doomed..enjoy your last years

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

'The UK needs to create a new motoring tax to plug the revenue gap as drivers switch to electric cars, MPs have said. The government should tax motorists based on miles travelled as the use of petrol and diesel vehicles decreases, the Transport Select Committee said. If no action is taken this year, the UK faces a £35bn "black hole" in its finances, they said. The Treasury said tax revenues would keep pace with changes prompted by electric vehicle take-up. Sales of new petrol and diesel cars and vans will be banned in the UK from 2030 and sales of electric cars are already soaring. The MPs said charging people based on how much they drive, using technology to track cars' movements, should be considered.'

said this was coming

also said getting ICE vehicles off the road is coming quicker than naive populace thinks

they'll then up the tax on EVs until they are not affordable to use either

and all those eco mummy-daddies rushing to buy EVs are the stupid bastards who are sealing their own fate and everybody elses even quicker

- as soon as the ICE vehicles are the minority they will really whack the tax so severely they will be off the road

stupid smug bastards.........needs people to start on them as the group who were complicit with these metropolitan turds in westminster and made it all too easy for them.........all walking straight along with the westminster tactics

oh yes..........doing it for their children who will never see anything but the 4 walls in their house...........or a crammed works bus...........yeah, real clever

relying a lot on tourism.......scotland will be really fuked.......jimmy will love when it's one big easterhouse........the power of then throwing crumbs to the dumbo populace.......if you obey her

[Cursitor Doom]

They're not so smug when the car malfunctions and bursts into flames, locking the occupants inside to burn to death, as is happening with disturbing regularity now.

[Chris Hogg]

Plenty of examples here

IIRC recent legislation in Germany insists that battery-powered buses and coaches are parked some distance apart to prevent a fire in one of them spreading to the whole fleet.

Battery fires also have significance for cars parked in domestic garages. If the battery spontaneously ignites, you'll probably lose the whole house.

[Tim+]

Tim

[Tim+]

Bravo. Take a bow. Every man and his dog knew this was coming.

Amazing the number of folk here absolutely convinced that electricity taxation was going the be the way forward though.

Tim

[Cursitor Doom]

People fail to understand the terrific amount of energy stored in those EV batteries. When they go t*ts-up, they're extremely dangerous. :(

[alan_m]

One of Guy Martin's TV program highlighted the problems once an EV has caught fire. If the batteries get damaged it may not be a simple matter of just leaving wreckage on the side of the road or just putting it on a flatbed for transport out of the way.

[alan_m]

Eggs in one basket comes to mind. Give it a couple of years grotty summer weather and increased competition from where holidays are cheaper and then much of the domestic trade is lost.

[Tim+]

Which people? You, or just other stupid people? Or could it just be that you?re wildly generalising for dramatic effect?

Tim

[Tim Streater]

I'd say most people - even "clever" ones who haven't thought it through. They also don't appreciate how much energy is stored in a tank of petrol or diesel. This accounts for why they don't get that when I visit my local petrol station, and there are 10 or 12 cars there fueling, the energy transfer rate (from the underground tank into the vehicles) is prolly some 30MW. Understanding that alone should give all electric vehicle advocates pause.

You do get some dimwits who think that petrol is a bit like water. These are the ones who you hear of, from time to time, who carry petrol away from petrol stations in plastic carrier bags or water butts, or who transfer petrol from one container to another at their kitchen table while the gas cooker is on.

[alan_m]

EV fire -- a short Youtube video (4.25 minutes)

While the initial setting of the fire is staged with an older EV, batteries not to current standards and some of the first part of the video may also apply to ICE vehicles it does show later in the video some potential problems with EV fires.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

In New Zealand cigarettes will become completely illegal soon, but now of course the Government has a tax problem. It will always be thus. In the end maybe the fairest way was the so called poll tax, of course there would need to be some kind of help for the poor. So it will be with electric vehicles. Sadly the big losers will be the haulage industry, since they will need to charge more to cover the taxes everyone will suffer except those of us, one assumes who cannot drive. Also its high time cyclists were forced to have registration and insurance since although minor in numbers, they seem to have a disproportionate number of accidents. I'm sure this will increase with /Electric bikes and scooters. At the moment the only bikes affected are those capable of going faster than a man powered one, and that is not enforced.

As for dangerous faults, I'm afraid many cars have this problem with electronic malfunction Electric or otherwise. This is the price of bad design of fail safe systems, its nothing to do with the electric or otherwise. Look at those sports models which use Magnesium and glass fibre in their construction. How can that be safe, a Lamborghini near me was burned out in just over 5 minutes. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Actually, we are all doomed because if Russia does invade its neighbours, the west will be likely to use battlefield nukes, which according to the boffins only take about 5 years to be almost zero radiation in the areas. Trouble is of course all sides still have missiles targeted at the major population centres and its us who will get fried. Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

every cloud etc....

[Andrew]

This was covered by a recent repeat of "Yes Prime Minister" on BBC4. It was the episode about the new health secretaries plan to abolish smoking by banning advertising and putting the price up. Sir Humphrey enjoyed his trips to the opera, sponsored by BTG (fictitious British Tobacco Group) and managed to masterly move the minister of Sport (a heavy chain smoker) to be the new Health Minister.

Before that he laid out the financial 'advantages' of 50,000 people dying of smoking related diseases and therefore saving the cost of their pensions and later life health costs.

Amazingly, this was originally broadcast in about 1985 (AFAIK), and shown once again about 2 weeks ago. Presumably still on iPlayer.

Andrew

[Dave Plowman (News]

I've read a chap on a local group who thinks taxing the electricity used for EVs would be very easy. The car simply sends a signal back up the power lines to tell head office when it's being charged, no matter where.

[Fredxx]

No need if the tax is a percentage of earnings. Ability to pay a tax is crucial. Having said that what is wrong with a property tax?

It is said the haulage industry doesn't cover the damage to roads by HGVs.

Never happen if you want to encourage cycling on the basis if health and greenness.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Just to check. You think they store more 'energy' than a petrol tank in an ordinary car?

[Fredxx]

No, but the petrol in a tank isn't nicely pre-mixed with an oxidiser, so not a good comparison.

It's a bit like comparing a battery to the oxygen in the atmosphere.

[Steve Walker]

I remember seeing a test many years ago (on Tomorrow's World IIRC), when

32 tonners were still the largest HGVs.

They deliberately loaded a truck with the load poorly distributed and drove it along a monitored test road.

The results showed that one poorly loaded HGV caused as much wear and tear damage to the road as 125,000 cars!

Agreed.

I did see figures broken down in various ways (for around 2018 I think), that showed that trucks and vans had high rates of deaths for people not in/on the vehicle, but cars had a rate per billion miles travelled that was slightly lower than that of pedal cycles!