Government To Investigate Taxation On "electric Road Fuel"

[Paul]

Interesting news in this mornings Times supplement

"Prime minister Teresa May has confirmed reports that the Government are looking at ways of introducing a higher rate fuel duty on electricity used for the propulsion of commercial and private vehicles. The U.K. Treasury is set to lose an estimated £3.5bn over the next five years as electricity, currently subject to 5% VAT increasingly replaces fossil fuels with tax levels in excess of 70% Prime Minister Teresa May confirmed that she had already consulted cabinet colleagues about methods to identify electricity used as road fuel and enable fuel duty to be applied. It is believed that the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is the only one who has currently put forward any firm proposals. "I believe the best method would be to colour Electricity used for road fuel in the same way we have done with Diesel for agricultural use, a system which has worked well for many years" he said. "We all know normal electricity is blue, perhaps that used for road fuel could be coloured green?" Meanwhile Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Gove confirmed that discussions were "well underway" and that replacing the lost revenue is one of government's main priorities for the remainder of the current term. When asked if this could effect any other forms of transport he added "I think Boris (Johnson) has the best ideas on this yet, and especially like his thought on colouring propulsion fuels. If this is successful with electricity we may be able to move it into other forms of transport, such as differently coloured wind for the propulsion of sail boats"."

[grendel]

perhaps the railways will also have to adopt the new electricity taxation rate.

we know that wind turbines produce green electricity, perhaps wind energy should only be supplied on the green/ yellow wire, then coal can be provided on the red wire, and nuclear on the black.

[Guest]

I know its April 1st and all but actually tiered electricity pricing will happen in the future, its what smart meters are for.

[grendel]

well perhaps if you dont want to pay the higher tariff on the coal (red) energy, you should disconnect the red wire in all your plugs.

[Guest]

Just now, grendel said:

well perhaps if you dont want to pay the higher tariff on the coal (red) energy, you should disconnect the red wire in all your plugs.

Okay, just tried that and now nothing works, I'm still online because I'm using a laptop and getting internet via my phone, but what am I going to do when the batteries run out, help!

[grendel]

Ah that must be because you havent signed up for a green tarrif yet.

[stumpy]

I think it was Robert Heinlein who said "Solar power will only become mainstream when government discovers how to tax a sunbeam"

[JohnK]

well perhaps if you dont want to pay the higher tariff on the coal (red) energy, you should disconnect the red wire in all your plugs.

So if you connect the green / yellow wire to all the connectors in your plug you’ll be using the cleanest electricity with no coal or radioactivity in it?

Those smart meters are amazing aren’t they? You wouldn’t think they’d be able to tell one type of electron from another. Is it their colour?

[tjg1677]

What about calor gas though, do we do away with positive and negative and just have in and out instead ?

[Wonderwall]

All joking aside, if the government want us all to drive electric cars, where do they expect all the electric to come from ?

The grid is already maxed out , adding to it , isn't reallly a viable option .

[grendel]

In london we are having to run cables up to 6.5 km to get a point of connection with enough capacity for some developments.

most car charging points take a larger capacity than several houses, so every house supply would have to be upgraded to support car charging.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, grendel said:

In london we are having to run cables up to 6.5 km to get a point of connection with enough capacity for some developments.

most car charging points take a larger capacity than several houses, so every house supply would have to be upgraded to support car charging.

And an upgrade to the power generating capacity to meet this increased demand.

[JohnK]

And an upgrade to the power generating capacity to meet this increased demand.

We’ve got loads of spare generation capacity haven’t we?
Loads of coal fired stationed are mothballed or hardly running at the moment.
Whether you’d want to use coal powered stations is another question. There’s some irony if we need coal produced electricity to run electric cars!

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, JohnK said:

 

We’ve got loads of spare generation capacity haven’t we?
Loads of coal fired stationed are mothballed or hardly running at the moment.
Whether you’d want to use coal powered stations is another question. There’s some irony if we need coal produced electricity to run electric cars!

 

Very ironic; look at my car...zero emmission I really am doing my bit for the environment and the planet; except hundreds of poor sods living near the fossil fuel power stations are getting choked to death

[grendel]

that said, if a car is well maintained and regularly driven, it too can have low emmissions, I wish my 18 year old volvo was taxed on its measured emmissions, at my MOT last week the CO emmissions were 0. 00% (0.2% allowed)and the hydrocarbons were 1ppm (200ppm allowed) at neutral idle  the CO was still 0.00% (0.3% allowed), so even an old car with 220,000 miles on the clock can run clean - though the 120 miles a day round trip to work clearly helps here. probably helps the fuel economy too. and no emmissions from the electricity generation either.

[Paul]

15 hours ago, tjg1677 said:

What about calor gas though, do we do away with positive and negative and just have in and out instead ?

Now Calor Gas is completely different, let me explain.

Gas comes in three different coloured bottles, red which contains propane, blue which is butane and yellow which is trump gas, but ....... it's not just the colour of the bottle that will determine the allowable use but also the colour of the gas inside.

