US motorists

[AtW]

Any vehicle that's a gas guzzler should have a huge tax levy imposed on purchase.

You talking about tax on petrol of course? Its hard to jack it up in a short period, votes won't tolerate that -- they would be more content with 1,000 US citizens killed in Iraq every year.

[BoredBloke]

"I think it would make more sense to put a tax on the purchase of vehicles that do not meet certain efficiency levels."

Why isit always tax tax tax. This shower have seen the money raised by taxation go through the roof but it still isn't enough to cover their half @rsed polisies. Yet they still want more. Personally I'd like to see them spend what they get properly before they come asking for more.

[AtW]

I think taxation is a good tool IF it is applied to change behavior, not to rack in profits -- for example change in UKs company car taxation to be done based on fuel emissions helped create Diesel boom -- this is helping reduce fuel usage as well as CO2 emissions. Great stuff, just drop duty on diesel by 20p and this would make everyone with a bit of brain to upgrade and overall upgrade can cut down car's fuel usage by 30%.

However brown scum is looking at this with scare as he primarily uses fuel duty as means of stealth tax, he is scared now that people buy into diesel and they will be using less fuel thus giving him less revenues.

[BoredBloke]

But they create the boom, only to jack up the duty. Diesel used to be cheap. Now it is more expensive than petrol. Also, isn't there a calculation for diesel company cars where the tax payable is increased because diesel cars produce emissions which were too low. I could be wrong on that though!

[AtW]

But they create the boom, only to jack up the duty. Diesel used to be cheap.

I agree -- but that's why I specifically qualified that taxes are good tool to change behavior, but its pointless if taxation exists for the sake of taxation, in which case once behavior is changed taxes will be raised to negate benefits to consumers for the changed behavior.

In so far as company cars are concerned I know that diesel cars attact lowest Benefit in Kind tax because of their inherently lower CO2 emissions. The was extra bonus for EURO 4 diesels, but i think it goes away, still even without bonus it makes sense going diesel -- less fuel used and lower overall BIK. That's why Jag was fked recently as they did not have diesel.

Either way going diesel still makes sense since savings are very high and Brown will have to tax diesel so much higher that it won't be politically acceptable, ie petrol 99p and diesel 140p -- he won't go that far.

[planetit]

Over here, we're going to stand outside a few oil refineries for 10 minutes.

Actually you're not.

You are going to moan about it on the internet for 10 minutes.

[pkrol]

Americans dont care about rest of the world

I been living in usa for 16 years and as far as I can say about florida gas station you can pay inside after you pumped, some gas station require pre-pay after 8 pm. They have increase number of people here driving off without pay.
When I told my office co-workers that most europeans think that they should start driving more efficient cars I heard what I always here from americans, which is "we dont give flyink fu..k what others think about us", and "we are number one". USA is most arrogant, selfish country and society on planet earth. There is not sight of trying to curb on SUV's here all of them want and dream to have one. But as you know in america everything has to be big.

[Rebecca Loos]

tell them that in 15 years time, most cars sold in the US will be Japanese or European and they won't even have the choice as to what to drive. So then maybe they will give aforementioned flying ****. Maybe.

[Lucifer Box]

Even slack-jawed hillbillies are entitled to an opinion, but if that opinion is "no one ain't goin' tell me what to do" they can't really complain about "high" petrol prices.

[Sionner]

Diesels more economical?

"Either way going diesel still makes sense since savings are very high" - not always true. The figure which makes more sense is "cost per mile", which takes into account all costs, e.g. purchase price, depreciation, running costs etc. So, when diesel is dearer than petrol, and new diesel vehicles are noticeably more expensive than their petrol counterparts (except the S type Jaguar!), the cost per mile doesn't start to become advantageous until something like 40000+ miles have been covered.

I personally find the clatter of diesels offends my sense of mechanical excellence, which aspires to the "silent" running of machinery. The diesel version of my car (Mondeo) was £1500 more expensive that my petrol version. You can go a long way on £1500's worth of petrol, and when taken into context of the difference between the price of petrol and the price of diesel, and the difference in consumption, the 40000 miles mentioned above is a very minimum I'd have to travel to return my original investment.