High Fuel Costs - Any Changes In Your Driving Habits?

serbarry · August 24, 2022

Since mid March I have been cycling to work every day except when it rains. Since I bought the GS in December I noticed that a full tank lasted 25 days approximately and over 100 euros, so I have decided to buy a used bike for 60 euros and especially I have discovered the "green way": a path for pedestrians and cyclists which is actually a good short cut (approximately half the distance than by car) from home to the workplace compared to the usual path by car. The cost of the bike, the lock, the pump and the helmet was less than a full tank for the GS and now I also do some exercise and enjoy the weather when it is good. Anyway I am planning to go back to drive the GS during winter as I don't like cycling in the cold.

javadude · August 24, 2022

Not yet. Still driving as much and as enthusiastically as before although that's cause I'm still on a good fixed-rate deal for refuelling at home (5p/kWh which is equivalent to about 1.5p/mile or 500mpg). That ends in November and while electric should still be cheaper than petrol I suspect I'll pay a bit more attention to how far my right foot goes down given how electric prices have been rising. There might be a bit less fun.

Linas.P · August 24, 2022

7 hours ago, javadude said:

Not yet. Still driving as much and as enthusiastically as before although that's cause I'm still on a good fixed-rate deal for refuelling at home (5p/kWh which is equivalent to about 1.5p/mile or 500mpg). That ends in November and while electric should still be cheaper than petrol I suspect I'll pay a bit more attention to how far my right foot goes down given how electric prices have been rising. There might be a bit less fun.

Just wait for them to add duty on electricity and see what happens then.

javadude · August 25, 2022

13 hours ago, Linas.P said:

Just wait for them to add duty on electricity and see what happens then.

I can't see it happening as it'll affect all domestic electric use and if they try to use smart metered usage people will just plug into a 3-pin. The likely solution is some kinda of pay per mile for everyone with a higher rate for petrol/diesel. Because of climate change EVs are never going to be equal in taxation to ICE. The tax breaks will continue to erode though so in that respect its better to make the move sooner rather than later. Not easy given the small number of used cars at the moment though.

Malc · August 25, 2022

2 hours ago, javadude said:

EVs are never going to be equal in taxation to ICE

:whistling:

Malc

Bluemarlin · August 25, 2022

Never say never, but probably not in the lifetime of most (if not all) on here.

Las Palmas · August 25, 2022

While fuel costs have not changed our driving habits, price for electricity certainly has. Now looking at the app telling price for electricity per hour, having made us use washing machine, and dishwasher at different hours and tumble dryer is almost not used at all, hanging clothes to dry outside instead. Worst is that the price seems to be continuously climbing. Here water will soon be more expensive as the sea water we have in tabs here are desalted and they probably use a lot of electricity doing that.

serbarry · August 25, 2022

28 minutes ago, Las Palmas said:

Here water will soon be more expensive as the sea water we have in tabs here are desalted and they probably use a lot of electricity doing that.

A good thing in Ireland is that we don't pay for water.

Las Palmas · August 25, 2022

3 hours ago, serbarry said:

A good thing in Ireland is that we don't pay for water.

Maybe not directly, but maintenance of filters, pumps, tubes and personnel can hardly be completely free.

serbarry · August 25, 2022

1 minute ago, Las Palmas said:

Maybe not directly, but maintenance of filters, pumps, tubes and personnel can hardly be completely free.

All businesses and commercial activities such as bars, pubs, restaurants, clubs, hotels, B&B, swimming pools, and any business consuming water to run the business pays the water bill. Families and domestic homes don't pay for the water. I suppose all the maintenance of the water network and the staff are funded with the money coming from the businesses which pay.

Las Palmas · August 25, 2022

8 minutes ago, serbarry said:

All businesses and commercial activities such as bars, pubs, restaurants, clubs, hotels, B&B, swimming pools, and any business consuming water to run the business pays the water bill. Families and domestic homes don't pay for the water. I suppose all the maintenance of the water network and the staff are funded with the money coming from the businesses which pay.

That certainly is something that would be nice to have other countries copying.

Malc · August 26, 2022

10 hours ago, Las Palmas said:

That certainly is something that would be nice to have other countries copying.

maybe there's the issue that if people personally don't pay there will be some amongst them who won't worry about wasting the stuff ....... taps running willy nilly, hosepipes running amok etc and wasting the god given stuff ............... :unsure:

Malc

Las Palmas · August 26, 2022

1 hour ago, Malc said:

maybe there's the issue that if people personally don't pay there will be some amongst them who won't worry about wasting the stuff ....... taps running willy nilly, hosepipes running amok etc and wasting the god given stuff ...............

