Carbon Tax - a threat to classic cars?

Silvera

I was looking at a piece in Six One News tonight regarding the current debate in the EU parliament about the introduction of Carbon Tax on all vehicles instead of VRT and Road Tax.

In the report they mentioned that this new tax will be "bad news for owners of vintage cars, as their vehicles are more polluting than newer vehicles".

What do you bet that we will once again have to rely on the UK government to lobby for an exemption for classic/vintage vehicles?!
(They have a Parliamentary Group of MP's who jointly lobby the UK Govt on behalf of vintage vehicle owners!)

What are the chances of Irish MEP's lobbying about this issue on our behalf?

Cake Fiend

Why should classic cars get an exemption?

Rudolph Claus

Sico wrote:

Why should classic cars get an exemption?

Why do you think :rolleyes:

Silvera

Sico wrote:

Why should classic cars get an exemption?

A. Because a high carbon tax would put most of them off the road
B. They already have an exemption re Road Tax and VRT (€42 and €50 respectively for vehicles over 30 yrs old).

Cake Fiend

Nuttzy wrote:

Why do you think :rolleyes:

I'm expecting someone to give me a proper reason why one polluting car should be let off a tax that a newer polluting car would have to pay. If you can't make an effort to do that, maybe you should stay in school instead of wasting your time posting attempts at sarcastic remarks on the internet.

Silvera wrote:

A. Because a high carbon tax would put most of them off the road
B. They already have an exemption re Road Tax and VRT (€42 and €50 respectively for vehicles over 30 yrs old).

So they should get off scot-free while the acid rain descends upon us, eh? Would you complain if SUVs were 'put off the road' due to pollution tax? Or is it that they've been let off other tax, so you expect to be let off all new tax as well?

Eric318

Classic cars are part of our heritage... well may be not in Ireland... Having them on the road instead of in museums only is a way for all to remember where we come from.

Having said that, would someone please manage to prove that a 30 year old car produces more CO2 than a modern car of the same engine size...

My 30 year old Jag XJC produces about as much CO2/km as the latest Jaguar XKR... My car certainly produces more CO and Nitrous Oxides and particles, no doubt... But on a CO2/km basis... somebody is barking at the wrong tree.

There is a recurrent anxiety about a conspiracy to root classics off the roads... It will not happen. Far too many EU execs love their old Mercs and AMs...

Dades

Sico, the exemptions that classic vehicles get is one of the main reasons you see them on the road.

Old cars are expensive to maintain, not in terms of fuel (they might be, but are driven less) but in terms of parts, upkeep, personal labour etc.

Do you want to see vintage cars off the roads, and replaced by BMWs and Golfs?

mike65

Sico might not give a tinkers cuss about Classics and motoring heritige.

Mike.

1275gt

yeah id say the millions of classics in ireland belting out lumps of coal will definitely bring down the whole kyoto treaty

but seriously, ive no problem with a proper 'eco' based motor tax system, regardless of what vintage car i choose to drive

overdriver

I thoght the idea was that after 30 years on the road, these cars had already contributed enough taxes, and were being given a break.

Eric318

Let us not forget that the most democratic and appropriate CO2 or pollution tax is simply the price of petrol at the pump...

Also let us remember that a car produces 60 to 70% of the pollution it will ever produce during its manufacturing and its destruction. So Classics on the road, since they are not destroyed, are saving us all a LOT of extra pollution; driving them adds very little to the problem.

I am not sure I agree that classics cost more to run than modern cars... if so I would not be driving what I am driving

Most classics have either come the bottom end of their depreciation or will not depreciate thanks to market forces. Buying a new car will cost you from 15 to 30% of its new value every year in simple depreciation, before running costs. Maintenance and parts are usually very affordable (unless you embark on a full restoration of a basket case....).

