Like all the other suggestions, this one though would hit many people who cannot afford a replacement car, those who currently need diesels in rural communities and of course commerce. I think your suggestions on road tax and extra incentives for replacing diesels should be more than enough to stop dead the flow of diesels into the market and allow those who can afford to replace old ones do so.
What are the Government really doing, to help the country move away from Diesel vehicles etc. ?
- Thread starter MrEarl
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I suspect Vans and Commercial Motors Vehicles are not in a position to change over in 3 years,
But there is no reason why we cannot have a smokey coal type ban on high polluting private cars coming into the city within a year, I don't think we should be giving Grants to replace high polluting cars when there is already any amount of less polluting cars to replace them already in the system just like there is plenty of smokeless coal to replace smoky coal,
Just, ban high polluting types cars within a year from out City's, and be done with it as a first step,
The proposed Galway ring road is probably the best example of all that is wrong with the Green agenda in Ireland today.
The traffic situation is dire and getting worse.
Where is the excellent public transport infrastructure. Buses every 5 minutes at rush hour from a park and ride at at Oranmore, at Claregalway, at Headford, at Moycullen, at Barna. All that would cost less than building a new motorway and could be rolled out in months if not weeks.
There is even a model for it. School buses leave all these places every morning and bring kids to a city centre drop off point. Buses leave that point for every school in the city.
But there is no public will for such an idea. The Greens are blathering about a light rail system, the FF city candidate made supporting the bypass a major part of his campaign. Neither of them were elected.
FF know what they want but can't get it (not for the last 15 years and not for the next 15 I expect), the Greens know what they don't want but have no clue what they do want.
There's are ways and means my friend, not everyone has to get a nice new shiney electric BMW for example, there's a second hand hybrid market with lots of cars for sale at different price points.
Also, please note, I only referred to private cars in my previous posts, I didn't mention any form of commercial vehicles on purpose, as there are clearly other considerations there.
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Ceist Beag
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The thing is MrEarl, it is only 12 years ago that the government was highly incentivising diesel cars through cheap road tax. If they take your advice and immediately hammer those people who took their advice would that not seem a bit two faced? If incentives worked before (and the evidence is that a lot of people did move to diesel at that time) then surely incentives are the way to go again - not penalties.
Also worth taking note of the French experience; hiking fuel prices triggered the gilets jaunes protests and I suspect could have a similar effect here. But the likes of doubling VRT on diesel cars, double the road tax for diesels bought going-forward etc. would have no effect on current owners so should pass easily.
I'm some one who commutes in and out of Dublin and for various reasons I drive around 1000km weekly. 3 years ago I changed to hybrid from diesel and just bought a new hybrid a few weeks ago.
The cost has of moving to hybrid from diesel has not been that excessive. In terms of fuel usage it is about half a litre per 100km driven (a lot of my driving is motorway so the real benefits of hybrid don't kick in until I reach the city), so 5 litres a week or about an additional €7 per week. Allowing for the around 8% differential in petrol and diesel prices and the extra fuel usage then the additional fuel cost to me is around €500-€600 per year. However, that gets offset by a reduction in my insurance of 25% since I moved to hybrid and reduced service and road tax. Overall, the additional cost to me is probably only a fiver a week.
I'd happily move to electric if I had a charging infrastructure at home but as someone who has to park on the street that is not really an option and I spend too long commuting to want to stop at a filling station for 30 mins a day to recharge. Were the Govt to put a charging point outside my house (indeed outside everyone's house, after all, we they put water meters there) then perhaps people would be more inclined to move.
The cost has of moving to hybrid from diesel has not been that excessive. In terms of fuel usage it is about half a litre per 100km driven (a lot of my driving is motorway so the real benefits of hybrid don't kick in until I reach the city), so 5 litres a week or about an additional €7 per week. Allowing for the around 8% differential in petrol and diesel prices and the extra fuel usage then the additional fuel cost to me is around €500-€600 per year. However, that gets offset by a reduction in my insurance of 25% since I moved to hybrid and reduced service and road tax. Overall, the additional cost to me is probably only a fiver a week.
I'd happily move to electric if I had a charging infrastructure at home but as someone who has to park on the street that is not really an option and I spend too long commuting to want to stop at a filling station for 30 mins a day to recharge. Were the Govt to put a charging point outside my house (indeed outside everyone's house, after all, we they put water meters there) then perhaps people would be more inclined to move.