Malc

You have a point there.

Still water is not really lost. It just needs cleaning before can be drinking water. So what is wasted is energy to clean it, but if evaporated and falling down as rain again it is good as new; better than desalted sea water.

serbarry · August 26, 2022

2 hours ago, Malc said:

maybe there's the issue that if people personally don't pay there will be some amongst them who won't worry about wasting the stuff ....... taps running willy nilly, hosepipes running amok etc and wasting the god given stuff ...............

Malc

This is true and actually 10 years ago when the government introduced the water bill also for domestic houses and families (it lasted only 2-3 years), people cared about fixing leakages and paid attention to not waste the water as they had to pay for it. Nowaday probably nobody cares and actually I would not be surprised if someone is running a B&B in his house and not declaring it for not paying taxes and water bill.

Rabbers · August 26, 2022

13 hours ago, serbarry said:

… any business consuming water to run the business pays the water bill…

I think this thread has strayed a bit OT, but since we’re on the subject of water in Ireland, would I be right in recalling that Guinness successfully lobbied for a lower water rate? Which, of course, would be only right and proper, culturally, sentimentally, and economically.

serbarry · August 26, 2022

You may be right but I am not aware of it.

Linas.P · August 26, 2022

On 8/25/2022 at 2:04 PM, javadude said:

I can't see it happening as it'll affect all domestic electric use and if they try to use smart metered usage people will just plug into a 3-pin. The likely solution is some kinda of pay per mile for everyone with a higher rate for petrol/diesel. Because of climate change EVs are never going to be equal in taxation to ICE. The tax breaks will continue to erode though so in that respect its better to make the move sooner rather than later. Not easy given the small number of used cars at the moment though.

I wouldn't be so sure about it.

Goverment considered two proposals, as far as I know neither was voted on, but they will. Reason is that as you say they still want to promote BEV for time being, but it won't last forever. I am confident that if ICEV ban will be implemented on 2030 as they said, one of the proposals or both will be put forward.

First proposal is road tax per mile/minute, but counter intuitively the more traffic there is on the road the more one have to pay. So effectively it will punish us for government incompetence on building sufficient road capacity. Exact cost is not known, has not been discuss or agreed, but likely to be similar to using taxi. So basically take your current journey, but into uber app and see how much it will cost. And in peak time it will obviously be more expensive.

Second proposal is to add duty on electricity used for charging vehicles. Hence you have smart electricity meter at home (read T&Cs they can adjust your electricity supply at any point) and that is why government has banned non-smart car chargers last year. So with combination of smart charger + smart meter they will know exactly when you charge the car and that will pay different rate from your normal electricity. Even worse - you may plug your car in in the evening and in the morning it will have less charge because they decided to use your car Battery to supply power to where they deemed to be more important. Could you plug it into standard 220v socket - yes, but if you have electric car then you know this is not viable option as it would take days to charge it, maybe viable if you have plug-in hybrid, but you would still technically be committing crime (same as using red diesel on road) by using your own electricity, at your own home, to charge your own car. Yes I know sounds ridiculous, but that is in plans and mostly implemented already.

If you think this whole BEV thing has anything to do with environment then I am sorry but you are a little bit naive. BEVs are not solution for environmental issues, because private cars are very small contributor in the first place, that is not to say BEVs are not slightly environmentally friendlier (but just very slightly), but the problem is that cars are not the issue in the first place. Car ownership for government is simply cash cow and that is how they see it, they never cared about environment, they just used environment as an excuse and justification for punitive road taxes and duties. So they won't just lose £40bn a year to BEVs, they will find the way to extract that money out of you once ICEV owners are no longer major tax payer.

Good news - this likely won't happen until at least 2025-2035 (depending on how quickly BEVs are adopted), so you may enjoy low tax environment on BEVs for another 3-13 years.

Malc · August 26, 2022

2 hours ago, Linas.P said:

so you may enjoy low tax environment on BEVs for another 3-13 years.

methinks until the next Budget when Liz or Rishi will be recovering from wheresoever the softening energy prices that are going to be imposed on the Providers

" watch this space "

Malc

Linas.P · August 26, 2022

2 hours ago, Malc said:

methinks until the next Budget when Liz or Rishi will be recovering from wheresoever the softening energy prices that are going to be imposed on the Providers

" watch this space "

I doubt about the second part, because there are simply too few BEVs around for it to be profitable and it would undermine their ecomentalist message.

But pay per mile road tax has been discussed for a while now, although there would be technological challenges to implement it. I personally think they will continue hiking road tax every year for all cars until they are completely priced out from existence.