Are world leaders "delusional" when it comes to active travel? COP26 discussed, plus how to layer up for winter riding on episode 12 of the road.cc Podcast

I don't think an electricity tax is feasible.

If you're taxing tyres and brakes you're using those as a proxy for vehicle weight and mileage so you may as well just tax those directly.

Mileage is officially recorded annually and vehicle weight is readily available for the vast majority of cars (and easily measured if not available) so a tax based on a combination of those two pieces of information would be a doddle to implement.

Rich_cb wrote:

I don't think an electricity tax is feasible. If you're taxing tyres and brakes you're using those as a proxy for vehicle weight and mileage so you may as well just tax those directly. Mileage is officially recorded annually and vehicle weight is readily available for the vast majority of cars (and easily measured if not available) so a tax based on a combination of those two pieces of information would be a doddle to implement.

Sounds like a workable plan. It's apparent that when (not if) "emit elsewhere" vehicles become common this will lead to revamping of the tax system.

As always I wonder what fraction of all the actual costs of driving this would cover? There doesn't seem to be any appetite politically to recover the true costs from drivers. Not from any party (not even sure about the Greens). One very recent example was giving motorists another subsidy in the budget. Yes, the announcement was that fuel duty was frozen because pump prices have increased, [RAC have longer data] I know...

I suppose you'd have to sit down and tot up the costs and benefits of car use.

If congestion is a cost then the fact it's usually quicker to travel 100 miles by car than by any other mode of transport would be an economic benefit.

For that reason I'm not a fan of the externalities argument as I believe it ultimately reinforces car ownership.

You only have to see the cost-benefit analysis for most major road builds to see the same arguments used to justify billions in new car infrastructure.

Rich_cb wrote:

I suppose you'd have to sit down and tot up the costs and benefits of car use. If congestion is a cost then the fact it's usually quicker to travel 100 miles by car than by any other mode of transport would be an economic benefit. For that reason I'm not a fan of the externalities argument as I believe it ultimately reinforces car ownership. You only have to see the cost-benefit analysis for most major road builds to see the same arguments used to justify billions in new car infrastructure.

tl/dr - best source for costs across different transport modes I can find ATM (sadly no bikes and this is just "cost" not "cost/benefit"):

The European Commission commissioned Handbook on External Costs of Transport. A large document but see p.151 for the summary, with charts. The "externalities" for the car are notably several times that of any other motorised mode (They separate passenger transport from freight, data for cars, bus, rail, MC [motorcycle], aircraft, marine [less than cars!] etc)

A much more limited one (2016) from Copenhagen suggesting that bicycle travel is effectively 6 times less "costly" overall than car travel.

We habitually discount "external costs" as humans and that tendency continues in bigger groupings and in political discourse.

I'd bet most of the "external" costs described above (summary list at Wikipedia - it's a lot more than just "congestion" or "pollution") don't appear in our new road-building "cost-benefit analyses". (To be fair the people tasked with those are civil engineers and local government officers who almost certainly don't have "is more motoring a good thing?" in their remit). So these will be little different from how most people consider motoring anyway ("I pays me road tax..."). Make an estimate of short / medium term benefits, see how much it'll cost to build, job done.

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I'm not a fan of the externalities argument as I believe it ultimately reinforces car ownership.

Again I think we ignore those costs. To put it crudely individual motorists aren't losing sleep over some of their number running into people or us all suffering because of particulate pollution. The numbers I've seen (when I find actual sources other than above I'll post 'em) tend to show that motorised transport is overall the most costly form of transport and private cars the worst of that. Of course we may decide we're happy just to spend on cars rather than other transport which is overall cheaper. Or (in the case of bicycles) may even bring net benefits for the money spent on it.

A possibly interesting comparison could be drawn with smoking and the tobacco industry. Lots of organisations benefit financially but that doesn't mean it's not an overall cost to the population. The government also liked the tax take from tobacco and for a long time didn't count all the lost earnings / health / social care costs. Smoking was for a long time seen pretty positively.

