Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Energy price rise.

Maybe Pete but Tesla vs big V8 isnt the comparison the average Joe makes. 250 miles in my Merc estate costs £30 of which 64% or £19 is the fuel itself. So the equivalent of your £8 is my £11.

I think you might be mistaken if you think the government can afford to give up fuel duty and high vat when electric cars are compulsory

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This is inevitable. Motoring is an easy target for tax generation. Has been ever since cars existed.
Buying a car? Tax on purchase VAT plus, now the £40k supplement.
Annual costs...VED, service cost VAT, spares ( tyres, brakes, fluids etc) VAT.
Fuel...a double whammy of fuel duty ( high rate) then add VAT.
Insurance taxed.
Parking? I think there is VAT.
Add in things like self induced costs for speeding courses/fines, with longer term insurance hikes ( more tax).
Got a garage? Taxes on items bought like tools, lighting, power plus potential Council Tax effects if the Band goes up. A bit airy-fairy but an example of the oft hidden costs.
Company car? Income tax liability.
Lots of talk about paying per mile raising its head again, toll roads, extended congestion/ emissions zones.
If you have an EV enjoy the current fuel savings while you can. As with initial FIT tariffs set high to entice solar gen things have changed. Get in early ( if you have the capital to pay for it) and it becomes viable. Not so easy now!
Bottom line is that motoring based taxes subsidise other spending over and above motoring spending.

That's genuinely impressive, at £1.40/litre that equates to over 80mpg. I can see why you're not fussed about EVs.

The same distance in my Mini at 3.9m/KWh would cost £23 if I had to use grid power to charge it all. Even if I drove in 'Green Plus' mode (5m/KWh) it would cost £18 and require me to tootle around everywhere at a max of 50mph with no decent acceleration, and who wants to do that?

Mind you, 250 miles in the Landy costs around £70 in diesel (which is nearer £1.50 around us), so in comparison the Mini is still pretty cheap to run.

Ignoring cars and PV one can invest in a home storage battery and switch to a time of use tariff and then charge up when cheaper rate and discharge when at the higher rate, obviously joining it to solar PV is more beneficial, additionally you can join something like Ripple Energy invest in one of their windfarms and get a payback on your investment into your household energy account over 25 years (I know I know some of use won't last that long but you can leave the investment to someone when you pass).

There are things you can do to alleviate spiraling energy costs if you pull your head out of the sand.

Interesting, I only thought battery packs were viable if charged via solar PV, didn't realise you could charge via off peak leccy

I suppose it's a bit like the Hydro plants pumping the water back up into the reservoir at night ?

The ultimate ambition of the smart metre believers is for all cars to be EVs that are connected when not in use, and all houses to have a power wall. This combination would act just like decentralised pump storage, with power stored and taken as the grid needed. It is theoretically possible, but I'm not convinced it is either affordable or achievable. My Tesla has a 76 kw battery, most of the time it has about 60 to 40 kw in storage so no problem to trade 20kw , but until both Tesla enables the export of power, and the DNO upgrades the local network, it isn't possible.

Just as long as you aren't a nurse earning 30k.....

Or an IT/Electronics engineer earning considerably less...

Provision of affordable heating for the less well off is going to be a difficult problem for the Government. I'm pretty sure we'll never see a return to the artificially depressed prices of the last 35 years or so as they were mainly driven by the abandonment of a national energy strategy following privatisation. As suppliers no longer had to provision for replacement generation units, they were able to drop prices and syphon off profits instead of investing in replacement.

On the other hand, the idea that we must all have warm homes all of the time is a pretty recent thing. It's not very long ago that winter clothing for a chap (eg my Grandfather) would be long joins, vest, flannel shirt, woollen waistcoat, thick corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket. These days I get the impression that people expect to be able to swan around their houses wearing t-Shirt and jogging bottoms when it's below zero outside.

The warm house expectation has happened in my lifetime, as has the expectation of car ownership.

We didn't have a car until I started work. We didn't have a fridge until the 70's. Frost on the insides of windows, bedding damp with condensation and drinking water iced over on the window sill was the norm.

We have friends now who wear fleeces indoors and sit watching TV under a duvet. This will only get worse.