paul1609
Established Member
Beat me to it, other Network Rail Executives Offspring Schools are available!Eton's a bit further, unfortunately!
Beat me to it, other Network Rail Executives Offspring Schools are available!Eton's a bit further, unfortunately!
That engine doesn't nearly sound big enough for a large vehicle! Is it turbocharged?
Eton's a bit further, unfortunately!
It is indeed turbocharged, like pretty much all small capacity engines that are appearing/have appeared in medium and large vehicles. Puts out 200PS/280Nm (though it's available in China, where the 3 cylinder engines are built before being shipped to Halewood, in a very eco-friendly 160PS spec FWD as the entry level model)
Interestingly the 1.5 3 cylinder in my Fiesta makes 200PS and 290Nm so very similar. It’s a lot for a small engine; 20 years ago you’d have been looking at a 2.0 turbo or 3.0 V6 to get similar figures (the engine is very tuneable too!).
My statement was maybe just a bit too strong, I should have added 'in urban areas'. Of course outside cities, cars are the only feasible way of transport and don't cause problems (if electric).I'd say "cars can be a problem when used in the wrong context". They are very useful and they neither should nor will go away completely, though switching them to pure electric is the right way to go to remove pollution at the point of use.
City centres are not the place for them, of course.
The Netherlands is maybe a bit different from the UK in this regard, though:
I think in many ways the North West of England is like a mini-Netherlands, but obviously the hills limit the usefulness of the traditional bicycle.
- It's a small country
- Transport demand is a web, and the railway and complementary bus services provide for that
- It's flat, so cycling is easy and pleasurable
- It's mostly built-up and so journeys tend to be short and places where a car is a negative are much more common
They are indeed very popular in the Netherlands and mean people can cycle longer distances, also when they have some underlying health condition. Many school children use them nowadays to cycle for example 10 miles to their school.Hills in many English towns are not so severe to prevent someone of average fitness to make a short journey of 1-2 miles, the kind of journey the Dutch typically do on their heavy bikes. In any case, hills can be overcome by electric bikes, but bizarrely they are far more popular in the Netherlands where they don't really need them!
Yes, I think so too, see what I mentioned to Bletchleyite. Towns such as Nottingham have similar size, types of neighborhoods etc. I think buses are more important in the UK, while cycling is more important in the Netherlands.I wonder if the differences between England (in particular) and the Netherlands are exaggerated (mostly by people who like things to stay they way they are). Vast regions of England are heavily urbanised and British towns are compact. They were mostly built before the age of car dependence so are dominated by narrow roads and terraced or semi-detached housing. It is nothing like the US where even poor people live in detached houses with large gaps between houses.
This is absolutely true. Most people own and use a car. My household doesn't have one, but we are the only ones in our street to not have a car. I live within walking distance of an large station, but also near the ring road and motorway. So most people use the car. In the 4 large cities as they are often called (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht) car ownership is lower and having a car really impractical, but the rest of the country is car-oriented.I've actually heard Dutch people justify the need for road building in the Netherlands because they don't have a huge city like London where it is easy to justify rail construction and where car usage is impractical. The Netherlands may be urbanised, but the vast majority of people live in small to medium sized towns near a motorway or main road, meaning that almost all trips between towns can be carried out by car with relative ease. There are nearly always gaps between towns, meaning there is space available to fit in new roads. And they've built and widened a lot of roads in the last decade.
22 years ago you could get an Audi with a 1.8T developing 225PS, tuneable to 250+.
(I may or may not have had one )
That’s a decent output for a sub 2.0 engine back then. Didn’t they get it to 250PS from the factory in the very last of the first generation cars?
In 1984 the Ford RS200 managed just over 250PS from a 1.8T but that engine was rather special I suppose….
Could a tax on DC fast chargers with say >50kWh capacity rather than indiscriminate road pricing be an alternative to funding the growing gap in VED from electric car owners?
Why should it? If we want to moderate usage, then road pricing (or at least a mileage-based fee roughly equating to fuel duty) is the way to go.
The advantage of road pricing is that it isn't indiscriminate - little village roads in an area with no public transport could be free, but roads into city centres at 8:30am could be £10/mile, and it could also exempt certain classes of user, e.g. blue badge holders. That would drive behaviour we want to see, for example if you live in a rural area with no public transport you should be encouraged to park and ride into the city rather than just driving all the way.
Much easier political pill to swallow for one.
I think the optics would be better if the goal of the tax was travel more sustainably, rather than travel less.
It would also incentivise the use of solar panels to charge at home or EV charging at off peak times at home, evening out electricity demand.
Will this be enforced by everyone having a GPS linked black-box phoning home to the DVLA, or Congestion charge style cameras literally everywhere?
That is fair enough. I understand well what a granular road pricing scheme tries to achieve, same as peak/off-peak tickets on trains or anywhere else for that matter.The two are interlinked and cannot be separated. Let's use a practical example around Cambridge. Imagine you live in, say, the village of Woodhurst, just north of St Ives, which appears to have a three-journey "shopper bus" service and nowt else. Imagine that it was free to go to St Ives, because that's your nearest town with local services and there is no useful bus service for most purposes, but then that the A1307 and A14 into Cambridge for 9am was £2 per mile, say (the £10 example was a bit silly). You're going to drive to the Park and Ride and use the Busway, aren't you? That's the kind of thing we want to achieve from such a scheme.
