news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7290467.stm
If running "cleaner" cars costs less[?] and they're planning to "show the lifetime cost" of running them; will that include the consumption penalty and huge cost of servicing the emissions junk every 50,000 - or will that be quietly hidden.
[I was shocked to learn that a V8 Wange-Wover costs more to run than a 307 - never knew that...
slight addition to the subject line to show precisely what twaddle was being peddled.
Edited by Pugugly on 11/03/2008 at 22:44
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Far from being 'twaddle' it seems a reasonable enough idea. It would cost very little to compile this information and present it. The AA guy seems to think so too.
After visiting the BR on and off for the last six months or so I'm finding the negativity of nearly every post a bit wearing. There is some really good stuff posted on here, but you have to forage through a lot of garbage to find it.
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>>>> After visiting the BR on and off for the last six months or so I'mfinding the negativity of nearly every post a bit wearing. There is some really good stuff posted on here but you have to forage through a lot of garbage to find it.
Quite right.
From now on we should warmly applaud every government motoring initiative designed at saving the planet, from raising fuel duty and road tax, lowering speed limits and putting road humps and bus lanes everywhere. They are only doing it for our own good.
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My view is it's very easy to care about the planet and penalise drivers when you have a taxpayer funded limo to pick you up and whisk you from door to door, and can bang out ready made excuses about security as to why you can never set foot on public transport .
Ivory Towers? Doesn't even begin to describe the situation.
The day I see ministers using public transport, or even being carried from meeting to meeting in a G-Wiz or Prius is the day I take their lecturing as anything other than pure hypocrisy.
Cheers
DP
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From now on we should warmly applaud every government motoring initiative designed at saving the planet from raising fuel duty and road tax lowering speed limits and putting road humps and bus lanes everywhere. They are only doing it for our own good.
That comment kind of makes my point.
Just because its a government initiative and has an environmental connection doesn't automatically make it bad, evil or even twaddle. A lot of people don't fully appreciate how much running a car will cost them because the spending is in dribs and drabs over a long period of time, and this kind of information is useful, whether you have take the environmental angle or not.
I recently bought a new microwave oven and at the back of the manual was an 'environmental' section. What caught my eye was that the oven took 80W of power all the time it was plugged in. That's over 1.6kWh a day! (or about 16p a day or over £5 of electricity a month just to leave the microwave plugged in). This kind of information is useful to me.
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>the oven took 80W of power all the time it was plugged in
qxman, as an electronics engineer, how can you explain (to a thick automotive engineer) how your new microwave uses all this power on standby?
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I actually like the idea of showing the expected cost of running a car for 10 years in BIG words displayed on a new car. I would also like to see it on 2nd hand cars as well.
I know plenty of people who don't have a clue what the actually cost of running a car is over 1 year let alone over 10 years, hence it would be extremely valuable information for them to be provided with this information and thereby helping them to make a better informed choice when buying a car.
I for one would not buy a car that didn't provide class leading fuel economy and did everything it could to minimise exhaust pollution and contribute to keeping the air we all breath as clean as possible.
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Right!! = You could take every human and all the pollution he has caused, off the earth back until 4000bc, replace all the trees he has cut-down, and just a couple of good volcanic eruptions could replace all the carbon man has ever produced. Global warming/Climate change, call it what you want, but it is down to nature not man, it?s a natural earth cycle.
The ?Carbon creating? combustion engine has only been in existence for a couple of hundred years, and if the world is in such a dire-strait now because of it, no amount of ?green? taxation will stop it quick enough to prevent total annihilation of the Human race. I predict the end of the world due to man-made global warming in 2110ad with ?green tax? at 98p In the Pound. And every one driving around in pedal-cars!
Billy
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Headline is 'lifetime cost', but the figure is 10 years. Excuse me, the numbers of Rolls Royces, Land Rovers (the real ones) and Morgans ever made still running imply a lifetime far in excess of 10 years. The 'greenest' car ever made is probably an early Benz or somesuch!
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Not everyone believes the man-made climate change myth, it's like having a awful religion forced upon you,
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Headline is 'lifetime cost' but the figure is 10 years.>>
10yrs is absolutely ludicrous. We have 5 cars in our family of 4 and the average age is 15yrs [admittedly one is 28]. Greenery would be encouraged by gradually reducing the car licence to zero over 25yrs. [probably wouldn't help the manufacturing industry much, though]
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I can't agree that this is twaddle. It's utter cobblers.
Anyone who buys (to use that example) the Range Rover knows it will be much more costly to run than a Peugeot 307, and either isn't worried about it or has a good reason for their choice.
The Govt advice adds nothing useful, it just continues the hypocritical grandstanding that we have come to expect from politicians of all parties.