The average citizen prefers a modern car because it is more practical, lets admit it, it is more reliable and trustworthy, it is better marketed and it is readily available. Does anybody have the AA charts showing how much its actually costs to run a car? To most people, classic cars are an oddity and those who drive them are seen as gentle marginals or rich buggers.

mike65

BTW on the MEP vote, it means absoluty nothing as to change the law at EU level would require a unanimous vote in the Council of Ministers and there's no chance of that for years if ever.

Mike.

cormac_byrne

I remember reading an article that argued that classics running on leaded petrol produced less harmful emissions than modern cars with unleaded and catalytic converters.

His first point was that a converter reduces power output, so you need to burn more fuel to achieve the same speed.

Secondly there are several reasons why a converter may not be working properly :-

- I think he said something about converts not fitted properly or tuned, sorry I forget.

- Definitely he said converts don't work when cold, so are useless for short journeys.

- Also they wear out and need to be replaced every Xk miles

When cold or not working properly the converter produces chlorine type gasses similar to nerve gasses (e.g. are sarin and Vx)

To demonstrate this he suggested filling two nets with flies and suspending them a short distance behind the exhausts of an old and new car.

Start both engines from cold and run until the flies have stopped moving about.

Allegedly the flies from the new car will be truly dead (poisoned by the nerve gas?) The flies from the old car are merely stunned by the carbon monoxide and should recover a short time later.

N.B. don't use the latest Honda Prius for this test as it has a thermos which can keep it's converter warm for up to 3 days.

--amadeus--

Sico wrote:

Why should classic cars get an exemption?

Can you spell t.r.o.l.l.

Cake Fiend

--amadeus-- wrote:

Can you spell t.r.o.l.l.

The fact that you can't answer my question doesn't make me a troll.
Any chance of an intelligent reply out of you?

Upon reading the opening post of the thread, I was irked at the poster's apparent indignant shock that they might have to pay (god forbid!) the same levy that everyone else would have to pay, relative to their car of choice. I don't understand why 'classic' car owners should be given special treatment.

If I were to drive a modern car that belted out fumes, I'd be suitably taxed. Yet this guy expects to be let off. I'm not sure why he thinks that this is reasonable, hence the questions contained in my first post.

The Atheist wrote:

Do you want to see vintage cars off the roads, and replaced by BMWs and Golfs?

I have no problem with classic cars per se, but I don't see why someone should escape their dues for driving one.

Silvera

Sico wrote:

The fact that you can't answer my question doesn't make me a troll.
Any chance of an intelligent reply out of you?

Upon reading the opening post of the thread, I was irked at the poster's apparent indignant shock that they might have to pay (god forbid!) the same levy that everyone else would have to pay, relative to their car of choice. I don't understand why 'classic' car owners should be given special treatment.

If I were to drive a modern car that belted out fumes, I'd be suitably taxed. Yet this guy expects to be let off. I'm not sure why he thinks that this is reasonable, hence the questions contained in my first post.

"This guy" does not expect to be "let off" when it comes to paying what is due. However, as several people have pointed out, classic cars -


A - Do very little mileage per year in comparison to a modern car.

B - They are kept/driven/maintained by people as a hobby

C - In comparison to the cost in terms of pollution when producing a new car, classic vehicle pollution is negliable.

D - Classic/Vintage cars have 'paid their due' in terms of taxes paid during their working lives.

E - Classic cars are an asset to society in terms of their social history and as an educational tool to young people.

F - Better to have classic cars on the road than gathering dust in a museum.


My "indignant shock" is because, after hearing this news on tv, I am concerned (as most classic vehicle owners will be!) that such vehicles could be 'taxed off the road' if carbon tax is introduced!

Judging by your comments to date, you are obviously not a classic car fan.

I rest my case.

Eric318

wow, cool your cylinder heads boys

I think both sides of the argument are valid. I see no point in giving money if I dont have too, yet I dont want to be called a free-rider...

I still believe that it would be much better to double the price of petrol (we are getting there...) and kill all other taxes: a lot more simple, less red tape and penpushing civil servants in obscure offices behind antiquated typewriters or brand new computers they cant operate

(Bah, some civil servants are good people )

mike65

Is Eric a pen pusher by any chance?