It's just a shame that most green policies revolve around punitive measures. No longer is life better for subsequent generations; I have to travel less or pay more now.Of course, road pricing wouldn't just be for EVs, but also for petrol and diesel vehicles, so you would pay twice, effectively. EV now seems more attractive, doesn't it?
Great, so now my right to privacy is in tatters too. Or I pay more to not have it infringed? I hope for that last suggestion it will be an open-source standard that is mandated....GPS linked "black boxes" are likely to be the way. For those who don't think they are being tracked everywhere when driving anyway (due to the amount of ANPR coverage) and so argue privacy, an alternative could be offered of simple per-mile payment at a high rate, I suppose.
It could be done with privacy, anyway, with the "black box" doing the calculation itself based on downloaded maps and timebands and just reporting back the current "balance" periodically to ensure nobody was "messing with the clock".
It's just a shame that most green policies revolve around punitive measures. No longer is life better for subsequent generations; I have to travel less or pay more now.
"Better" is relative - people who live in busy areas of towns will have a "better life" without all that pollution.
And travelling more by trains and bicycle or ebike or even escooter is a better life than driving too!"Better" is relative - people who live in busy areas of towns will have a "better life" without all that pollution.
Great, so now my right to privacy is in tatters too. Or I pay more to not have it infringed? I hope for that last suggestion it will be an open-source standard that is mandated....
ANPR is already tracking you everywhere. You do not have any privacy when driving a motor vehicle. If you require privacy (at least until facial recognition CCTV becomes prevalent), you can walk, cycle or use public transport or taxis paying cash.
ANPR is already tracking you everywhere. You do not have any privacy when driving a motor vehicle. If you require privacy (at least until facial recognition CCTV becomes prevalent), you can walk, cycle or use public transport or taxis paying cash.
Could a tax on DC fast chargers with say >50kWh capacity rather than indiscriminate road pricing be an alternative to funding the growing gap in VED from electric car owners?
And travelling more by trains and bicycle or ebike or even escooter is a better life than driving too!
Debatable, but each to their own!
On a serious note, and I’ve made this point before, there’s a risk of killing off what’s left of our high streets if people can’t drive to them. If people can’t throw their bags etc. in the boot of their car they’ll go to a retail park instead. This is already an issue and needs consideration.
The mayor of Stevenage was keen to remove all free parking from the High Street in the Old Town. He was quite rude about people who disagreed with this plan. He is now the ex-mayor, lost his seat on the council in the recent electionsOn a serious note, and I’ve made this point before, there’s a risk of killing off what’s left of our high streets if people can’t drive to them. If people can’t throw their bags etc. in the boot of their car they’ll go to a retail park instead. This is already an issue and needs consideration.
Probably more one for the planning system, i.e. not to allow large developments when there is not a realistic plan in place for fewer than 50% of users to travel there by private car or taxi on a perpetual basis.
Another option would be a ban on free parking other than perhaps at supermarkets.
The mayor of Stevenage was keen to remove all free parking from the High Street in the Old Town. He was quite rude about people who disagreed with this plan. He is now the ex-mayor, lost his seat on the council in the recent elections
This is a nasty issue. Time and again, it is demonstrated that fewer cars means higher footfall means higher sales, plus also some delivery service sales for large goods for people who do not want to drive to collect using one of the retained loading bays, because in reality despite what some say, people do not spend as much time shopping in streets that are effectivly treated as long thin car parks. So the quickest way to kill the high street shops is to keep using the street as a car park instead of a town street for people to walk, cycle, chat with friends, sit down and eat at cafes and bars, basically linger and shop, but the perception pushed by both motorists and shopkeepers is the opposite! Why?On a serious note, and I’ve made this point before, there’s a risk of killing off what’s left of our high streets if people can’t drive to them. If people can’t throw their bags etc. in the boot of their car they’ll go to a retail park instead. This is already an issue and needs consideration.
There are ways a black box could respect privacy. For example it could download the rate per mile for each road it travelled on, and only upload a running total of the user's remaining credit without indicating where they are - or even keep everything on board except a notification to issue a penalty if driving with expired credit (easier and less hazardous than just cutting the power). If users wanted a journey history they'd obviously have to enable upload of the necessary geographic data.
That doesn't allow for the "where you drive matters" element: there's no way of knowing whether you've driven 10 000 miles on B-roads or through central London.Wouldn't the easiest way be to just have this box keep a running total of total charges incurred, and then just check it every year at the MOT and issue a bill from the increment over the last check?
This is a nasty issue. Time and again, it is demonstrated that fewer cars means higher footfall means higher sales, plus also some delivery service sales for large goods for people who do not want to drive to collect using one of the retained loading bays, because in reality despite what some say, people do not spend as much time shopping in streets that are effectivly treated as long thin car parks. So the quickest way to kill the high street shops is to keep using the street as a car park instead of a town street for people to walk, cycle, chat with friends, sit down and eat at cafes and bars, basically linger and shop, but the perception pushed by both motorists and shopkeepers is the opposite! Why?