OT: Car Tax

I've only owned two diesel cars (2.2l honda with manual box and 3.0l audi with auto box) before dieselgate when I got worried about where taxes were heading and retreated to petrol.

Mine's off the road at the moment (main dealer wanted to fit a £4k replacement part, but I'm happy sending the part off to get rebuilt for £250 plus a couple of hours labour to a small garage for them to remove and refit).

Meanwhile I've got a hire car, they upgraded me to a BMW X1 (small SUV,

Economy is surprisingly good, nearly 40mpg tootling round town and to shops; 55mpg without really trying on fifty mile A-road trips, will see how it does on motorways later this week ...

Electric motors are usually around 90-95% efficient in normal operating range Even a cheap POS chinese can motor will be 70%.

However, once you factor in the gas power station effiiency of 60%, a diesel hybrid will probably use less fuel overall.

Until it explodes at Luton airport.

I think operated correctly diesel - especially turbo diesel - can do a fair bit more than 40%

Only if you have economy 7 and you don't run out of electrons during the day. And of course, road electricity doesn't get taxed like DERV. Raw cost of DERV is around 6p/kWh

Utter tosh.

It is perfectly possible to make smart meters that can send and receive control signals from any device using power that has the same capability.

How do you think plug in ethernet extenders using powrrline adapters work ?.

Possibly not, actually. In my hybrid Auris, the long term average is 55mpg. If I do a journey across country of one to two hours in duration (such as Canterbury to Lewis) it's easy to get in excess of 60mpg, and that's with no particular driving technique other than sticking to the speed limits and anticipating when to brake or slow down.

I didn't think that type of journey would be especially good for a hybrid? You'll use up all the battery in a few dozen miles, then the engine's got to lug the flat battery around?

The Auris is a hybrid (battery range a mile or so), not a plug-in hybrid.

A full hybrid will be charging the battery too. The battery gets used at lower speeds (although I've gone along a dual carriageway at 50mph on battery ony for quite a way), and when there isn't too much load. But most (often all) of that gets put back when braking.

I do hope you mean *Lewes*, or you have been speeding!

Ha - thanks, yes, I looked at that as I typed and it looked a bit odd. The last two years we were doing that journey quite a bit, to the extent that our long term average moved up a couple of mpg. Late in covid it became apparent that FiL was in dire straits - so, many visits required to sort him out, and eventually clear the house for sale. That was when I had the experience of seeing a grand piano reduced to rubble.

I started doing that journey (to Brighton) in 1970, and have been doing it ever since. I've stuck to the cross country route (with minor modifications over the years) as it's more predictable and more relaxing than the motorway route (including the M26/M25 junction).

When I started, Lewes had no Phoenix Causeway (which became my route until the Cuilfail tunnel opened). Not to mention all the A27 dual carriageway.

On the downside, the useful public loo in Burwash has closed, although the Biddenden one is still there. And there's a useful Asda, with loo, in Heathfield.

Amen to that.

Sounds like you stick to the A28, then. We tend to go Wye, Boughton Lees, A20, Hothfield, Pluckley, and then Smarden Bell Road, Hareplain Road, A262 to Sissinghurst. Then Hawkhurst, Hurst Green and Etchingham, after which point the road is quite fast. I used to try avoiding Hawkhurst by going via Benenden, but the road is awful. As is the A28 after Ashford, these days.

Not quite. I go from Herne Bay, so it's A299, A251, Pluckley, Badlesmere, cut south-west along Faversham Road to miss Challock, coming out at the top of Charing Hill. Down that to the bottom, left along the A20 for a few hundred yards, then Pluckley, bypass Smarden slightly to the north (Smarden Bell Road), Biddenden (loo possible here), Sissinghurst, etc. Once in Brighton I use smaller local roads to get where I want, as the Lewes Road has been draedful for years.

It is perfectly possible to have electricity at 5p a unit using nuclear power.

There you go again, confusing technical feasibility with commercial or political interests.

Sadly the price I pay for a luxury sports saloon is 33mpg. I don't do many miles, but heck I enjoy the ones I do... tax , insurance , MOT and services cost me more than the diesel does..

Lugging weight around is not so bad as having to accelerate it without getting the energy back under braking. Hybrids almost make sense. (Until they do a 'Luton')

non road taxed gas oil is about 90p/litre. 9pkWh

Even electricity is taxed but its price varies every 30 minutes, rarely one can be paid to take it,

its gone up recently. heating oild was around 60p ex tax.

Indeed. But not if one is a consumer

Octopus customers on one of the "intelligent" variable tariffs can but I have no experience.