If you have a red bottle full of green gas that can only be used for barbecues and patio heaters, whilst a red bottle full of red gas can be used for anything except road transport for which you will need a red bottle full of blue gas, as opposed to a blue bottle full of red gas which can only be used for camping stoves and gas lanterns. If you have a blue bottle full of green gas that can only be used for boating and caravan applications whilst a blue bottle full of blue gas should only be used in radiant heaters. If you have a Yellow bottle full of red gas you can use that for any commercial purpose except for fork lift trucks for which you will need a yellow bottle full of blue gas. A yellow bottle full of green gas should only be used for gas lances, weed killers, bitumen lances etc and if you have a yellow bottle full of orange gas you've eaten too many baked beans.

I think that's cleared that up

 

[Siddy]

Electric car /vans ain't there yet, The Nissan van could get me from Leeds to Newcastle with 10 miles to spare if you belive the spec, now could I go under the tunnel like I do now with headlights on or drive round with no lights but longer it would be iffy. Day to re charge before trying to get back. Plus wouldn't get to the Broads.

Whilst filling up a few weeks back up there this female pulled up in an elecric BMW and stuck petrol in the front, I said isn't this electric she said yes but I have a little petrol engine that tops it up with an 7 litre tank I think she said. She also has to pay full tax on the car due to the little engine.

I asked how far she could go and it's around 70 miles. Also said she'd been down to Alton Towers in it from Newcastle I asked how long did it take to charge on route. We did it all the way on petrol filling up as we went. What's the point?

 

 

[Paul]

A friend at our local cricket club has just bought a Tesla, ex demonstrator for close to 70k and he's very upset with it. He was promised a range in excess of 265 miles based on worst case scenario, cold weather, heaters and lights on etc. This was quite important to him as his parents live 125 miles away and he wanted to be able to visit them without having to recharge. First attempt and he ran out of charge six miles short of home. 

He's also very unhappy about the speed it charges. Despite having the Tesla home charger installed it takes twelve hours to fully charge from empty. Hardly the "overnight" he was given to believe,

[finny]

Wow 70k - high end Range Rover tackle ..........i know what seat finnys bum would be sat on 

 

finny

[Paul]

Yes, there are many forms of motor transport available for £70k, and I think Floyd is wishing he had chosen anything other than a Tesla

 

[Siddy]

They'll have to improve on mileage to make it worth while, I stop at Scotch Corner for 10 mins and there's 2 charging points but only ever seen one used at once (so far) so that's sat there 30-60 mins they go for a drink £££ plus (could be wrong here) a connection fee to plug in and what charge you take so now it's £££££.

Will services turn into high level solar farms where you park under to charge and a few turbines spinning above to maintain enough power to supply.

I had a new power supply installed to supply a large fast shut door at work, I ensured it had enough spare duty on the supply ready to install a couple of chargers in our under ground car park when they demand it.

Remember how they extended the mileage of the steam engine by it collecting water in between the rails at different locations, well we'll be dropping into the inside lane on the motorway to drop a brush to pickup charge on a live strip.

 

[JohnK]

There was talk a while ago (and a trial I think) of putting devices in the road at traffic lights etc. Your electric car needed an extra device too and when you stopped over it it worked like a wireless phone charger and gave your car a little top up.
No brushes or open connection needed.
I’m not sure they were particularly efficient or practical but they did work I think.

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, JohnK said:

There was talk a while ago (and a trial I think) of putting devices in the road at traffic lights etc. Your electric car needed an extra device too and when you stopped over it it worked like a wireless phone charger and gave your car a little top up.
No brushes or open connection needed.
I’m not sure they were particularly efficient or practical but they did work I think.

It has been done with buses.

The supercapacitor electric bus is adopted in China

Supercapacitor electric bus

China takes the lead in adopting the all-electric bus equipped with supercapacitors.

The Chinese company Sunwin, a joint venture between Volvo and China's largest automaker SAIC had already made a big publicity stunt in 2010 by providing 61 electric buses using supercapacitors to serve the World Expo 2010 of Shanghai.

Buses with supercapacitors of Sunwin brought in their 2010 version an autonomy from 3 to 6 km. Supercapacitors are then charged on each bus stop with a pantograph (like a tram). 30 seconds are enough to charge the bus to 50% and it takes 80 seconds to charge to 100%.

[JohnK]

Isn’t that a battery alternative rather than charging technology?
I’ll try and find the one I was thinking of.

[JanetAnne]

20 hours ago, grendel said:

that said, if a car is well maintained and regularly driven, it too can have low emmissions, I wish my 18 year old volvo was taxed on its measured emmissions, at my MOT last week the CO emmissions were 0. 00% (0.2% allowed)and the hydrocarbons were 1ppm (200ppm allowed) at neutral idle  the CO was still 0.00% (0.3% allowed), so even an old car with 220,000 miles on the clock can run clean - though the 120 miles a day round trip to work clearly helps here. probably helps the fuel economy too. and no emmissions from the electricity generation either.

All vehicle emission data is based on the use of the vehicle and never includes the environmental impact of the actual manufacture of said vehicle or the cost of scrapping at the end of life.

I believe you can run your Volvo for another 50 years and do less damage to the planet than if you were to trade it tomorrow in exchange for a somewhat short lived Prius!