a factor of 10 and everything on trains.
That will work well for all the distribution depots sited beside motorways. Around here all the former railway marshaling yards are houses. Given the nimby shouting over 1 new high speed rail line through rural England good luck getting a national rail distribution network re-built in the suburbs.
Regulate all vehicles so that they can only do 30mph maximum . That would stop people commuting miles a day , increase MPG , virtually eliminate deaths on the road , stop people driving like dicks . Police vehicles could be limited to 40mph so that they could catch other motorists easily . Massive extra spending on the railways which would become a much quicker option for travelling thereby reducing congestion on the roads .
Excellent, and with the money saved we can build all the hospitals needed to be within a reasonable ambulance ride of potential cases. Genius.
Speed isn't the problem.
Speed isn't the problem.
Well, that's true but in a country where the speed limit is 70mph why does anyone need a car which makes more than 50bhp or so? If everyone was driving 750cc cars engineered for low emissions the problem would be massively reduced, and actual journey times would be almost totally unaffected.
People do seem to forget that the pollution caused making a new car is quite significant.
Which is why stuff like scrappage schemes are the least environmentally friendly option to sort the problem. The best way to reduce your pollution impact is to keep the car you've got, keep it well maintained, drive it sensibly and use alternatives for shorter journeys. I'm still seen as the oddball weirdo* who rides to work and back every day despite me having done so for over 7 years and it being only an 8 mile round trip. It's even faster on the bike 95% of the time.
If everyone was driving 750cc cars engineered for low emissions the problem would be massively reduced, and actual journey times would be almost totally unaffected.
But the general public refuse to try and get their head round this. They've been conditioned so well to believe that more power=faster car=faster journeys that they cannot see the logic in having a 'slower' car. Years ago I was driving a 956cc Citroen AX and my mate refused to believe it when I would regularly match his journey times with him driving a 3 series. The fact that it just meant he got to the next queue faster than me was completely lost on him.
* even more so than normal, it's not just because I ride bicycles!
You only need to spend a few seconds behind any vehicle over 10 years old to realise keeping old vehicles going is not the answer. I would still argue low cost, low weight functional transport frequently recycled as something better comes along is the way to go.
First step is to remove the car idolatry though and this forum if nothing else shows how difficult that will be, it's like prising the needle of a lifetime junky.
WELL OVERDUE!! The nox effects lungs and respiratory system. Heart attack can result from damage to cardiovascular system over time. What really grinds my gears is the derv drivers who boot it when going passed when on the bike. Do we have to be like chinese and wear masks or is the damage done?
Excellent, and with the money saved we can build all the hospitals needed to be within a reasonable ambulance ride of potential cases. Genius
won't need as many hospitals... won't be any RTA's needing critical care, only clinics to diagnose the extreme whiplash suffered by parking incidents 😉
Can't wait for the day that all those bikes that the whole nation will be using are shipped from Taiwan by tea clipper, and then transported from Southampton docks to bike stores via rickshaw.
Idiots are idiots.Burning any fossil fuel for transportation is by definition Not Green.
Neither are electric cars. Are you aware of the huge environmental costs of mining the raw materials for the batteries and the magnets used in wind turbines?
You only need to spend a few seconds behind any vehicle over 10 years old to realise keeping old vehicles going is not the answer. I would still argue low cost, low weight functional transport frequently recycled as something better comes along is the way to go.
Any vehicle? Or any large commercial vehicle? And how can scrapping a perfectly good car that's less than ten years old, with probably a decade or more of useful life left, if maintained correctly, be seen as environmentally friendly?
That won't come anywhere near getting a good return on the cost of construction and the cost of scrappage combined.
What I think you mean is electric vehicles with lightweight construction, viable range from each charge, ie up to 800km, and easily replaced and recycled battery packs once efficiency drops below a certain percentage.
Scrapping the entire vehicle is madness, and people just couldn't afford to do it.
I could maybe get £2000 scrappage for my '51 Octavia, but where am I going to find the rest of the money to pay the £15-20k for a new car?
Are you going to give it to me? Is the government going to give it to me? I certainly can't afford it.
I picked up a car yesterday, a BMW 520d that is three years old, in beautiful condition, well maintained, with a shade under 103,000 miles on the clock. Looked after, that car has at least another ten years life, and could easily treble its mileage, should it be scrapped at ten years of age?
