Going from car free to car lumbered.

[Chopper the ex Copper]

LGF is right. Once my hip is fixed and I can ride to the station and take the folder on the train be car free again. My new motor is a necessity borne out of pain, not a luxury because I'm too bone idle lazy to walk kids 400 metres to school.

As an aside, Mrs CTEC went from £275 to £300 a month in diesel (despite being disabked herself she cares for her elderly ma) in her V70 D5, at the older pre-Ukraine fuel prices, to £40 a month in electricity with the Polestar. She almost never uses public chargers, never needed to. Charger was free with the car, although don't know if that would be the same on lease.

 

[FluffyChicken]

Only 60% of your electricity is fossil stuff.
Your heavy cars (hence SUVs) and tyre and brake dust is a problem, not just for microplastic stuff in the water.
Most urban/suburban places pollution on tiny particles is due to the increase in stove/fire fad again. Fine for the occupant (closed stove) , bugger anyone else around. Even the super eco ones are terrible.

 

[legrandefromage]

But questions remain as to why such vehicles as the range rover, x5/6/7, q7/8, ML, etc are allowed to be sold given their weight, use, impact and so on.

Car manufacturers behave like banks, making as much revenue as possible

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

Most urban/suburban places pollution on tiny particles is due to the increase in stove/fire fad again. Fine for the occupant (closed stove) , bugger anyone else around. Even the super eco ones are terrible.

They never thought that through when they installed fireplaces on my 120 year old house!

But it's swings and roundabouts. The particulate pollution is an issue, but burning wood is near as dammit carbon neutral. So do we worry about the health of the nearby people today, or the health of the planet (and hence all the people) tomorrow? Its a philosophical question as much as it is one of personal responsibility.

And then throw in geopolitics and reliance o. Foreign energy sources and the knock on effects of fuel poverty and it becomes a very complex question to answer.

But back to cars, I won't be having much for short, frivolous journeys. No idling outside a school or orbiting a supermarket car park again and again looking for somewhere to park for me. I see pious owners doing this and they do far more damage and cause far more congestion and pollution doing this needlessly for 12 or 15 thousand miles a year than my X5 ever did being used sparingly for 3000 miles a year. Perspective is as important a consideration as absolutes when considering such matters.

And so I will have my car, use it sparingly and grudgingly and sell it when my new hip is installed. Compare this to the co-leader of Stinky Rebellion who drove her visibly smoky 20 year old citroen from Gloucester to London and back every day for 2 weeks in order to participate in protests, who has a Facebook page stuffed full of foreign holiday pictures. It tends to be that the people who make the most noise are the ones actually in the least moral position to preach to the rest of us, and so it is with my open fires and my car.

 

[legrandefromage]

The bane of many a citroen owner

Water gets in and that's that as pins rot through

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

You must surely end up wondering how difficult is it to design a plastic lid that doesn't leak?

 

[Guinessisgoodforyou]

You must surely end up wondering how difficult is it to design a plastic lid that doesn't leak?

French

 

[novocaine]

French

except it's a cookie cutter part designed to meet Renault specs, just, by the cheapest manufacturing process possible to maximise the profit for the CEO and share holders and money to nothing says it's produced in the far east.

same company will make food containers that are completely sealed, but nope, to expensive for this.

 

[FluffyChicken]

They never thought that through when they installed fireplaces on my 120 year old house!

But it's swings and roundabouts. The particulate pollution is an issue, but burning wood is near as dammit carbon neutral. So do we worry about the health of the nearby people today, or the health of the planet (and hence all the people) tomorrow? Its a philosophical question as much as it is one of personal responsibility.

IT's the modern houses that don't need them, even the 1930s housing doesn't need them, there are cleaner more efficient home heaters (and they already have them usually)
Local pollution is the reason, the PM2.5 go into people blood causing all sorts of problems. We don't fit scrubbers etc to chimneys. Centralised they can and do, so burning the same wood is cleaner keeping the same eco carbon neutral. Which is the same proper argument for e-Cars over fossil cars unless they build in scrubbers, reclamation to all cars.

Gas is gone in a few years from new build, elec only. Fires/Stoves will be banned at some point, they're just doing it in stages, the cities cannot cope it's taking the pollution levels to high (and bringing back smog in a few cities)

Anyway cars are too big, it's assumed or hoped that VED will change to weight and size at some point.

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

Cheaper? The lad over the road is a tree surgeon and only too happy to keep me fuelled up for fee. He even chops them up and loads my wood store for them to dry out properly. He has to pay an arm and a leg to dispose of them otherwise. Fires won't be banned in my lifetime I'm sure.

VED should reflect usage. As above, my old X5 at 3000 miles a year and 34ish mpg was far less polluting than my neighbours Prius at 15,000 a year and 55ish mpg if they could be persuaded to slow down a bit. It's a ridiculous proposition that lowish emission eco cars could benefit from free or low tax while being spanked for merciless and often needless milage, but a less clean car pays more even if it is used much less and actually accounts for far less pollution over time. Why should my neighbours be rewarded for largely unnecessary, frivolous car usage? That sort of thing only reinforces the misguided message thet they're doing their bit for the environment, when in actual fact their lazy ass driving habits are extremely damaging.

Road pricing is what we need and the banning of cars from cities and large towns.

Anyway, I frankly don't give a sheet. I'm buying the car because I'm becoming mobility restricted, not because I'm too lazy to walk or cycle anywhere...which is the bulk of the mileage for most motorists. I dont get a boner for cars or care about impressing the neighbours. Im doing it because I have little choice if I wish to maintain some degree of mobility and independence while im afflicted.

We established it had no detectable particulate tailpipe emissions at the last MOT, and we've established that even those who complain about particulates are happy to have tyres and brakes in the cars they drive about for largely unnecessary journeys, doubtless moaning to their passengers about log burners while doing so,

Mrs CTEC is running me across to collect it after work, which means I get the dubious honour of a 30 mile drive in an unfamiliar car during rush hour. Nice. From thereon if we could stick to talking about the car instead then I would be grateful.