Mercedes Benz OVERSTATING fuel consumption

JustinR1979

AdrianC wrote: »

The CO2 and consumption figures come from the exact same test. There is a fairly accurate correlation between the two - more carbon goes in, more carbon comes out - but it's not absolutely 1:1.

So in the real world, if they get nowhere near the mpg, they get nowhere near the CO2, so should be taxed more??

AdrianC

JustinR1979 wrote: »

So in the real world, if they get nowhere near the mpg, they get nowhere near the CO2, so should be taxed more??

Well, since the only sensible way to work CO2 taxation is to go off the results of a standardised test...

JustinR1979

AdrianC wrote: »

Well, since the only sensible way to work CO2 taxation is to go off the results of a standardised test...

Not disputing that, can only go on the standard

sh0597

The fairest way to tax CO2 production is to increase fuel duty. The present system is imperfect for a few obvious reasons.

FiremanDave

sh0597 wrote: »

The fairest way to tax CO2 production is to increase fuel duty. The present system is imperfect for a few obvious reasons.

Fairest way?

Just stop the lowest and free tax bands is fair.

sh0597

Surely the only fair way is to aim to tax people for the CO2 they actually produce. Which happens to be largely governed by the amount of fuel they consume.

uniqu3

sh0597 wrote: »

Surely the only fair way is to aim to tax people for the CO2 they actually produce. Which happens to be largely governed by the amount of fuel they consume.

Not at all. If that were the case then you'd save the motor industry probably £10 billion in development over the last 15 years.

FiremanDave

sh0597 wrote: »

Surely the only fair way is to aim to tax people for the CO2 they actually produce. Which happens to be largely governed by the amount of fuel they consume.

Or food they eat, clothes they buy, the list is endless if you tax the haulage industry like that.

So really the fair way is to tax none drivers for the CO2 they don't produce?

Joe_Horner

FiremanDave wrote: »

Or food they eat, clothes they buy, the list is endless if you tax the haulage industry like that.

That bit's easy. You tax on fuel, but allow hauliers to run on red like farmers do (or some other discount / rebate scheme). However you do it, it really isn't hard to give taxes back to a certain sector.

HUGE boost to haulage (and so good for the economy), and probably not much loss in revenue seeing as so many people fail to get the figures quoted for fuel consumption / emissions so would end up paying more depending on their driving style.

uniqu3

Joe_Horner wrote: »

That bit's easy. You tax on fuel, but allow hauliers to run on red like farmers do (or some other discount / rebate scheme). However you do it, it really isn't hard to give taxes back to a certain sector.

HUGE boost to haulage (and so good for the economy), and probably not much loss in revenue seeing as so many people fail to get the figures quoted for fuel consumption / emissions so would end up paying more depending on their driving style.

At which point the whole system would become unfair and the motor industry would be severely disadvantaged.

Easy test:
20+ year old Citroen AX diesel - 60+ mpg
New Fiesta 1.6TDCi - 60+ mpg


The Citroen AX will output closer to double the CO2 emissions of the fiesta. There's plenty of further comparisons to be made, but essentially it would be a massively unfair system. CO2 emissions are based on much more than MPG, so I can only hope that no one with the power to do so would ever introduce such daft ideas into legislation.

You also have the comparison of petrol CO2 emissions versus diesel CO2 emissions when comparing MPG, penalties for people using strimmers, mowers, generators........

Then you could also start thinking about the fact that VED is another tool to prevent uninsured cars from swanning around - removing it would cause more problems than it would solve.