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Lelabear t1_iyid88k wrote

Reply to comment by Panda_Mon in ‘Cleaner Air Is Coming’ as London Expands Vehicle Pollution Fee to Entire Metro Area by chrisdh79

And its is not like we have been offered a lot of viable options, right? Shame on the whole industry.

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HarryHacker42 t1_iyiyws5 wrote

In the EU, there are so many small cars with high efficiency engines. Even in the USA, they do make the Prius and cars like it. Its not like you have to drive a Dodge Ram Pickup rolling coal.

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I_R0M_I t1_iyjq9qy wrote

It has nothing to do with efficiency (mpg), it's only to do with emissions.

A 5L Supercharged Range Rover is very poor efficency, around 15mpg. Yet its Euro 6. Despite being the the worst tax bracket (based on co2) there is.

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Lelabear t1_iyj0e0h wrote

If they really wanted us in fuel efficient cars they could have phased out the gas guzzlers long ago and developed decent mass transit.

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HarryHacker42 t1_iyj2enu wrote

If you play SimCity, you'll learn the time for Mass Transit is when the city is first developing. To tear up the city and put in mass transit later is really expensive.

The conservatives have been fighting against high efficiency vehicles since oil companies first started bribing them.

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Lelabear t1_iyj40iz wrote

Except we had a decent infrastructure for mass transit with the trolley cars and rail lines when the cities were built, they tore it all up to put in roads and parking lots.

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One-Gap-3915 t1_iyjmyuq wrote

> they could have phased out the gas guzzlers long ago

They have, gas guzzlers are taxed in the U.K. and the car industry is on notice that new petrol cars are banned from 2035 onwards. As a result the U.K. car market has shifted to offer many small efficient city car options.

> and developed decent mass transit.

We are talking about London, U.K. here. It’s literally had highly developed mass transit since at least the Victorian age.

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One-Gap-3915 t1_iyjmj4y wrote

Literally every petrol car sold since 2006 is exempt. London also has great public transport and they’re expanding public transport frequency in outer London in coordination with this move. How is there a lack of options? People will just regurgitate ‘why do regular people have to make the changes’ even when policy makers have done every last thing to make it as painless as possible.

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Lelabear t1_iyjnnkh wrote

Sorry, I am in the US and such measures are few and far between. My town has one bus service that runs a continuous loop, one taxi service that you have to book in advance, so not having a car really limits your ability to be spontaneous. Also we have lots of tradespeople who have heavy duty vehicles who face no penalties for their fuel use. Don't even get me started on the construction equipment, city vehicles and delivery trucks hogging the road.

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One-Gap-3915 t1_iyjnzlq wrote

I hope things improve, I’ve seen a lot of positive noises from the US so hopefully there’s a movement building!

The trades vehicles point is interesting, it seems like in the US they all use heavy trucks, whereas in Europe the norm is vans like Ford transit.

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Lelabear t1_iyjozpf wrote

Oh yeah, I can understand some trades require heavy duty lifting over rough terrain, but every yahoo with some extra bucks seems to think it is a mark of status to get themselves a fancy rig that guzzles the gas. I drive a 2003 Honda Element that meets all my needs, least I can do to keep it real.

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