Tax by weight?

[gryffron]

But even the relative difference between a Tesla and a Fiat 500 is insignificant compared to lorries. If vehicles were to be charged only for actual road damage then ALL cars would be £1pa and heavy trucks would pay tens of thousands.
(HGVs do pay more than cars now, but nowhere near enough to compensate for the road damage they cause)

Gryff

[redsturgeon]

Original VW Golf dimensions
Width 1610mm Length 3705mm

Current VW Polo dimensions
Width 1751 mm Length 4080

John

[DrFfybes]

Do older cars weigh more? For example a 2005 Toyota Avensis kerb weight is 1645 kg. Our KIA Soul BEV kerb weight is 1757 kg. Not much difference. The emissions are obviously dramatically different especially in town use. Interior space is similar.

I'm surprised the interior space is similar, the Avensis was the top of the range family car, whereas a Soul is/was a small city car. I'd be surprised if you could take a family of five on holiday in a Soul. 315L of Soul boot compared to 520L in the Avensis. Probably better to compare the Soul with an Auris (circa 1300kg) or the new 1400kg Corolla.

The Soul EV is also £40k, a lot more than the Avensis were.

The latest Mini is a lot heavier than an early land rover. Wonder how they compare for interior space

[AsleepInYorkshire]

Original VW Golf dimensions
Width 1610mm Length 3705mm

Current VW Polo dimensions
Width 1751 mm Length 4080

John

John,

You have way too much time on your hands

I know I'm walking towards to sin bin as I type

Apologies for having a giggle at your expense, very poor judgement I know

I was washing my good ladies car about a month ago. Washed, polished and waxed. I noticed the near side had battle scars, dints, scratches and in two places dents. The wheels were destroyed . I suspect her car is bigger than it was 15 years ago too

I haven't mentioned this to her just yet. I have made a note in my diary to do so. It's for June 1st 2060

Have a great day

Take care

AiY(D)

[Howard]

Do older cars weigh more? For example a 2005 Toyota Avensis kerb weight is 1645 kg. Our KIA Soul BEV kerb weight is 1757 kg. Not much difference. The emissions are obviously dramatically different especially in town use. Interior space is similar.

I'm surprised the interior space is similar, the Avensis was the top of the range family car, whereas a Soul is/was a small city car. I'd be surprised if you could take a family of five on holiday in a Soul. 315L of Soul boot compared to 520L in the Avensis. Probably better to compare the Soul with an Auris (circa 1300kg) or the new 1400kg Corolla.

The Soul EV is also £40k, a lot more than the Avensis were.

The latest Mini is a lot heavier than an early land rover. Wonder how they compare for interior space

I guess you haven't sat in the back of a Soul. Room for three medium size adults, with a bit more legroom than an old Avensis. And it will swallow a couple of bikes with the back seats folded. Slightly less room in the boot with the seats up.

Similarly for a VW ID3. Our neighbours car is much larger inside than the VW Golf we used to own. These BEVs have more interior space than the outside would suggest.

regards

Howard

[redsturgeon]

Original VW Golf dimensions
Width 1610mm Length 3705mm

Current VW Polo dimensions
Width 1751 mm Length 4080

John

John,

You have way too much time on your hands

I know I'm walking towards to sin bin as I type

Apologies for having a giggle at your expense, very poor judgement I know

I was washing my good ladies car about a month ago. Washed, polished and waxed. I noticed the near side had battle scars, dints, scratches and in two places dents. The wheels were destroyed . I suspect her car is bigger than it was 15 years ago too

I haven't mentioned this to her just yet. I have made a note in my diary to do so. It's for June 1st 2060

Have a great day

Take care

AiY(D)

It took less than a minute or two but if I lightened your day as a result then that was time well spent.

I looked at those two examples since I used to have a Mk1 Golf and looking at recent Polos, I was sure they looked bigger than the Golf was but I never would have guessed that it was 6 inches wider and a foot longer in old money!

At 1789mm x 4633mm the current Golf is an almost unbelievable smidge under a yard longer than the original! No wonder the roads seem more congested!

John

[AsleepInYorkshire]

John,

You have way too much time on your hands

I know I'm walking towards to sin bin as I type

Apologies for having a giggle at your expense, very poor judgement I know

I was washing my good ladies car about a month ago. Washed, polished and waxed. I noticed the near side had battle scars, dints, scratches and in two places dents. The wheels were destroyed . I suspect her car is bigger than it was 15 years ago too

I haven't mentioned this to her just yet. I have made a note in my diary to do so. It's for June 1st 2060

Have a great day

Take care

AiY(D)

It took less than a minute or two but if I lightened your day as a result then that was time well spent.