If we want to be more long-term rational decision makers we really do need to know the full cost of something and any alternatives. Otherwise we don't know if we're getting a good deal. We need to look beyond the obvious - to include the need to build and maintain roads, ensuring we can import enough oil or provide electricity, crashes, damage to infrastructure, the environment, particulates, suppression of independent mobility of children, growing inactivity by population ...). A difficult task but if you can put a figure on all the benefits from cars - some of which are at least as nebulous - you should check the other side too.

It doesn't take driving style into account which has a huge impact on tyre and brake wear and fuel economy. Taxing those shouldn't be too difficult.

That is true but it would also substantially increase the cost of new tyres and brakes.

It's not hard to see how that could have significant negative consequences.

A combined weight/mileage tariff would work just as well at discouraging use as a tyre/brake tariff without discouraging vital maintenance.

Not sure why you need an extra tax. If you drive inefficiently, you will pay more duty and vat on fuel. If your brakes and tyres need to be replaced more often, you will still pay vat.

Rich_cb wrote:

I don't think an electricity tax is feasible.

It's not difficult to implement an electricity tax, but it would be unpopular. I think it's going to be inevitable to prevent crypto-currencies from eating the world (they're using approx 1% of the world's electricity currently).

We already have VAT on electricity so it could be increased easily but I was talking more about a specific tax for the electricity used by electric cars.

Apparently the open fridges in supermarkets use 1% of the UK's electricity, if we can't do something about that lowest of low hanging fruit then I don't hold out much hope for anything more complex.

I'd welcome an increase in electricity tax if it was applied fairly, but VAT means that businesses can avoid most of it, I believe. Have a separate electricity tax that applies to everyone and don't limit it to electric cars - that should provide an incentive for people to move a decentralised model of electricity generation (e.g. solar, wind). I don't care if people are using electricity for travel, cooking, lighting, heating etc. as we really need to reduce global consumption.

I'd never thought about the supermarket fridges, but now it seems obvious.

I don't think an electricity tax is a good idea.

As a general rule we should be moving as much of our energy consumption (Gas, Petrol etc) to electrical alternatives as possible.

We are rapidly decarbonising our electricity supply so this will be the quickest way to net zero.

A carbon tax however would work better but you'd still have to ensure it didn't end up with people freezing to death as heating became exorbitantly expensive.

Good points, but I think it would provide an all-round incentive to improve the efficiency of energy use (e.g. house insulation, solar panels). Electricity is mainly a means of transferring energy rather than being an energy source in itself, so a carbon tax could work alongside an electricity tax to avoid a return to burning dinosaurs.

I'm thinking that an electricity tax is preferable to banning crypto-mining as a means of controlling crypto-currencies. It'd push crypto-mining to use local solar energy instead.

I'm just not sure that a tax that specifically discouraged the lowest carbon form of heating (for example) is a good idea.

Perhaps specific legislation around crypto mining might be a better idea?

Or tax higher carbon types even more

And all the people pushed into fuel poverty by these new taxes?

Rich_cb wrote:

And all the people pushed into fuel poverty by these new taxes?

I didn't expect you to be so concerned about poverty.

If all the Q7, X4 and other SUV drivers are so impoverished by additional taxes then they can swap to a Tesla.

Meanwhile the people who are genuinely impoverished won't (and probably already can't) afford to buy and run a car. Nothing new there.

Would help if you read the thread before replying.

We're discussing a tax on domestic electricity.

Rich_cb wrote:

And all the people pushed into fuel poverty by these new taxes?

I doubt the tax will push those on the brink into poverty quicker than the government can by merely removing benefits. That's an easier one to sell too - we're not taking your money away (you who have some), we're merely returning to not giving as much (to those who have almost none).

