Ken Livingstone exempts diesel A2s from congestion charges

Alan_uk

A2OC Donor
In 2008, the London congestion charge will be removed for cars in bands A and B. Most cars, in band C, D and E will be unaffected and will continue to pay the £8 rate. Cars in band G will pay £25 but for some reason only those registered after 23 March 2006.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6146442.stm

P.S. I still think it is best to take the train to London but at least this might set the rules for other cities that don't have such good public transport.
 
I rarely take the train in.

There are some very handy car parks on the edge of the congestion zone. Park there and hop on the tube!

Last time I asked the rail journey planner which train I should get to be in London for 0830 (for an 0900 meeting) it told me to start the day before - and I live near Stafford about 2 miles from a main line station!
 
I live in the zone. Because of parking difficulty, there aren't that many people who lives in the zone drives during rush hours. Except those who drive to get OUTSIDE of the zone to get to work like I used to do. The best way to beat the zone is ride a small scotter, Vespa and the like. Plenty of motorcycle parking - free. Get pass stalled traffic, get to the front of the lights, gets off quicker than most drivers; unlike bicycles which are slow off the line and even slower on the road, simply blocking packed buses for the benifit of one person. Who's creating more pollution and congestion here?

The current zone doesn't actually cover a lot of mums driving 4x4s, but the extended zone covering the rich residents in the west will. But hey, even with a 90% resident discount, you won't see me driving my A2 in the zone often. Scooter is hard to beat in central London.
 
since when has 'congestion' had any relation to the amount of pollutants a vehicle put out?
I think they should now rename this 'tax' as a wealth charge, those Richard Craniums that drive a 4x4 in London want their heads examining anyway! and those who can afford to fuel these totally unsuitable beasts are not going to worry about another £125 a week anyway!
This will also affect drivers of the 'executive' class of car i.e. A8, most mercs and things like a honda accord and ford mundano! so what is the 'charge' for, certainly not cutting congestion!

By the way WATCH OUT! IT WILL SOON BE HEADING YOUR WAY TOO.
So I'll be keeping the A2 just in case, at least their values should start to rise!!
 
You're not wrong Mike - I have it on good authority that the congestion charge may be with us in Manchester as early as late 2007 or early 2008!

Apparently, the initial plan is to charge for any driving inside the city centre ring road (Mancunian Way/Trinity Way/Great Ancoats etc). I would be OK (well, possibly still will be with the A2) apart from having to drive 50 yards inside this zone to get to the works car park!

The worst bit is, planner seem to be actively causing congestion with their crazy road ideas - witness the debacle that surrounded the recent Ikea opening and now that all the traffic lights and traffic management has been taken away - lo and behold so has all the congestion.

Case proven m'lud!

Cheers,

Mike
 
Skipton01 said:
You're not wrong Mike - I have it on good authority that the congestion charge may be with us in Manchester as early as late 2007 or early 2008!

Apparently, the initial plan is to charge for any driving inside the city centre ring road (Mancunian Way/Trinity Way/Great Ancoats etc). I would be OK (well, possibly still will be with the A2) apart from having to drive 50 yards inside this zone to get to the works car park!

The worst bit is, planner seem to be actively causing congestion with their crazy road ideas - witness the debacle that surrounded the recent Ikea opening and now that all the traffic lights and traffic management has been taken away - lo and behold so has all the congestion.

Case proven m'lud!



Cheers,

Mike

I don't know what you think Mike but IMHO here in Tameside and Greater Manchester there isn't a 'congestion' problem at all it is very poor traffic management, IKEA is a good example as is Dentons Morrisons! for those of you who don't know these were both given planning without due regard to the management of the increase in traffic, result we will end up paying with a congestion charge, perhaps we should charge the stores instead!
 
Well if it encourages people to check on emissions as well as 0-60 times that has to be a good thing. Ken will double the size of the CC next year and by 2010 who knows maybe the M25 will be included!

Other cities seem to be following suit - even Durham!

