£1.40 a litre

Kohoutek

vivatifosi wrote: »

Any idea why the figure is 5x higher for Japan? AIUI the landmass is approximately the same as ours and the population double, so why such a high figure, especially when a lot of Japanese people drive little cars too.

It's not that large of a gap in the 2009 statistics given the population differences, the UK is 1.7m barrels/day, Japan is 4.4m barrels/day.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/united_kingdom/oil.html

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/japan/oil.html

The rest of the difference can probably be partially explained by the UK's diesel imports that ess0two referred to (i.e. importing diesel from foreign refineries as well as importing crude oil and converting it to diesel in a UK refinery). I think Japan is the opposite – it has too much refinery capacity and exports some of the diesel and petrol its refineries produce. Japan also has a much larger heavy industrial sector than the UK, which would create account for greater demand for petrochemicals.

A._Badger

I would guess that Japan lacks the same diversity of electricity generation sources (coal, gas, nuclear - let's not embarrass anyone by mentioning wind). Though I haven't checked that is actually the case.

RenovationMan

isnt the UK the best placed country on earth for harvesting the wind?

johnny_storm

It would be a nicer country if kids walked to school and people got a job closer to home, and poor people werent clogging the road up slowing my commute from 25 mins to 45 mins. On the buses peasants!!

vivatifosi

johnny_storm wrote: »

and poor people werent clogging the road up slowing my commute from 25 mins to 45 mins. On the buses peasants!!

Per DH, they can't get on the buses because they are full of pensioners with free passes;).

BettiePage

Local petrol station is currently £1.33.9 for diesel and £1.29.9 for petrol.


Supermarkets (10 miles away) aren't much cheaper either. Our petrol costs have probably gone up by £10pw in the last year. Getting to the stage we're only making necessary trips. Or we're at least thinking twice before going out just for the hell of it.

GRM

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

If a company pays for an employees personal fuel, there are significant tax liabilities for the employee. I don't recall the detail, but the break even point for taking that option is something like 20,000 personal miles for a typical car.

A 40% taxpayer driving a company car with a 19% BIK rate (fairly standard) will pay £114 a month in additional income tax for the fuel card.

That's less than 9000 private miles a year in that typical car. A company fuel card is a no-brainer in the current climate if you're offered one.

MrsWassire

We live in very rural NE Scotland, bought a car in 2009 - we only had £500 so got the car that was in the best condition, out of all our options. Sadly it gets about 20mpg despite being very luxurious inside.

Of course, now I can't sell it. Can't afford to buy another until mine sells. Don't see what other options I have!

Procrastinator333

GRM wrote: »

A 40% taxpayer driving a company car with a 19% BIK rate (fairly standard) will pay £114 a month in additional income tax for the fuel card.

That's less than 9000 private miles a year in that typical car. A company fuel card is a no-brainer in the current climate if you're offered one.

Well, shows what happens if the last time you looked at something was a few years back!

lazer

Has anyone seen this article,
I think its a great idea - but then again, living in N.Ireland, I would

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12203099

I do think if this does go ahead, it needs to be used sensibly, I think the discount should only be given for miles driven to work, not unnessecary journeys.
This could be given as a tax deduction through company payroll systems possibly.