Mike

leeroybrown

Sico wrote:

I have no problem with classic cars per se, but I don't see why someone should escape their dues for driving one.

As Silvera points out the vast majority of classic car owners aren't in a position to drive one as their main car and only mantain them as a hobby for very low milage usage. This is possible for many due to the lower tax and specialist insurance policies for low milage classics used as a second car.

Quite a few hobbyists might collect a number of cars over the years and restore/maintain all of them. In this case the milage per car is even lower and the changes to the taxation system is a bigger financial penalty.

Ultimately the point is that compared to any other grouping of cars classics would be disproportionately penalised.

--amadeus--

Sico wrote:

The fact that you can't answer my question doesn't make me a troll.
Any chance of an intelligent reply out of you?

Major difference between can't[/b[ and won't. Anyway I didn't need to answer - the case has been elequently made already. However for the record classic cars are a negligible contributer to global warming.

Aside from teh valid points above you'll find that Politicos have a habit of creating straw men for us all to flail at, usually giving us a degree of discomfort, so we can all feel better about a given issue. Now climate change is a real threat and cars do need to run more cleanly. Hydrogen cells and hybrid technologies are the way of the future. However a generic carbon tax based on CO2 outputs on private cars is a sop. Wider issues - coal and gas powered electrical power stations, aviation, deforistation and "dirty" industry in emerging contries such as China and India contribute more to climate change than private cars in Europe. You can carbon tax every private car in the EU off teh road but until the US cleans up its act and cuts it's profligate energy consumption (5% of teh population consuming 25% of global energy) it won't make any difference.

Finally for any carbon tax to be effective in its aim of cutting pollution it must take into account CO2 emmissions and mileage. A low emission car covering 100K miles per year will pollute more than a high emmission car covering 100 miles per year; this would need to be accounted for. Levies would need to be applied to trucks. And a viable pulic transport system to give a genuine alternative needs to be created.

Happy now?

And I still think it was a troll.

Eric318

I think that you are not quite right Amadeus, if I may. "The Economist" summarised the issue quite well in an excellent article last month. The single most effective way to reduce CO2 emissions significantly is to act on transport and private transport is the first target. The next one should/will be air transport or marine transport. Airlines have so far been utterly subsidised as there is no tax on fuel for aeroplanes, not even one that would take into account the environmental cost of flying around... that lobby is extremely powerful as we know. The EU is set to address that "honey pot"

Fuel cells are now widely seen as a fad, a red herring created by the motorcar industry to place the goal posts very far in the future (so far that nobody can actually see them...) so that the fossil fuel model can be milked for many years to come. Had there been as much investment by GM and Ford in electric motors as there has been in looking for the holly grail for H2 power, we would see many more hybrids on our roads already.

As often, real innovation came from the disruptors and the Japanese have had a hefty go at electricity powered crafts, hé hé... Yet, them also are car manufacturers, so they stopped short of the rechargeable Prius/Insight/Lexus.

BUT, some clever folks now manage to hack into the Prius software and batteries to make it rechargeable from the mains!! Toyota hates that: cottage industry inventors are jumping the gun, but the cat is already out of the bag. The hardware is available, it is a matter of tweaking it and you can be free from the petrol pump!!!

When you see that electric cars like the AC TZero and the Telsa Roadster are already beating any Ferrari, Corvette, Porsche on acceleration and speed... and possibly looks, for less purchase money, the days are not too far off when we will see silent clean metal moving around our roads.

What can you get for €80K? This : www.telsamotors.com I say, woaw!! 260mpg equivalent (at Irish petrol prices) , 0 to 100kph in under 4 seconds... If only I had that money... But plenty in this country do: look at all the BMW 6 you see around... a lot more expensive...

Also see: http://www.acpropulsion.com/

Hey do you want a MGA or a MGB with an electric engine ? They exist!!!