So Zero road tax, zero CC, low insurance and still spritely performance - glad I'm still running the 1.2 TDI

Now attitudes are changing I wonder if Audi regret stopping A2 production? If they had marketed it half as well as Toyota have with the Prius perhaps we'd be seeing a RHD 1.2 TDI and in 10 years an affordable H2 model?
 
As there have been a few ant-Ken anti-Congestion Charge posts I would like to pledge my full supoprt for Ken and his Congestion Charge.

The no one reason for charging is congestion, but there are obvious green issues as well as local air quality issues.

Together with the congestion charge, alot of thought has been put into both public transport usefulness and charging.

I am sure further tweaks will be made to make taxis/buses more environmentally freindly and less poluting too.

If only other goverment leaders had Ken's bottle
 
Generally I would agree with you but the concessions given to gas powered and hybrid leviathans are utterly ridiculous, especially in the light of studies on the former by the Harvard Centre for Risk Analysis:

http://www.rac.co.uk/web/knowhow/bu...g;jsessionid=A30F25C100D7E3BDF60F00D76DD6E60F

Both my cars, a 2001 Lupo 3L and a 2001 A2 1.2Tdi, which are just about the most fuel efficient cars you can buy and which, also meet the Euro 4 standard, do not receive any concessions under the current scheme and may not under the next scheme because they were built in the wrong year! Total nonesense! I suppose all the 'zero emission'/ zero charge electric cars are 100% charged by solar or hydroelectric power - considering the typical efficiency of a coal power station (30%), losses in the transmission system (20%) and the efficiency of charging a battery (10 to 20%), their true emissions are probably higher than a small (or big!) conventional car!

Ken needs to hire a few scientists and lawyers. Perhaps he's too mean?

Rant finished!

RAB
 
The other classic flaw in a flat rate tax, like the congestion charge, is that it consumers modify their behaviour to extract maximum value, especially where they do not understand or agree with the reasons for its impossition. I was in London on Friday, I had a couple of appointments, had to stay over friday night and had the dog in tow. Public transport wasn't really an option but having paid my CC I then proceeded to drive everywhere rather than use cabs/bus/tube. The proper deterent, for me anyway, was the inconvienience of on street parking. Although there are now lots of spaces, I rarely have enough change for as long as I need (Another £40 to Westminster City Council). So what have they done, well I can now text my location and Reg and they debit my credit card. Recent Govt guidelines also tell Councils to go easy on drivers and not to clamp them as much. I think you can all see where this is heading.

The same flaw is also evident in Car tax. The more you drive the cheaper it gets!
What they really need to do is employ some car people with a bit of common sense to come up with proper policy.
 
The other classic flaw in a flat rate tax, like the congestion charge, is that it consumers modify their behaviour to extract maximum value, especially where they do not understand or agree with the reasons for its impossition. I was in London on Friday, I had a couple of appointments, had to stay over friday night and had the dog in tow. Public transport wasn't really an option but having paid my CC I then proceeded to drive everywhere rather than use cabs/bus/tube. The proper deterent, for me anyway, was the inconvienience of on street parking. Although there are now lots of spaces, I rarely have enough change for as long as I need (Another £40 to Westminster City Council). So what have they done, well I can now text my location and Reg and they debit my credit card. Recent Govt guidelines also tell Councils to go easy on drivers and not to clamp them as much. I think you can all see where this is heading.

The same flaw is also evident in Car tax. The more you drive the cheaper it gets!
What they really need to do is employ some car people with a bit of common sense to come up with proper policy.

London West End (under Westminster council) usually charges 1 pound for 15min on the meters. Because the old style coin meters can easily hold 2k worth of coins overnight. Some smart criminal took a chain saw and chopped many of these meters with a transit van, for a number of times. Hence it is now text/phone parking. And of course, they charge you for a transaction fee over the phone ;-).
 
