Is derv in for a price hike this year!

hotpot

Oh er missus! final written warning & looks like we've been told to sit on the naughty step.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38980510
I think I need a BEV (battery electric vehicle)for my next car, since retiring I do very little mileage & one of those (I've been looking at the Nissan Leaf) looks like a good bet as there seems to be quite a few of used ones around that have just come off leases. Hmmm! decisions.

Sambostar

It's a well known fact that it blows in from France and sits over the UK as there is always a foggy low depression around here.

RandallFlagg

Oooh handbags!

hotpot

Sambostar said:

It's a well known fact that it blows in from France and sits over the UK as there is always a foggy low depression around here.

I say we all piss in their general direction Monty Python style.

boogieman

Hiking the price of derv simply won't make people give up their diesel cars.

What about buses, taxis and lorries? Are they suddenly going to go electric too? Until they solve the issue of decent battery life and being able to travel a realistic distance, electric vehicles aren't the solution at the moment. They need to be working on hydrogen cell technology as a viable alternative but that's at least a decade off. 

robgilmo

boogieman said:

Hiking the price of derv simply won't make people give up their diesel cars.

What about buses, taxis and lorries? Are they suddenly going to go electric too? Until they solve the issue of decent battery life and being able to travel a realistic distance, electric vehicles aren't the solution at the moment. They need to be working on hydrogen cell technology as a viable alternative but that's at least a decade off. 

Lots of busses run on hydrogen.

ICBM

boogieman said:

Hiking the price of derv simply won't make people give up their diesel cars.

No, but increasing the price to properly reflect its higher carbon content, and removing the road tax discount, might make them think twice about buying a new one.

boogieman said:

What about buses, taxis and lorries?

At least the technology which has been developed to make diesel cars "clean"(ish) won't be entirely wasted because it can be applied to those. I've already noticed some buses have been fitted with no-idle systems. If that was applied to all lorries and delivery vans it would probably make a significant difference in towns.

As with all these things there will be a lead-in time, but since most vehicles don't have a life expectancy of much more than ten years these days any start has to be a step in the right direction which will work though in a few years.

crunchman

There are a couple of bus routes in London that are electric now, and a couple more that are meant to be going electric this year.  New black cabs will have to be petrol hybrids from Jan 2018.  Given the number of black cabs in the city that will help a lot.  They might need some kind of a scrappage scheme on the old ones though. You don't want them driving around for another 10 years.

In the short term, petrol is the solution.  It might give off marginally more CO2 (although in real world situations I'm not sure there is much in it) but it gives off a lot less nasty particulates and NOx.

I've said it in other threads already, but it's wrong to heavily penalise drivers who have already bought diesels under existing tax rules in good faith.  What you can do without hurting anyone is increase road tax on newly registered diesels.  Set it at £100 per year extra - £2 per week.  For those who genuinely need to drive diesel it won't kill them, but for someone who does 10k miles per year it would make a diesel more expensive to drive than a petrol.  It would also be less desirable second hand  three years down the line.  It would halve the sales of new diesels overnight.

I would put 1p a litre rise on diesel duty as well.  It would be largely token, but it would reinforce the message.

Sporky

All this nanny-state interventionist fantasising makes me want to buy something with a diesel V8. Who wants to chip in to get me a smoke-belching sportstractor?

webrthomson

Good to see the government sponsored love of Diesel working out well, ...

Oh hang on wait

Certainly in Glasgow we could start by having about 50% less empty buses charging about the place!

hotpot

I really am thinking my next car is going to be a BEV, It's really a no brainer in my situation, I don't have a commute anymore & rarely do more than 2000 miles a year between MOT's.

I can charge overnight on cheap rate, and the charging network is huge nowadays nationwide, It maybe slower than you can refill at the petrol station but then again I'm retired & in no hurry anymore. Hell I can even plug in on most supermarket car parks which have designated charge bays for nowt whilst I do my shop  these days.

I think diesel cars are going to restricted as to where they will be able to drive in the not too distant future especially cities, then it will be towns & it will snowball.

No tax on BEV's & cheap as chips recharging is hard to ignore, for me anyways.

Bidley

... dafuq is 'derv'?

hotpot

Bidley said:

... dafuq is 'derv'?

It's what I've always known it as, it's he Brit name for diesel oil.

RandallFlagg

hotpot said:

Bidley said:

... dafuq is 'derv'?

It's what I've always known it as, it's he Brit name for diesel oil.

Diesel Engined Road Vehicle

boogieman

robgilmo said:

boogieman said:

Hiking the price of derv simply won't make people give up their diesel cars.

What about buses, taxis and lorries? Are they suddenly going to go electric too? Until they solve the issue of decent battery life and being able to travel a realistic distance, electric vehicles aren't the solution at the moment. They need to be working on hydrogen cell technology as a viable alternative but that's at least a decade off. 

Lots of busses run on hydrogen.

Fair enough, but I heard the other day that there are currently 3 hydrogen filling stations in the whole of London. They need to get hydrogen cell cars sorted, a few buses really aren't going to make much difference to air quality. 

rlw

boogieman said:

robgilmo said:

boogieman said:

Hiking the price of derv simply won't make people give up their diesel cars.

What about buses, taxis and lorries? Are they suddenly going to go electric too? Until they solve the issue of decent battery life and being able to travel a realistic distance, electric vehicles aren't the solution at the moment. They need to be working on hydrogen cell technology as a viable alternative but that's at least a decade off. 

Lots of busses run on hydrogen.

Fair enough, but I heard the other day that there are currently 3 hydrogen filling stations in the whole of London. They need to get hydrogen cell cars sorted, a few buses really aren't going to make much difference to air quality. 

Pretty much every car could run on hydrogen as it stands, although storage is an issue.
Hydrogen cells are the future, not battery, except for short distance urban driving.

m_c

RandallFlagg said:

hotpot said:

Bidley said:

... dafuq is 'derv'?

It's what I've always known it as, it's he Brit name for diesel oil.

Diesel Engined Road Vehicle

Or in the context of this thread, Diesel Excised for Road Vehicles.

Sambostar

Transit self hate haters.  Chip fat

Sambostar

Sporky

rlw said:

Pretty much every car could run on hydrogen as it stands, although storage is an issue.

Not sure you can run most cars on it - or, rather, you need fairly extensive modifications. From Wikipedia:

"The differences between a hydrogen ICE and a traditional gasoline engine include hardened valves and valve seats, stronger connecting rods, non-platinum tipped spark plugs, a higher voltage ignition coil, fuel injectors designed for a gas instead of a liquid, larger crankshaft damper, stronger head gasket material, modified (for supercharger) intake manifold, positive pressure supercharger, and a high temperature engine oil. All modifications would amount to about one point five times (1.5) the current cost of a gasoline engine."

Plus hydrogen is very low density so you get about half the range of a diesel for the same tank size.

stickyfiddle

I don't believe hydrogen is the answer. Investment is moving so heavily into research for solar and batteries that it's almost inevitable that it will be what actually becomes the standard. I don't see any advantages of hydrogen compared to electricity once we get batteries with higher density of storage. 

Between Uber-type services and driverless cars I don't think most people will actually own their own car in 30 years either.