Dades

Eric318 wrote:

As often, real innovation came from the disruptors and the Japanese have had a hefty go at electricity powered crafts, hé hé... Yet, them also are car manufacturers, so they stopped short of the rechargeable Prius/Insight/Lexus.

BUT, some clever folks now manage to hack into the Prius software and batteries to make it rechargeable from the mains!! Toyota hates that: cottage industry inventors are jumping the gun, but the cat is already out of the bag. The hardware is available, it is a matter of tweaking it and you can be free from the petrol pump!!!

I know we're off topic but what the heck...

@ Eric - all that electricity to power our future cars has to come from somewhere right?

Does anyone know which takes more fossil fuel:
1. To power an economical car for 100km, or
2. To generate the electicity to power an electic car for 100km

Though I'm inclined to agree with the idea of pay per consumption (i.e. fuel), rather than per you car's mpg or engine size.

--amadeus--

You beat me to it Athiest!

"Energy cannot be created or destroyed, simply changed from one form to another"

All that electricity has to come from somewhere. "85% of Ireland’s energy generation needs can be attributed to imported sources, principally gas, oil and coal". Ireland's electrical dependancy on fossil fuels is "twice the european average (sources available). Not very carbon friendly! That's where hybrids that use regenerative technology are so clever.

The entire energy economy needs a radical re-think as our current dependance on cheap hydrocarbon based energy is unsustainable in the medium and long term. Sustainable alternatives must be found rapidly (in 10 years time we will be consuming 140 million barrels of oil per day unless we change our consumption habits)

My point remains that carbon taxing private cars in isolation will do very very little to alter climate change. Private transport may be the first target but transport in general (in particular, as you pointed out, aviation) is a much better place to focus. Taxing aviation fuel so that it is no longer cost effective to fly strawberries in from California rather than buy them from Wexford might be a start...

The choice is effectivly about free market versus an energy conservation economic model. Business wants to maximise profits in teh short term and needs cheap energy to do so. To satisfy voters on the risk of climate change politicos need to be seen to be making movements and "carbon taxes" are teh current buzzword. Fine - lets have an all encomposing carbon tax, covering private cars, aircraft, business (incl electricity generators) and so on.

ds20prefecture

Speaking as someone who uses a classic daily I have no problem paying the same tax as everyone else. I do however object to paying a CO2 emissions based tax, which is a tax that deals with a small part of the problem.

Tax vehicles based on their consumption of non-renewable resources. This is as urgent if not more so than so-called greenhouse gases. You would see the Toyota Prius being nailed to the mast for the environmental hoax that it is - those battery aren't grown from love, you know. It would also encourage people to drive old cars, because the production of a new car is every bit as harmful to the environment as the running of one.

Also, the simplest and most equitable means of taxing road users is by putting all taxes, duties and tolls on fuel. That way all users of the road are proportionately charged for their use of the road. The classic owner who takes their ancient Lancia Lambda out for a spin twice a year won't complain about the tax, because it's only costing her €20 per tank. The eejits like me who drive classics to pretty up the roads for the rest of you philistines take it in the neck, because 17MPG is frankly ridiculous and probably should be taxed accordingly.

@Sico - for your first posts in this forum, your style is unusually confrontational and derogatory. While you might not be trolling, your style casts your message into a poor light

mike65

It should pointed out the greatest CO2 impact by a vehicle is during is creation, so keep old cars going longer and stop buying new ones!

Mike.

Eric318

DS20: thanks for making the points in such an eloquent manner 17mpg... are you driving a Jag?

As for power generation, the only realistically viable option at this stage is nuclear power. It is very non-pc to say so (and I ahve worked 9 years in environmental conservation, so this hurts, but it is the plain truth). The only other known effective alternative, i.e. fossil fuels is simply infinitely worse.

Solar and wind of course, but they will only ever (within a human time frame) produce fractions of the growing needs.

82% of electricity in France is nuclear generated. I dont know about Ireland or the UK, but the time has come to think of what is coming. Imagine Dublin when the Irish sea will be 10 feet higher ...