I've sent an e-mail to KL:

'Dear Sir,

I have been looking at the draft proposals for the proposed emissions based congestion charge and found the paragraph below (Section 3.2.1):



'The proposals would introduce a 100 per cent discount for the category of lowest CO2 emitting cars – those certified as emitting 120g/km of CO2 or less (VED bands A and B) that also meet the Euro 4 standard for air quality emissions. As stated above, TfL would consider that any car registered on or after 1 January 2005 met the Euro 4 air quality standard. Therefore any car in VED band A or B registered after this date would qualify for the low CO2 discount. The air quality element to the low CO2 discount has been included to encourage drivers to also use cars with lower levels of those emissions that degrade air quality.'



I own 2 cars, a 2001 VW Lupo 3L and a 2001 Audi A2 1.2Tdi. Both these cars were designed as 3L (or almost) 3L fuel/100 km (around 95mpg). Both were only built as LHD cars and were never sold in the UK. They both have the same engine and automated manual gearbox. They both have very low CO2 emissions, this being one of the main reasons for purchase, 81g/km for the Lupo and 86g/km for the Audi. Both cars nominally meet the Euro 3 emissions standard but only as the Euro 4 standard did not exist in 2001. In fact, both cars also meet the Euro 4 standard as their Certificates of Conformity show:



g/km CO HC+NOx NOx Particulates

Euro 4 Standard 0.50 0.30 0.25 0.025

2001 VW Lupo 3L 0.202 0.242 0.22 0.019

2001 Audi A2 1.2Tdi 0.228 0.261 0.24 0.021



According to your proposals, one of these cars, and, incidentally the one with the lower emissions, does not qualify for the low CO2 discount because it was registered in 2001. The other car presumably does qualify because it will be registered in the next month or so! Common sense tells me that both cars should qualify but common sense was never a strong point of the current scheme so why should I expect any for the next? Under the current scheme, neither car qualifies for any discount but Leviathans like Lexus SUV hybrids and LPG powered Range Rovers do! A study by the Harvard Centre for Risk Analysis has found that vehicles powered by LPG produce large amounts of ultra-fine exhaust particles.

http://www.rac.co.uk/web/knowhow/bu...g;jsessionid=A30F25C100D7E3BDF60F00D76DD6E60F

I suppose all the 'zero emission'/ zero charge electric cars in Central London are 100% charged by solar or hydroelectric power - considering the typical efficiency of a coal power station (30%), losses in the transmission system (20%) and the efficiency of charging a battery (10 to 20%), their true emissions are probably higher than a small (or big!) conventional car! It's just that the emissions are made somewhere outside Central London.

At the very least I would like some clarification of the above. However, as we normally only travel into London about once a year (usually to a concert from which we cannot get home to East Sussex by train) it might be cheaper if neither qualifies as it costs £10 a year just to register! But you have no excuse for getting it wrong this time. Perhaps you should get some decent scientific advice and hire some lawyers to check your drafts!'

My local farmer will deal with the reply (assuming I get one!).

RAB
 
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It's enough to make one cry:

Extract from http://www.audi.co.uk/audi/uk/en2/a...DI_A3_WILL_BE_FREE_TO_CHARGE_INTO_LONDON.html

These more environmentally considerate models will be engineered with the benefit of experience gained during the development of the pioneering, aluminium-bodied A2 compact hatchback of 1999, which offered 81g/km CO2 output and 94-plus mpg capability and is widely regarded as a car born well ahead of its time.


Or put another way, Audi chopped it in 2006 just as the demand was taking off. In the 6 years of production (2000-2005) 176,205 A2s were sold, just a bit less than the number of TTs over the same period, 199,085.

If they kept the TT they should also have kept the A2.
 
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Hi Alan,

Audi UK wouldn't be describing a car that they never officially sold in the UK would they? The A2 1.2 TDI?

John.
 
Hi Alan,

Audi UK wouldn't be describing a car that they never officially sold in the UK would they? The A2 1.2 TDI?

John.

Hi John,

Given the turnover of staff, especially in marketing, they probably don't realise they missed a trick in not selling the A2 1.2 TDI in the UK.

Surely it must be cheaper to retool for the A2 than start again from scratch. After all, even Audi are admitting the design was ahead of it's time in 1999 but surely now is just the right time.

Alan
 
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