And yet "elect us and we'll give you better alternatives to your car" would be popular with people who feel they've often no feasible alternatives to wasting their time driving because the roads have been made too unnecessarily dangerous and mass transport too awkward. I think politicians are lagging behind in realising just how little people like sitting in traffic jams and how unhappy they are at more and more countryside being lost to motorways.
That was a stupid idea for the road tax (hehehe) to be based on CO2 the way it was.
No mention in these articles about the Euro6 diesel engines and new SCR cats that are fitted to Mercs and Vauxhalls currently and will be standard in the next few years. These reduce NOx emissions to near zero
Don't forget you get taxed twice on diesel and petrol. Fuel duty is levied first, then VAT (on the inflated price - not the other way round).It is. The vast majority of the cost of fuel [around 60%] is simply tax. All the huff and blow about the profits of the oil companies etc made by the government and others is simply a big smokescreen. The actual amount the 'profits' make to the price of a litre of fuel is minimal.
As always, there's pros and cons re petrol/diesel cars.
My Astra 1.6 SRI is really pokey from low speed, accelerates really well...but it does lag higher up the rev band, a bit wheezy as meta ion says...but it does 45mpg easily, I can squeeze 50 if I drive real careful.
My son has a 1.9 CDTI SRI vectra, bloody thing goes like a rocket...but in every diesel he's had, the maintenance costs are higher, fuel is dearer of course and he's replaced the DMF in each of his last diesels...plus clutch plus water pump because its silly not to, you risk potentially big bills.
Gain in one hand, lose with the other.
Only if the filters are serviced. No emission check on diesels-just smoke- and no component checks at all on MOTs.
I've heard they're going to check CO2 output from cyclists soon.
As long as they don't check for, and tax, methane emissions![]()