In a sense you have a point though (although I don't think it's a big concern for the government, national or local). Having lived in council accommodation that on its own will limit your choices. For example a lot of the estate in this city only has electric, not gas. You will be limited as to the energy efficiency of your property. (The council here is struggling to keep housing stock weathertight and get lifts fixed within a month). You may be able to change suppliers but you may not be able get a good deal from any - that may require some spare cash. If not the "key card" systems that are the default (essentially "money in the meter") are some of the more expensive ways of getting your energy.

Rich_cb wrote:

And all the people pushed into fuel poverty by these new taxes?

If we're serious about reducing energy usage, then there has to be incentives and likely grants provided to improve housing insulation and energy efficient means of heating. There's already people suffering with poverty and food/housing/energy costs so a solution needs to be found whether or not taxes are changed.

Seems needlessly complex.

As electricity moves to being truly low carbon it makes no sense to tax it punitively.

We should be encouraging more electricity use as a substitute for other energy sources.

I do think it is a bit daft that my hybrid weighing 1.5T has no ved due to its age, so I can't object to a fee based on your model.

I don't drive very much now and try and do it all by bike (and trailer), so I would love to be able to have some sort of neighbourhood car scheme that would enable me to sell the car (or rather not replace it in a few years).

I think they are called taxis, or buses if you don't mind sharing.

Rich_cb wrote:

our only option is to produce cars that are less environmentally damaging. Electrification is one part of that.

I agree, though it's not the only option - it's just the one that will be most palatable to existing car users.

Producing cars that are genuinely less damaging to the environment requires a complete rethink of the type, size and performance of the vehicle as well as the amount it is used.

But focussing almost entirely on electric cars, as has been the case so far, is NOT going to solve the other very significant issues such as congestion, road safety, parking, charging etc.

Real change can only happen when a government is bold enough to grasp the nettle and forcibly reduce car dependency as well as fossil fuel use in general. There are a range of possible solutions out there (though there's no magic bullet) but there is a complete unwillingness to enact real change.

Rich_cb wrote:

There will be a long period of continued high car use and some car dependency is probably permanent now so our only option is to produce cars that are less environmentally damaging. Electrification is one part of that.

Except that we are baking in the long period of high car use by refusing to invest in the alternatives and building more roads, thus ensuring more car use while not providing for the alternatives.

We have to stop providing almost solely for cars and switch funding from them to the alternatives; until that happens, there will be very little change.  If we switch funding now, we might succeed in ten years time, but if we continue to build roads not cycle paths, the planet will fry before there's much change.  The evidence from all the polls in the last few years is clear; people want more and better cycle facilities, not more roads, so this isn't the unpopular decision that the tiny minority of caraholics would have us believe.

It is possible, it can happen, all it takes is the political will, but as the corruption at COP26 shows, this government talks the talk, but it doesn't ride the bike.

Except electric cars really do not mitigate much at all. You're still using over 1.5 tonnes of machine to transport in most cases a single human being with a mass of less than 80kg. If the vehicle weighs 20x what you do then 95% of the energy consumed is just to move itself. We really should be talking about mass efficiency. There's an energy requirement to move that total mass,  vehicle and person, that could be massively reduced by using a different kind of vehicle.

I agree but it's better than nothing and can be implemented with, relatively, little upheaval.

I see them as a stop gap measure whilst active travel and driverless vehicles gain traction.

Especially in more car dependent countries.

Rich_cb wrote:

I agree but it's better than nothing and can be implemented with, relatively, little upheaval. I see them as a stop gap measure whilst active travel and driverless vehicles gain traction. Especially in more car dependent countries.

Thing about "cost" and "upheaval" is that our governments are actually fine with huge costs and serious upheaval. It's just which directions they choose to spend money and make changes on that I'm questioning. Our government is still very much subsidising motor vehicles (both old style and new in many ways).

Emit elsewhere vehicles (that's the thing about externalities, see? Out of sight...)  will replace petrol and diesel ones in the UK. Driverless technology may or may be significant. I'm certainly unclear it will do much for "efficiency". For that the technology would also require a culture change to go with it. Don't forget taxis (and buses) exist now. History says the general trend for humanity is to use more resources / energy per person over time.

