Am I Silly to buy a petrol or diesel car now, to hold for the next 5yrs+?

CoastingHatbox

Many factors play a role in life expectancy and I suspect in London there's a big divide in life expectancy relative to wealth. Mean average LE in isolation is probably not a good statistic for evaluating the affects of air pollution on health.

My point was that things are a bit more nuanced than ULEZ == bad.

macman

Wealth is the biggest factor in determining life expectancy by far. ask the actuaries: you'll get a vastly better annuity quote if based in the east end of Glasgow, rather than Kensington. London obviously has some very deprived boroughs, but the considerable wealth in many others means that the average Greater London income is much higher than anywhere else in the UK.
The point in favour of ULEZ is that it is relatively easy to measure air pollution, primarily particulates, and then see whether it is improved by the ULEZ measures. 
It's much more difficult to say exactly what the effect on life expectancy would be, but London's air is particularly bad because of the density of traffic and population, and it's geographical position in a river basin. So, if you are going to start cleaning up, it's the obvious place to begin, just as London did with the first Clean Air Act of 1956. 

sevenhills

Grumpy_chap said

The London ULEZ will be implemented in 2023 and will also have a ripple outward those who live in the home counties and need to drive into outer London.
So, there will be a bulk disposal of non-compliant vehicles replaced with compliant alternatives.  Must be EURO 4 (petrol) or EURO 6 (diesel)
Potentially, then, the charge has done the job and could be dropped in 2025.  The number that then sell their newer car to buy an older one would be miniscule.

The non compliant vehicles will go to other areas of the country.
I believe most have cancelled their clean air zones, because the air is getting cleaner without them

Herzlos

Remember the youngest non-compliant diesel is 8 years old now, and the youngest non-compliant petrol is 17 years old now. With an average age of about 14 years before being scrapped.

So what's left will be bought up by people who don't need to go into an LEZ, and will likely be phased out before LEZ's apply everywhere (if ever).

seatbeltnoob

Mutton_Geoff said:

Bigwheels1111 said:

Two simple answers

Do you have a driveway so you can have a charger fitted, If so EV should work.Depends on how far you drive etc.

If not Diesel it is again.

PHEV is the second worst idea I've every heard of, first place goes to the new Nissan and VW that use a petrol engine to charge the battery that drives the car .

Are you sure those PHEVs charge the battery from the engine?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoZN828qnp8

This guy is an idiot and thinks he knows more than he does. He did a video about how bad stop start is and how it burns more fuel than it saves.

Then engineering explained did a video and produced test results which showed that starting the car uses about 7 seconds of idling fuel so stop start definately saves fuel.

He since disabled comments on that video, he disables comments on a lot of his videos.

seatbeltnoob

macman said:

I see no evidence that residuals will 'fall off a cliff' after 2030. ICE vehicles after that date can continue to be driven until they reach the end of their natural lives, and, if built from now onwards are likely to be clean enough to pass any future ULEZ standards. With more EV's on the road, air quality should improve, even with a proportion of 'dirty' ICE cars still on the road. So ULEZ zones may become irrelevant in time.
The only unknown is what might happen to fuel prices, both in terms of the world price for oil, and what increase in fuel duty the govt might impose once the tipping point has been reached for the no. of EV's on the roads, and the need to decide how to replace the missing £26bn in fuel duty. 
Servicing, spares and repairs to ICE cars will probably get proportionally more expensive as their numbers dwindle, with EV's requiring far less maintenance. 
There is sufficient capacity in the grid to deal with overnight charging, which will account for the bulk of demand.

yas, driving a 20 year car now.

diystarter7

Bigwheels1111 said:

Fuel prices of all types will go up.
When all cars were petrol and it was say £0.60p a gallon.
Only vans and lorries were diesel, diesel was £0.30p a gallon.
Then diesel cars began to be popular.
Up went diesel to match petrol over the next 10 - 15 years.
People switched to LPG and up went LPG prices.

Hello

Exactly that and the road taxes are due to kick in as advised in the recent budget.

I also fear that some of the older eltric or cheaper cars that hold less pwer may give up on the motorway in freezing cold weather after a heavy snow fall/accident etc and to keep warm you need to run the heater. In sizzling weather, a friend of ours got caught out for almost 7 hours on a motorway and they were to buy an EV but an  experience changed their minds and atm with the same, petrol car.

As things stand I would not buy an EV and I read an article the other day eV cars prices were crashing.

Thanks

[Deleted User]

Grumpy_chap said:

CoastingHatbox said:

It's thought 9% of premature deaths in London are caused by air pollution. 

If London is so polluted as to be causing premature deaths, the rest of the country is not doing as well. 
According to this data, London is the second-longest life-expectancy for UK regions, slightly bettered by the South East but in equal second place with South West:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/lifeexpectancyforlocalareasoftheuk/between2001to2003and2018to2020#constituent-country-and-englands-regions-comparisons


The Mayor also bleats on about high levels of deprivation in London.

I don't condone any cause of premature deaths, but how many premature deaths are there in London?  
What does 9% of that number equate to?
How is the link to these premature deaths arising from air pollution established?  
Why do all those rural areas with "clean fresh country air" have lower life expectancy?

Life expectancy is irrelevant - it would be higher if there weren't premature deaths

The total is 9,400 estimated in London. There is also the cost of care for these people which is estimated £1.4-3.7bn a year to the NHS. Add on also the the respiratory illnesses it can cause, make existing ones worse and it's a danger for young and old especially. High levels of NOx can stunt the growth of kid's lungs as well as pulmonary disease and lung cancer.

macman

seatbeltnoob said:

macman said:

I see no evidence that residuals will 'fall off a cliff' after 2030. ICE vehicles after that date can continue to be driven until they reach the end of their natural lives, and, if built from now onwards are likely to be clean enough to pass any future ULEZ standards. With more EV's on the road, air quality should improve, even with a proportion of 'dirty' ICE cars still on the road. So ULEZ zones may become irrelevant in time.
The only unknown is what might happen to fuel prices, both in terms of the world price for oil, and what increase in fuel duty the govt might impose once the tipping point has been reached for the no. of EV's on the roads, and the need to decide how to replace the missing £26bn in fuel duty. 
Servicing, spares and repairs to ICE cars will probably get proportionally more expensive as their numbers dwindle, with EV's requiring far less maintenance. 
There is sufficient capacity in the grid to deal with overnight charging, which will account for the bulk of demand.

yas, driving a 20 year car now.

So carry on driving it. You don't nee to be concerned about ULEZ unless you intend to drive within the zone. 
Yes, there are a few cars on the road that are 20 years old or more, but  they are in a tiny minority and that can't determine policy for the majority.
Cars of that vintage tend to be low mileage anyway.

Grumpy_chap

macman said:

So carry on driving it. You don't nee to be concerned about ULEZ unless you intend to drive within the zone. 
Yes, there are a few cars on the road that are 20 years old or more, but  they are in a tiny minority and that can't determine policy for the majority.
Cars of that vintage tend to be low mileage anyway.

I am also currently using a >20yo car (25 yo actually).
I live in the area that is being drawn into the ULEZ zone, so knackered there.

My FiL drives a 2014 diesel, also lives in the future ULEZ zone so also knackered.

I agree with your comment that the cars are a small number and generally driven fewer miles.  However, presumably, the cars that are caught can't be that small a minority as there has been a massive investment to catch them and apply a charge.  If the numbers of vehicles were that small, then they could be allowed to just dwindle out with time.
Although I agree with you, we could both be wrong.