I looked at those two examples since I used to have a Mk1 Golf and looking at recent Polos, I was sure they looked bigger than the Golf was, but I never would have guessed that it was 6 inches wider and a foot longer in old money!

At 1789mm x 4633mm the current Golf is an almost unbelievable smidge under a yard longer than the original! No wonder the roads seem more congested!

John

Glad to hear you're not looking at a Mini . They're now bigger than the Maxi

My neighbour opposite (policeman) has a Polo. He's had it years and it still looks great. I think they are good for small journeys to and from work, especially if it's a 3–4-mile local trip.

I'll just touch on the subject of tax by weight before I am rumbled for going completely off-topic. I favour taxation which is based on emissions and annual milage. With the latter I realise I am talking out of my bottom as implementation would be almost impossible but idealistically I think we should pay for the amount of road we use. The more we use the more we pay.

I think we could also try and consider of finding ways to encourage business to have video calls instead of everyone driving to a meeting place. And - this isn't designed to be a political twist to the conversation - but I'm surprised that no political party has given the thought of some form of remote schooling more consideration. Are we are relying on schools to be child daycare centres when we go out to work? For some I suspect so. We genuinely need to open the biggest toolbox in history to overcome our obsession with cars and how we use them. This isn't a problem that can be solved by a one size fits all solution. From what I have read recently we are sticking our heads in the sand on this subject. We've tried building more roads, with better designs but that's not worked. We haven't improved rail or bus services.

I think we've become so used to the [alleged] freedom that our cars give us that we may, for want of a better analogy, have entered the mindset of confusing our freedoms as having a higher priority than other issues. The reality is staring us in the face. We have put "our freedoms" first for 70 years now. Look at what we've created. We need to be more honest with ourselves. We've spent a fortune on cars and roads. With the benefit of hindsight I think many of us would say we aren't quite where we anticipated we would be.

I've expanded on the OP's question not to challenge moderation but to invoke conversation on a subject which I suspect most Fools will have an opinion on.

AiY(D)

[Urbandreamer]

I think we could also try and consider of finding ways to encourage business to have video calls instead of everyone driving to a meeting place. And - this isn't designed to be a political twist to the conversation - but I'm surprised that no political party has given the thought of some form of remote schooling more consideration. Are we are relying on schools to be child daycare centres when we go out to work? For some I suspect so. We genuinely need to open the biggest toolbox in history to overcome our obsession with cars and how we use them. This isn't a problem that can be solved by a one size fits all solution. From what I have read recently we are sticking our heads in the sand on this subject. We've tried building more roads, with better designs but that's not worked. We haven't improved rail or bus services.

I think we've become so used to the [alleged] freedom that our cars give us that we may, for want of a better analogy, have entered the mindset of confusing our freedoms as having a higher priority than other issues. The reality is staring us in the face. We have put "our freedoms" first for 70 years now. Look at what we've created. We need to be more honest with ourselves. We've spent a fortune on cars and roads. With the benefit of hindsight I think many of us would say we aren't quite where we anticipated we would be.

I've expanded on the OP's question not to challenge moderation but to invoke conversation on a subject which I suspect most Fools will have an opinion on.

AiY(D)

To be fair, I believe that the OP's question was actually a way of targeting EV's and using weight as a means to do so. Clearly there are lightweight and small EV's such as the Twizy.

Length 2,338 mm (92.0 in)
Width 1,234 mm (48.6 in)
Height 1,454 mm (57.2 in)
Curb weight 450 kg (992 lb)

But of course such things don't count because you can't take a family on holiday in one.

On the subject of schools, yes it is a combination of child care and teaching unions. Mix that with tradition, compulsion, and we have the current system. Universities are streaming lectures and other countries, with widespread populations, do use remote learning. This is not really the thread though to discuss why schools operate the way that they do. Here though is a link you might like on the subject.
https://lgiu.org/e-sgoil-remote-learnin ... -hebrides/

On the subject in general, better public transport. Sure Manchester now has a bit of a tram system, but in some parts you can still see in the road design that they were originally laid out for trams which no longer go there. The same is true in Liverpool, which also use to have something known as "The dockers umbrella"

But of course you can't take a family on holiday by tram.