Hi,
I've proposed a combination of "carrot and stick", not just penalties (ref: post #20).
That said, the longer people hold out and don't get rid of their diesel cars, the more they get penalised.
Those who own diesel cars have enjoyed the benefits, but those benefits didn't come with lifetime guarantees etc.
The reality is that we need diesel car owners acting quickly, not pussy footing around for 5-10 years. As I'm sure you appreciate, we need them to act quickly for two extremely important reasons :
- to help reduce damage to the environment
- to help reduce the risk of the entire Irish nation getting hit with a massive financial penalty, come 2030.
Obviously, I appreciate that we need other significant changes, besides getting people to change their private cars, but this is an important step in the right direction, and a lot less complicated to roll out quickly, IMHO.
A third important reason is to improve air quality in our towns and cities.
Those who buy SUV for safety reasons should consider the safety of the fumes polluting our air and the consequences for public health of same.
Paradoxically, getting rid of diesels is actually going to increase the likelihood of those fines, because while diesels are bad local polluters (NOx, PM etc) they produce quite a bit less CO2, which is the EU target we're at risk of missing. So ideally any carrots/sticks would encourage drivers into hybrids/EVs instead of petrols.
Ceist Beag
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Yeah I'm with you on the need to act on this MrEarl but I just don't think the carrot and stick approach is quite enough carrot and is too much stick.
Until people see the government treating this seriously and urgently in terms of encouraging people to move voluntarily I don't think it is right to introduce penalties. Start with the carrot and give it a number of years to encourage people to move voluntarily before thinking about penalties. Right now it is not an attractive enough proposition to most diesel owners. There is still a huge issue over charging which is clearly causing people to hold off. As mentioned by another poster, doing something to encourage home charging is one option. A strong push to increase charging points (and reduce waiting times for charging) is another. Your suggestion of a tax reduction for purchase of electric vehicles only benefits those who buy new. Most people don't buy new.
iamaspinner
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Car related CO2 emissions seem to have gone up in the last few years in some of the bigger European economies due to increasing number of petrol cars being sold as opposed to diesel. The main culprits are SUVs apparently, whose emissions are on par with the larger luxury cars.
New car CO2 emissions hit the highest average in Europe since 2014 - JATO
In 2019 average CO2 emissions for European markets were at their recorded levels since 2014. Average for the 23 European markets totalled 121.8 g/km.
www.jato.com
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It would be far better for the environment if motorists with older diesel engines (euro5 or less) and petrol engines were encouraged by government schemes to upgrade to the euro6 diesel engines. They are the most environmentally friendly ones available and have a lower carbon footprint than electric cars.
That has been covered many times, possibly even in this thread. It is utterly false.
Furthermore it ignores the fact that petrol and especially diesel cars do more damage than carbon emissions, in-fact these are arguably the least problematic emissions for you and me in our lifetimes. NOx and particulate matter are causing the early deaths of hundreds of thousands of people across Europe every year, electric vehicles reduce the risks of NOx to zero, and particulate matter not far off. Plenty of other emissions from burning fossil fuels then pumping the exhaust into people’s faces, but these are the big ones that are concerning people today.
NoRegretsCoyote
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Em, no.
Car manufacture produces the equivalent of up to 100,000km of driving emissions.
Our second car is a 2007 petrol that does maybe 4,000km a year. My conscience is clear driving this into the ground rather than buying a new diesel.
The constant refrain is that we cannot invest is more fossil fuel infrastructure as we have to leave the discovered but unexploited fields of gas and oil in the ground. This fossil fuel infrastructure counts as much for drills and refineries as it does for distribution centres (petrol stations) and end user appliances (vehicles). As has been said here, we've already made a switch to diesel as our ICE of choice but that trend has continued in full view of the science of the last 5 years and the revelations of manufacturers gaming the emissions systems. We could say that all sales of ICE vehicles was to end imminently but of course there wouldn't be the EV supply to replace it. I'm wondering though - so what? What if people were only able to buy a small supply of EVs and would have to make the most of the existing stock on the roads. Over time the EV picture is expected to improve so the demand for new vehicles will be sated. Can't we make do with our existing stock of vehicles stock until then?
Bikes don't make a sound
NoRegretsCoyote
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EVs still make tyre noise, they are not silent.
I’ve definitely noticed more people not noticing me driving through a carpark compared to when I had an ICE, but I think this is just a short-term phenomenon until people get used to the fact that there are much quieter cars around than before and looking is essential.
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