I agree that this is an opportunity - to diversify our transport modes and maybe get some more of the wide range of benefits from active travel. If you're concerned about fuel poverty this could certainly be a part of an solution.

I'm just less optimistic / more concerned than you that without some serious "direction" (money - carrots and sticks basically) from government this opportunity will pass. Then we'll just have electric vehicles rather than internal combustion engined ones.

Unfortunately we almost certainly need some "top down" direction in the UK because we're probably past the point where "bottom up" movements can gain traction. That's due to the decades of previous "top down" subsidies and policies to encourage driving.

Certainly things have changed - slightly.  In the past we just had hopeful exhortations about active travel. Now we have hopeful exhortations and a tiny percentage of the total travel budget. No reduction in the "private motor vehicle" funding though.

There are a few councils / boroughs essentially taking independent action. Ones mentioned here recently: Manchester, Birmingham has some plans, Glasgow, some London boroughs. My own council is comparitively "cycle friendly" but seem complacent. Their city plans for 2030 says development should "connect to the network" but there are no plans to actually have one so essentially the same glacial rate of change.

Driverless cars offer myriad potential benefits over buses and taxis. I don't really think they're comparable.

Energy use per capita in the UK has been falling for the last 15-20 years depending on which measure you choose.

We can't change the car dependent culture overnight. IMO it won't change significantly until the majority of people don't own a car.

That's why you see many major cities producing active travel plans in certain areas, those areas are approaching or have passed 50% of residents who don't own a car.

Rich_cb wrote:

Driverless cars offer myriad potential benefits over buses and taxis. I don't really think they're comparable. Energy use per capita in the UK has been falling for the last 15-20 years depending on which measure you choose. We can't change the car dependent culture overnight. IMO it won't change significantly until the majority of people don't own a car. That's why you see many major cities producing active travel plans in certain areas, those areas are approaching or have passed 50% of residents who don't own a car.

I know you're very optimistic about driverless cars.

You're right that in raw terms energy usage has declined for the UK since the late nineties for the UK. Although still steadily upward for the world, despite some countries - particularly in africa - taking a serious downwards turn. That's certainly not due to them suddenly becoming super efficient... The UK detail is interesting though - "industrial" use fell al lot. Which probably reflects a change in industries as much as anything else. For residential use and "transport" this is more like a slowing. (You can clearly see the effect of Covid most recently).

As always what's being measured is key. I suspect (per manufacting data) this simply reflects the fact that our energy intensive goods are now made elsewhere. So if we have much less "heavy" industry (note the small change in the chemical industry) then it won't be using lots of power any more... Another "externality"?

I think you're right about the cultural change too. That's what interests me about the "chicken and egg" puzzle. Ignoring the Netherlands (where they still had a relatively high modal share for cycling when they started doing more for it) I wonder what if anything we can learn from Scandinavia (not just Copenhagen), Berne, maybe even Paris. Places where they do seem to have largely lost cycling but have restored a little.

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That's why you see many major cities producing active travel plans in certain areas, those areas are approaching or have passed 50% of residents who don't own a car.

I'm not quite sure why they're changing. Some places are clearly not. F'rexample - Scottish census (2011):

62.4% of employed people travelled to work by car.

69% of households had at least one car or van available. (An increase from 66% in 2001.)

31.4% of households in Edinburgh have no access to a car or van. (link - apologies - doesn't seem to be a direct link). Dundee - 41.8% (less well off than Edinburgh). Well below national average. No great rush for active travel here...

Rather than mandating in-home charging points, we'd do better to mandate roadside parking bans for new developments, coupled with peripheral 'charge parks'. If you have to walk a few minutes to and from the car to make your journey, it would reduce the convenience so that people might start deciding that for local trips it's easier just to walk / cycle / etc., which might start weaning them off the default 'jump in the car' mode of thinking.

And you could charge a fee for a spot to increase the cost of maintaining use of a car.