Diesel in the news again!

I saw today the Transport Secretary, was talking about diesel cars. He said drivers should think carefully as to what car they buy, choosing low emissions vehicles if they were going to be driving in cities.
Of course the media jumps on this as another nail in the coffin for the 'dreaded' diesel! However before all the petrol engine owners sit back smugly, this is just the thin of the wedge. The new London 'T' charge applies to both older diesel and petrol vehicles.
The media I have no doubt will turn its attention to petrol in due course. Then when we are all converting to Electric, they will start to talk about the environmental effect of battery production, and the disaster further down the road when all these lithium ion packs start to die and need replacing with some kind of environmental effect accordingly.
Given that Euro VI diesels are about as clean as a petrol, this blanket press coverage on 'all' diesels is the typical load of garbage that the media use to get the readers attention and then subsequent revenue.
I could go on about the hypocrisy of all of this, but hopefully my points already are clear enough and will attract some additional comments.

i have a yeti diesel back home as a daily driver and it does 60 mpg which has to be better for the environment than a petrol engine car like my 3200 which does 20 mpg. There never seems to be a reasoned approach to these things. I also agree that the battery crisis with electric cars is just around the corner.

As a company car driver when I got my car last year I wanted petrol but they tax was far higher than diesel. So if they want to get people of diesel then address this....I would say most diesels are company cars. I would say when mine is due to change it may be cheaper to go for a petrol.

I took this as a warning that there is going to be something in the budget that will try to make running diesels more expensive. Increased road tax or the like.


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Thing is the government has pushed the company car driver into diesel so if they do up the tax it needs to be on new purchases.

Andyk said:

Thing is the government has pushed the company car driver into diesel so if they do up the tax it needs to be on new purchases.

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I think that too. It's likely to come in quick though rather than having a delayed introduction.

There was also talk of a scrapage scheme for older cars. It's all speculation at this stage though

In terms of older cars. Expect to see more places look at schemes similar to London's T charge.


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I don't have a issue with it as long as it's fair and if it means if eventual gets me into a petrol company car....unless of course they up tax on both and want us all in Nissan Leafs.

Typical Maserati. Diesel dominates the mass market for a decade or two, and by the time Maserati join in, the party's over. Maybe this will help them realise that some people want a petrol Levante.

Will it matter as I would imagine the UK is only a small sales regio for Maserati maybe and as it will be a U.K. Thing they will still sell a loads of diesels else where ?..... Remember when I was at the factory Italy could get enough of the diesels.

I'm hoping that it will tip Maseratis hand into bringing the petrol Levante over here. They already have decent petrol engines in the Ghibli and QP


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It would make sense Mick.

The London Mayor is always on the local news talking about restrictions on Diesel cars.

His latest push is to add another £10 per day on the congestion charge for them which I suspect he will do by the end of the year along with further extensions to the Low Emmision Zones.

They are also looking at the home delivery market as the rise in Amerson et al has caused a significant increase in the numbers of white vans...all running on diesel.

As others have said, there is a scrappage scheme in the pipeline as I have heard other staff discussing this in the Dept Trans. This is either going to be based on the euro emissions rating or age based (10 years).

As a company car driver, that actually uses the car for business not just s perk to get to work, it is pretty grim.
My BMW is due a change, from this April the BIK will be 27% on the new list price which was £34K, back in 2010, it is now actually worth £8K with 116K miles.
Unfortunately my employer buys the company cars and only changes them when they become unreliable, and it isn't!
The problem now, all the new cars are just as bad regarding emissions and BIK figures.....unless you get a plug in hybrid and it is 7%. The problem is the cost of the plug in hybrids are eye watering and just not affordable.
So I am bitter about the situation, especially as I only do around 5K a year personal miles and around 20-25k business miles in the car.

We were out yesterday looking at new tow barges and Diesel is really the only option most don't even do a petrol version and those that do will be down to single digit MPG when towing. I hate satans fuel but there are few alternatives.

Also the amount of diesel used by in private cars must be substantially lower than that used in the commercial sector - lorries, vans, farm equipment etc. etc.

As usual government making misleading statements and passing the blame back to someone other than themselves.

The new diesels are so complicated too these days, and will be a nightmare in years to come.
My uncle has a new VW Caravelle, he has to fill it will the adblue stuff, and it has an afterburner thingie that runs every so often, again something else to do with the emissions.
The wife's Volvo V40 D4 has been into the dealers several times with emission problems, the last time it dumped a load of oil all over the drive, again something to do with the emission system, and the dealer admitted the current new generation diesels have been 'problematic'!

The answer to congestion and environmental problems is to charge more money , it's worked well so far , London has no congestion at due to the CC, you can drive around like it's a private road

The roads outside of the capital are also lightly used because of the 80% duty on fuel so making it more expensive works well

Who gets paid a fortune to think this **** up, public transport is a joke outside the M25 , if we all stopped driving to work the country would be bankrupt in a month.

Smart motorways may be the answer but not at the expense of safety by incorporating the hard shoulder

Millions spent on HS2 that needs to be spent on improving the motorway network.

Wack61 said:

Smart motorways may be the answer but not at the expense of safety by incorporating the hard shoulder.

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Don't get me started on Smart motorways!! As I regularly drive the M42 between the M40 & the NEC I can't believe how misunderstood these things are. People driving in lanes with red crosses above them, people using the hard shoulder when it clearly states for emergency use only, people coming down slip roads and not seeing cars speeding down the hard shoulder etc. etc. Too many times have I seen accidents happen and just get avoided all due to incorrect use of the hard shoulder on these so called Smart motorways.

The motorway might be smart but the users certainly aren't

zagatoes30 said:

The motorway might be smart but the users certainly aren't

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This is the worst thing about them. Though I'd have to say if you can't understand that a big red cross above the lane you are in means you shouldn't use it then you should have the keys taken off you and your licence revoked. That bit isn't exactly difficult.

The big test is when there's a serious accident , when I say serious I'm talking a 50 vehicle pile up in fog like on the M42 a few years back , how are the emergency services going to get there with all 4 lanes full of stationary vehicles, sure they'll close lane 1 but where are 500 cars and trucks going to go if it's gridlock

Wack61 said:

The answer to congestion and environmental problems

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What makes you think that that's the 'problem' they are trying to solve?

C