The challenge of course is in the USA, China, India, the UK and continental Europe...

Hey, so what you guys think of the Telsa? Is that baby yummy ... ?

ds20prefecture

Eric318 wrote:

17mpg... are you driving a Jag?

God, no. I don't do british....

No i'm driving the pinnacle of automotive brilliance from the wackiest bunch of people this side of Afghanistan. People think the Dutch are into wacky-baccy - I say the French still haven't come down from whatever high they were on in the fifties

Dades

Eric318 wrote:

As for power generation, the only realistically viable option at this stage is nuclear power. It is very non-pc to say so (and I ahve worked 9 years in environmental conservation, so this hurts, but it is the plain truth). The only other known effective alternative, i.e. fossil fuels is simply infinitely worse.

I'm completely open to the nuclear option, given it's success in France. But could you imagine trying to get planning permission for a plant in this country?! It's hard enough to get a mobile phone mast put up. We'd have cold fusion by the time planning permission came through.

Eric318 wrote:

The challenge of course is in the USA, China, India, the UK and continental Europe...

That is the nub. What we do in little old Ireland is a drop in the ocean compared to the developing nations - and it's unlikely they'll be too interested in global interests at the expense of thwarting the expansion of their economies. Of course going nuclear here would dampen the effects any future exponential increase in oil prices.

Mmmm... Telsa.
I'd like one, but I'd need to replace the engine with a 70's twin carb so that it actually sounds like a car.

--amadeus--

Nice looking, in a total rip off of the Elise kind of way (makes sense if it's being assembled by Lotus). Obvioulsy has teh grunt but how will it handle? It's 600lbs heavier than the Elise and the 900lbs of teh batteries and the motor are at the rear (tho there are batteries down teh sides as well). With a heavy, short wheelbase car that has 100% torque available all the time and a rear weight bias it may be entertaining....!

Eric318

May be Ireland simply needs to put a fat wire across the Irish sea and plug into the UK grid (via NI?).

Ireland is very good at diplomacy because it can be trusted: it is small enough to not have hidden agendas. But you cant preach what you dont practice.

Telsa: I think they are working on some sound system ... Jaguar and TVR and others are doing it with their thermic engines, so... electric turbines can also sound awesome... unlike food processors or toothbrushes

mustang68

The problem with the tesla roadster:

Ever notice that your laptop batteries "wear-out" after a few years (normally two)?

ever notice how expensive it was to replace it?

Tesla Roadster = 6821 cells
About 20% degradation in battery capacity per year (regardless of use!)

A rough cost for total replacement of the batteries is about 60 -> 70 thousand dollars

every three years min :eek:

Dades

mustang68 wrote:

The problem with the tesla roadster:

Ever notice that your laptop batteries "wear-out" after a few years (normally two)?

ever notice how expensive it was to replace it?

Nearly as bad as new car depreciation.

Eric318

are you saying I can drive my laptop ?

The Ritz

I support the fact that classic cars should get a break as far as conventional "auto" taxation is concerned, on the basis of their general value to society and the fact that they have generated considerable taxation income during their lifetime, as already pointed out in this thread.

Just a few points of clarification regarding our energy sources..............

Electricity generation is already subject to a carbon tax here through participation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme - effectively, electricity generators are granted a certain amount of allowances (in the region of 77% of their output) and are required to limit their emissions of CO2 to that level, or purchase allowances on the European market for any excess emissions over that amount. In this way, the participants in the EU ETS in Ireland (about 100 installations, the largest CO2 emitting installations) are responsible for meeting about 3MT of Ireland's 7MT Kyoto shortfall.

As for the nuclear option, there's a legal prohibition on using nuclear power to generate electricity in Ireland (in the Electricity Regulation Act). Even if that prohibition was lifted, there are sound technical reasons why the typical size of a nuclear plant would be unsuitable for the Irish system.

Renewables are making serious strides here in electricity - by 2010 it will be responsible for about 15% of our electricity needs, a level that should double by 2020, with any luck.