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IMO - may be useful to see a "label" such as those used on Fridges which show their energy consumption category. In the case of vehicles, the notice should show the VED emissions category and the current annual VED charge prominently displayed under the price sticker.
Edited by jbif on 12/03/2008 at 08:20
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And creating jobs for people to come up with and produce the data/paperwork/etc of schemes like this.
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I am not a climate scientist, and wouldn't claim to know if the theory of man made climate change has any merit, but the fact is that climate change has become an industry in itself, employing tens of thousands of people and generating billions in revenues and taxation across the world.
There are now entire career paths in this area, with all the Fortune 500 companies recruiting climate change and sustainability consultants and managers in various forms, and setting up environmental policy departments. Then you have the companies springing up all over the place offering carbon offsetting, renewable energy "eco" building designs etc etc.
If climate change were denounced tomorrow as a myth, it would make a significant dent in the global economy. Entire livelihoods now depend on it. For me that means that there is just as much vested interest in the "for" lobby as any oil company backed interest in the "anti" brigade.
And they wonder why so many people view the whole thing with suspicion.
Cheers
DP
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I'm not going to argue climate change.
But any idiot can see oil - and hence petrol and diesel prices - have been rising and rising. (4 years ago we had posters saying oil prices would fall to $30.. where are they now? :-)
So ignoring climate change etc, it makes sense to investigate the running costs of cars before you buy.
Will it make any difference?
Well given the HUGE advertising campaigns on smoking, obesity, drinking etc... I would say: very little.
After all if you read the threads here.. and no-one is FORCED to read anything - about 75% of posts on new cars do not mention running costs.. And here we have people who are interested in cars.
And of course fleet car buyers account for 50% of new cars sold: and they ARE interested in running costs - so half the advertising and stuff WILL be wasted. (Pity the Professor omitted to mention them! Oopsss)
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Who defines 'running costs'?
What about if you don't give a stuff about getting it serviced anyway?
Does it include polish and refills for the air freshener?
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If climate change were denounced tomorrow as a myth it would make a significant dent in the global economy. Entire livelihoods now depend on it. For me that means that there is just as much vested interest in the "for" lobby as any oil company backed interest in the "anti" brigade. And they wonder why so many people view the whole thing with suspicion. Cheers DP
There's no myth about whether it's happening or not, though you can argue about what is causing it.
If they're wrong, then yep, they'll be a huge dent in the global economy. Though if they're right........then there'll be massive global devastation that'll make the old nuclear M.A.D. scenario look like a teddy bear's picnic.
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Sorry to correct the story.
I heard it on R4 , so it must be true, the Range Rover was compared to a Peugeot 305 Diesel Estate.
Not many of those left now.
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Apparently this proposal has been put forward by Professor Julia King. I take it she has a first class honours degree in stating the obvious.
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The problem with a Government "initiative" (how I love this contradiction in terms) like this one is that it's just not linked to reality.
A hybrid car if well designed will emerge from the Government's statistical mangle as a "green" purchase - and be taxed accordingly. We, in the automotive induustry know different and are only too well aware that any major electronics or electrical energy storage device failure on a 10 year old sample will write it off. There's greeness for you.
Not many people buy hybrids, but there is understandably, a rapidly developing market in Third World cars with a low purchase price. Is our Professor savvy enough to inform potential buyers of these vehicles that an ECU or cambelt failure, for example, at as little as 5 years (for a cheap car) will write it off?
Utter useless ill-considered twaddle.
659.
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Has anyone commenting on here actually read Prof King's report (because according to the very lightweight BBC piece it hasn't actually been published yet.)
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Just to clarify [in my oh-so-negative way....] my original point.
The claim that "green" cars are "cheaper to run" is lies, spin, factual inexactitude, being economical with the truth; or, as I preferred to put it.... "twaddle."
Emission-equipment laden cars are far MORE expensive to run - something that is now regularly coming as a shock to their hapless owners and something that NuLabor should be seeking to highlight - not to bury under untrue claptrap. [The dealers' salesmen are doing a good enough job as it is.]
Sorry if some don't like the fact that I'm not being "positive" about outright Government lies - but they have quite enough spin-doctors to do that for themselves.
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"outright Government lies "
except it is not the Government that your original post quotes, but "UK government adviser ... Prof Julia King "
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Given the extensive "news management" apparatus of this Government: if she works for them - she speaks for them.
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To borrow DCameron's The Budget had little to do with Green Motoring and more to do with further Brown Tax rises that we have grown accustomed to over the last 10+ years.
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What Car? already do this on all cars but set over a 3 year period. I have a feeling that it also includes depreciation, which obviously with the case of a new Range Rover after 10 years is going to be somewhat more than 10 years worth of petrol.
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