We have Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV's at work and what a load of shit they are. Poor build quality absolute crap mpg when on petrol and shit range on electric.
tom200 - Member
A Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV does 150 odd MPG
Honest John says 68mpg.
Honest John says 68mpg.
Mitsubishi recon 158! I don't know anyone who gets better than 34, quite a difference. Also about 6 miles range on electric only, so if your commute is that short you would be better off cycling anyway.
Does anyone know how much a new battery is for one of these hybrids costs?
Mitsubishi recon 158!
NO THEY DON'T
They are obliged to do the official government test cycle, and that's what the results say. They even say that on the website. They are NOT claiming that it will do 158mpg!
Bloody hell, people.
I don't know anyone who gets better than 34, quite a difference. Also about 6 miles range on electric only,
I know one person with one, and in *hybrid* mode, he gets mid 60s. And the electric range is 30 miles.
You only need to spend a few seconds behind any vehicle over 10 years old to realise keeping old vehicles going is not the answer. I would still argue low cost, low weight functional transport frequently recycled as something better comes along is the way to go.
Don't forget that the original diesels were designed to run on whatever crap combustion oil was thrown at them.
Yours SVO.
Why don't VW, etc re-program the cars with the emissions/pollution algorithm that they used to fool us?
And I still think that we need roads czars in each city to reign back private car use.
If you ran a delivery company, would you place each parcel, destined for a city, in their own car.
Or would you just place them in as few vehicles as possible?
A lot of the problem is down to suburbanisation.
The cities are less densely populated, and people still need to travel into the cities, but the public transport infrastructure to permit this has been lacking.
Easy on the drama Grips. Have you seen the Explore PHEV page on Misubishi's site? The big bold 156MPG? That's not Mitsubishi protesting about the rubbish euro tests they're forced to use.
They are obliged to do the official government test cycle, and that's what the results say. They even say that on the website. They are NOT claiming that it will do 158mpg!
Bloody hell, people.
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
Your are right. Definitely not claiming 158mpg.
Have you read their website?
Ok fair point, it might be hidden a bit more than those other numbers, but there's a FAQ answer that all but admits it's bollocks.
Only the big bold letters. Are you telling me that figure taking up nearly 25% of the front page is misleading?
if cars where just transport they would be much cheaper.
Your wright, cars r just **** fodder 4 us fikko nobbas who no nuffink
Of course, on the other side of the coin, had you actually studied this whole problem as I have you would see that there isn't a single simple solution. It's actually quite complex and requires a complete change of attitudes and behaviours that have been ingrained (in the UK at least) over the last 40 odd years. We need a multi-modal public transport system that is convenient, reliable and afforable for those in high population density areas whilst in low density areas we need priavte transport solutions that cover the same bases. Some of that can be covered by legislation (but requires the backing of popular consent) whilst others require innovation.
Whoever called out suburbanisation - spot on, another problem.
sited beside motorways. Around here all the former railway marshaling yards are houses. Given the nimby shouting over 1 new high speed rail line through rural England good luck getting a national rail distribution network re-built in the suburbs.
Explain that no new railways = no goods in the shops. Especially if the limit on car speed was run ahead of this. It would require some proper planning though which our politicians are averse to.
Yup. A tactical error, that- a lot of the anti-carbon debate became about peak oil and lifespan, because it was seen as a persuasive argument to transition away. And it was persuasive- just that instead of persuading people that we should stop burning oil, it persuaded people that it's OK to obtain it by any means from any location, because we're running out.
Unfortunately, green activists don't tend to understand economics - once necessity dictates enough demand then the economics of scale kick in and it becomes economically viable to extract materials that would have once been incredibly expensive. It's the same drive that will one day see us mining asteroids and the moon - what did these people expect?
They expect a more thoughtful world that can grasp the damage being done. Their mistake is that the world is full of people that don't (want to) care or understand, oblivious, not inteligent enough, or who think it's a con.
Hmmmm so far we have very few real world alternatives (given the laws of physics they are very difficult to deliver) that don't have massive price premiums (real and exploited for profit), require subsides to work, have hidden and not so hidden compromises of use, use massive amounts of embedded energy, require fossil fuel burning maintenance and parts, don't deliver the power and/or endurance required with vested interest groups and evangelical early adopters distorting and lying about real world performance.
