4 ms·

Or they hope to have a garage someday but don’t today. My next car might be a hybrid, but I can’t really consider a BEV until I see that a large majority of apa

Or they hope to have a garage someday but don’t today. My next car might be a hybrid, but I can’t really consider a BEV until I see that a large majority of apartment parking spaces have chargers.

gambiting 5y ago
>>Or they hope to have a garage someday but don’t today. Well, I'd love to believe this, but the matter of fact is that the tax structure around hybrids is completely messed up here in UK. When I got my Volvo, basically as a company car you could either get the highest non-hybrid model, the T6, with about 300bhp and pay like 30% tax on it every year, or get the T8 hybrid, with 400bhp, and pay zero tax on it every year. And of course the government never checks whether you actually ever plug your hybrid in or not, so if you never do it's actually much worse for economy and emissions than the T6 which is much more to tax. It's insanity.
- gsnedders 5y ago
  Thankfully, it does seem like the EU at least is moving towards trying to quantify real-world emissions with the clear goal of wanting to ensure the homologation measurement reflects reality. I wouldn't be surprised if the rated fuel efficiency decreased and emissions rose for plug-in hybrids in light of data showing relatively little usage of the battery.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Call me crazy, but I think you should be taxed on your actual usage. Just like your annual inspection reads your odometer, it should just read the petrol vs EV distance from the built-in computer and you should get a tax bill in the post. Got a plug in hybrid and drive it nearly always in EV mode? Great, zero tax for you. Got a plugin hybrid but drive it exclusively on petrol? You'll be taxed the same(or more) as a regular petrol car. The issue with standardised tests for this stuff is that it really depends on individual usage. We should be punishing polutting usage of the car, not what the "average" it can do, since it's meaningless.
    - gsnedders 5y ago
      Note that to some degree we already have this through fuel duty. It's only the VED which is changed. There's an argument that VED should be based on factors _not_ linked to exhaust emissions, and that fuel duty should be used to that effect.

gambiting 5y ago

>>Or they hope to have a garage someday but don’t today. Well, I'd love to believe this, but the matter of fact is that the tax structure around hybrids is completely messed up here in UK. When I got my Volvo, basically as a company car you could either get the highest non-hybrid model, the T6, with about 300bhp and pay like 30% tax on it every year, or get the T8 hybrid, with 400bhp, and pay zero tax on it every year. And of course the government never checks whether you actually ever plug your hybrid in or not, so if you never do it's actually much worse for economy and emissions than the T6 which is much more to tax. It's insanity.

gsnedders 5y ago
Thankfully, it does seem like the EU at least is moving towards trying to quantify real-world emissions with the clear goal of wanting to ensure the homologation measurement reflects reality. I wouldn't be surprised if the rated fuel efficiency decreased and emissions rose for plug-in hybrids in light of data showing relatively little usage of the battery.
- gambiting 5y ago
  Call me crazy, but I think you should be taxed on your actual usage. Just like your annual inspection reads your odometer, it should just read the petrol vs EV distance from the built-in computer and you should get a tax bill in the post. Got a plug in hybrid and drive it nearly always in EV mode? Great, zero tax for you. Got a plugin hybrid but drive it exclusively on petrol? You'll be taxed the same(or more) as a regular petrol car. The issue with standardised tests for this stuff is that it really depends on individual usage. We should be punishing polutting usage of the car, not what the "average" it can do, since it's meaningless.
  - gsnedders 5y ago
    Note that to some degree we already have this through fuel duty. It's only the VED which is changed. There's an argument that VED should be based on factors _not_ linked to exhaust emissions, and that fuel duty should be used to that effect.