T-Charge.

[JockoT]

As off 23rd October, London is introducing a T- Charge (Toxicity Charge) for all older vehicles driving through the city. They reckon it will affect 10,000 vehicles a day. The charge will be £10 per day and will affect all vehicles, petrol and diesel, which do not comply with Euro 4 emissions. Basically anything registered before 1st January 2006.
This will be in addition to the current Congestion charge, already in place. Like the Congestion charge, you have to pay before you enter the city centre. If you don't, the cameras register the vehicle and the registered keeper is sent a £130 fine. The registered keeper has to pay the fine, not the driver, the same as currently happens with the Congestion charge and UK speed camera tickets.
My car just scrapes in!

https://www.petrolprices.com/news/le...uble-t-charge/

[gone-ot]

The UK has no concept of "Grandfathered" items?

[JockoT]

It is all in the name of cutting down pollution in our capital city. London is a filthy city due to vehicle pollution, as you may well know.
Glasgow is also making plans. The most polluting buses will be banned from Glasgow city centre if plans to introduce a so-called low emission zone in the city are given the go ahead. Councillors will put forward a proposal next week to ban all but the cleanest buses by the end of next year. It follows claims that poor air quality leads to the deaths of about 300 Glaswegians each year. Only a fraction of the number that succumb to alcohol poisoning! Bring on the "Buckfast".

[gone-ot]

Sounds like too many UK/Scottish goobermentalarians have been listening to our EPA idjiots.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

Sounds like too many UK/Scottish goobermentalarians have been listening to our EPA idjiots.

No- sounds like it starts in Europe and eventually comes here.

The only EPA idjit I'm aware of is Pruitt. He's not too popular: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/21/politi...nts/index.html

Well, that's what ya get with too many people per square inch. They must like it that way.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Instead of simply charging older cars for what bureaucrats call a "toxicity", eventually it would make more sense to take benefit from the easier adaptability of those vehicles to some alternate fuels, which in turn not only decrease the pollution but also lead to a lower dependence on petroleum.

Originally Posted by JockoT

The charge will be £10 per day and will affect all vehicles, petrol and diesel, which do not comply with Euro 4 emissions.

Are vehicles converted to gaseous fuels exempt from that charge?

[JockoT]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Are vehicles converted to gaseous fuels exempt from that charge?

They have to have been tested to Euro 4 standards.

Regarding conversion to alternative fuels, that is not really practical here in the UK. Cost of conversion, even to LPG, is about £1500, and must be certified. There is no great incentive regards running costs as the cheaper price is more or less balanced by the reduced energy content. Ethanol is not available, as we have to import it, due to lack of land for growing suitable crops.

[jakobnev]

The good part of this plan, is that it lets people who don't need to drive into the central areas of the largest cities, keep using their old cheap cars.

Just imagine if they penalized all old cars, or even banned them.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Penalizing or banning older cars in general, even if they didn't access the central areas, would be really worse, but it still doesn't seem so fair to push for such restrictions against older cars. BTW considering that motorcycles are still usually certified to less stringent standards, even though a small 125cc motorcycle complying to Euro-3 standard is likely to have lower overall emissions than an Euro-4 car with just the driver and no passengers, are them getting affected by a similar measure?

Originally Posted by JockoT

They have to have been tested to Euro 4 standards.

Even though the resale value of a 2006 or older Euro-3 ride may not seem to justify the cost of a retrofit to become compliant to Euro-4 standards, and the Diesel engines of that period not being usually fitted with a DPF and thus easier to adapt for the usage of pure vegetable oils and other waste cooking fats (which don't require any further chemical processing) as alternate fuels, for me it seems not so eco-friendly at all to impose such restriction to their circulation. Eventually it would make sense to also use whitefish liver oil as a feedstock for biodiesel, especially in an archipelago like the UK. Let's also consider the lesser energy expense to keep them running instead of scrapping and the environmental footprint from the production of a new car which may eventually not be offset during such a short lifespan. Anyway, with so many fish-and-chips stands, one could guess there would be enough supply of waste frying oil all across the country

Cost of conversion, even to LPG, is about £1500, and must be certified. There is no great incentive regards running costs as the cheaper price is more or less balanced by the reduced energy content.

I wouldn't even consider LPG an alternate fuel at all, since it's petroleum-based. When it comes to gaseous fuels, biomethane seems to be the best option overall, due to the abundance of suitable feedstocks.

Ethanol is not available, as we have to import it, due to lack of land for growing suitable crops.

Ethanol can be brewed from byproducts of the industrial processing of nearly any crop, and also from residues of alcoholic beverages production and bakeries. There has also been some testing of starch-rich algae that can be raised in the vinasse of sugarcane ethanol production in Brazil to decrease its salt load before it's poured in the soil to be used as a fertilizer, and those algae can also be used as a feedstock for ethanol. Anyway, I've been more interested in biodiesel than ethanol, and there are plenty of crops suitable to its production in the UK, including Salicornia which can even be irrigated with saltwater.

[JockoT]

The thing about vehicles over 10 years old, here in the UK, is that unless they have been cherished they are invariably rusted out and ready for the knackers yard. The bulk of the vehicles they try to get off the London streets are old tradesman's vans and trucks, many of which are so clapped out they don't have much of a scrap value. These are the type of vehicles that, when they require money spent on them, are deemed not to warrant it, and just get scrapped. I saw one this morning, one headlight and one number plate lamp! No other lighting. If they won't spend a few pounds on bulbs, they are not going to convert to an alternative fuel!