The whole energy situation is plagued with the same problems. Currently it's all just band aids and moving the problem around, whilst the smug I've got a hybrid and walk to work, draw up punitive measures against the rest of the environmental terrorists 🙄 same old same old.
Aside from commuting, I think a lot of difference could be made if more people could be persuaded to replace short journeys by car with walking or cycling. Too many people think nothing of taking the car on a 2-mile round trip.
Not far from us, Next have built a large out of town store adjacent to a pre-existing M&S and Tesco with a massive car park. Next have built their own car park separated from the pre-existing one by a huge long fence, effectively forcing you to move your car if you want to visit both shops. Except I scrambled through the flowerbeds and over the fence
😀
Modern retal parks are a nightmare.. many a time I've scrambled through a bush because they're so badly designed.. do they really expect people to drive from M&S to KFC when they're only 50 feet apart as the crow flies?
I think that's the real problem. Lots of people out there who actually believe that and it becomes self fulfilling.we have very few real world alternatives
[quote=mattyfez ]Modern retal parks are a nightmare.. many a time I've scrambled through a bush because they're so badly designed.. do they really expect people to drive from M&S to KFC when they're only 50 feet apart as the crow flies?
I was staying at a hotel in Charlotte NC and wanted to go to a little shop just over the highway. I asked the receptionist the easiest way to get there and it involved a 3 mile drive. She just couldn't understand I wanted to walk and, to be fair to her, there was no way of getting there on foot without scaling two high fences and running across 6 lanes of traffic.
Mattyfez- it reminds me of being in the US on business and my hotel was separated from the shopping mall, restaurants etc, by a 50 m stretch of grass with a fence down the middle. No footpath by the very busy highway at the front. No path across the grass. They actually expect you to get a cab! Of course, I walked across the grass and scrambled over the fence. Must've looked a right idiot!
Madame would like a T6 Cali with a petrol engine, I'd like a 40kWh Zoe. We'll stick with a petrol estate until a clear winner emerges.
Someone mentioned the petrol bills with a petrol T6 but if you can afford a Cali you won't even notice the fuel bills on the bank statement. The battery hire and charging for the Zoe cost about the same as the petrol for a T6, buying an electric is a public health choice not a financial one.
Of course the production of batteries for hybrid electric vehicles is horrifically environmentally unfriendly not to mention the human cost involved in mining things like the lithium but given the mining and the ultimate disposal of the batteries takes place in third world countries we can all sit back and be smug about how 'clean' our vehicles are becoming.
Until they master hydrogen powered cars I'm sticking with petrol.
[i]Only the big bold letters. Are you telling me that figure taking up nearly 25% of the front page is misleading? [/I]
Would it be better if it was on the side of a bus? 😉
Agree about the car park thing. There seems to be zero consideration for pedestrians in most new developments. Separate car park for everything making sprawling sites. Then the planners complain about someone's extension not matching the mock Tudor Barret homes.
dannybgoode - MemberUntil they master hydrogen powered cars I'm sticking with petrol.
This is one thing that I wonder about... I think awareness that there's a transition away from carbon coming is now pretty good. But we seem to be doing it in little half-assed chunks. So frinstance, if we push people from diesel today, it's largely going to be to petrol not to zero emissions. And if it's to electric, it's still a fairly flawed electric with its own private environmental catastrophe. (though, o'course, car-sized lithium batteries are very recyclable) Realistically it'll lead to the scrapping of perfectly good cars and the production of more new cars, some considerable costs to individuals, for a short term air quality improvement but no progress- in fact, probably setbacks- towards the longer term goals. So where is the cutoff point? Incremental gains may not be worthwhile but we can hardly say "let's do nothing til we've got the perfect answer"
These things have often run into unintended consequences. The one that always half-amused, half-appalled me was catalytic convertors for sports bikes- in the mid-2000s they rapidly became ubiquitous, and then a huge percentage of owners took them off and sold them to scrappies or stuck them in the garage, sometimes completely unused, and fitted race cans. Often the cats were specifically designed with easy replacement in mind. Total madness.