To forestall any suggestion that we should be 100% renewable................ our installed capacity is about 5000MW of generation capacity, and wind power has about 32% load factor ( for each 100MW of installed wind power, you can rely on it to get about 32MW worth of generating capacity due to the intermittent nature of wind. So, to get the equivalent of 5000MW of installed capacity of conventionql generation, you'd need about 15000MW of wind power. At the moment, individual wind turbines are about 2MW capacity - so that's be 30,000 of them.................. anyone like to suggest where they should be sited ? Suggestions involving proctology declined. Even this is a bit of a simplistic analysis - in reality you could have all the wind turbines you wanted, but you'd be relying on having thems sufficiently dispersed so that at least some of them were generating when there was no wind inother places. It's also worth bearing in mind that there's usually very little wind on very cold frosty days, when demand for electricity is highest. That means maintaining (and paying for) conventional fossil fuel powrer stations as a back up, for days when wind is insufficient to meet your needs. Offshore would certainly answer insofar as visual impact is concerned, but offshore wind is about twice as expensive as onshore. The route with renewables is to increase their penetration on the system to the greatest technical extent possible with the more proven technologies and put R&D into the emerging technologies (e.g. ocean technologies like wave power).

The key issue with electricity generation is to maintain a mix of fuels - having all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, leaves you open to supply interruptions and price shock effects. A mix of gas, coal, peat and renewables spreads that risk. The recent increase in the use of oil for electricity generation is related to the relative movements in oil and gas - most gas fired power stations are capable of running on distillates - this offers a hedge against short-term fuel interruptions but also enables generators to take advantage of using cheaper fuels when possible. Ireland is currently fairly heavily reliant on gas - 45% - which has advantages as it's the least CO2-intensive fossil fuel.

The increase in renewables, newer more efficient peat stations and increased renewables has meant that the CO2 intensity (amount of CO2 per kWhr) of our electricity has decreased by about one third since 1990. The reliance on gas would be of less concern if Corrib gas came to market and if we had access to Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), as Corrib gas would not be dependent on a supply chain from the East and LNG has a different supply chain and is not directly price correlated to piped natural gas.

As for Carbon Taxation, the Government here decided in 2004 not to implement a Carbon Tax, saying, in effect, that they did not believe that it would be worth doing. It remains to be seen what their reaction to an EU proposal would be - on past performance the Govt. here has closely guarded their right to set taxation levels (for instance, the maintenance of Corporation Tax levels).

Ritz.

Eric318

The movie "An inconvenient truth" by Al Gore is worth watching. We do have an elephant in the living room and not too sure what to do about it.

I think that carbon tax idea is to address the consequences of something that we have already done but never took into consideration as we went. A bit like approaching retirement and realising that we have no pension saved.

So it is not something that we have not already been saving money for and the problem is getting worse and worse.

Two things have to happen: stabilise and reduce carbon emissions and repair the damage already done. Plus, we dont have much time...

Anybody with ideas, please (and classic cars are a microscopic part of the whole problem: I am not sure that anybody is actually really spending time thinking of them in that debate, apart from us )

I would be happy paying more tax if it is the only way to ensure a better future to my daughter...

Eric318

Some figures from the UK:

CO2 from air travel is 6% of total produced
Road transport curently pays £142 per ton of CO2 produced
Businesses currently pay £27 per ton
Households pay £7 per ton

Note that all of the above is NOT the Carbon Tax we are talking about.

An excellent article on Golbal Warming in The Economist of last week.

The doom scenario is complete melt dow of all the ice on the ice caps. Sea levels would rise by ... 70m!!! :eek: More likely scenario is limited melting with rises of between 1 and 6m. Time to sell those waterfront houses and flats... It is of course quite more complex than that, well worth reading.

In the meantime, if you want to see what goes faster than a $170K ferrari and a $400K Porsche, watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXtPZ1qp4ik
Awesome !!
But I still prefer this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOl_1S10jTk

ds20prefecture

An electric Atom is a great idea.