[DrFfybes]

To be fair, I believe that the OP's question was actually a way of targeting EV's and using weight as a means to do so.

I wasn't targeting EVs, I was pointing out the anomoly in the LGA wanting to raise fuel duty to pay to repair the roads, thus targetting a cohort of road users that are causing individually less damage and a proportion of wear that will reduce over time. My suggestion was to take VED back to the original purpose and structure it in a way that the vehicles causing the damage pay for the repairs.

Do older cars weigh more? For example a 2005 Toyota Avensis kerb weight is 1645 kg. Our KIA Soul BEV kerb weight is 1757 kg. Not much difference. The emissions are obviously dramatically different especially in town use. Interior space is similar.

I guess you haven't sat in the back of a Soul. Room for three medium size adults, with a bit more legroom than an old Avensis. And it will swallow a couple of bikes with the back seats folded. Slightly less room in the boot with the seats up.

Well as my Avensis was having the aircon regassed this morning, I took the 45 mins wait to do just that, and go and look at a brand spanking new Kia Soul. And you are correct, I was surprised. Mainly I was surprised with how out of touch you were with the capacity of an Avensis

Now admittedly my Avensis is a 2016 model, which according to wiki is 3 inches linger and 2 inches wider. It weighs 1490kg according to carinfo, which surprised me. Then I looked up to 2005 model you refer to, and that is listed at 1345kg. Oddly Parkers lists both at 1460kg. So, quite a lot lighter than the Soul.

Then I got the tape measure out. With the rear seats up, the Soul is 63cm deep at the widest point, which is over about a third of the width in the middle. The max width is 110cm for a short bit behind the rear wheels, although the wheel arches impose to reduce this to under 90cm. With the rear seats down load length is 152 cm to the front seats. Let's be generous and say 60x90cm, so 0.54m2 seats up, 1.37m2 seats down.
The Avensis is 150cm wide at the widest point, and this width extends for nearly 50 cm. The narrowest width is 108cm. Load length is 110cm seats up, 195cm seats down. So 1.18m2 or 2.1m2, plus the bits at the side.

So for practical terms, ie getting 4 people and a couple of decent suitcases in, the Avensis boot is over twice the size of the Soul, although this is academic as the Soul boot would only take 1 large case (the one I'm taking tomorrow is 47 x 30 x 72, so yuo'd not get 2 in a Soul even stood on their ends).

Then to the interior. The rear of the Soul is quite tall, plenty of headroom, which is largely down to the seats being about 3 inches too close to the car floor for comfort. Sitting in there was reminiscent of a child's school chair, with a short seat squab, upright rear, amd my knees up somewhere between my navel and my nipples. There was a good 2 inches gap between the bottom of my thigh and the top of the seat, and I certainly couldn't have spent any length of time in there. And I'm only 5'10". Knee room was OK, bit I couldn't extend my feet forwards. In to the driver seat and things were better, you are high and upright, but with the seat at max height it was just about comfortable. With some playing you would get used to it.

Back inside and looking at a Niro, Xceed, Proceed, and it was the Sportage before we got to anything with a similar seating and luggage space to the Avensis. And we all know how big those SUVs are, in fact this Behemoth weighs 1600kg.

Which is 23 stone less than a Soul.

Paul

[Tedx]

I'm not sure I could live with a Kia 'Soul' - just for the name alone.

It's too open to abuse by any passing R 'Soul'

[swill453]

Original VW Golf dimensions
Width 1610mm Length 3705mm

Current VW Polo dimensions
Width 1751 mm Length 4080

You can probably do a similar exercise with Ford Fiesta/Ka, Honda Civic/Jazz and probably a few others as well.

Scott.

[Howard]

To be fair, I believe that the OP's question was actually a way of targeting EV's and using weight as a means to do so.

I wasn't targeting EVs, I was pointing out the anomoly in the LGA wanting to raise fuel duty to pay to repair the roads, thus targetting a cohort of road users that are causing individually less damage and a proportion of wear that will reduce over time. My suggestion was to take VED back to the original purpose and structure it in a way that the vehicles causing the damage pay for the repairs.

Do older cars weigh more? For example a 2005 Toyota Avensis kerb weight is 1645 kg. Our KIA Soul BEV kerb weight is 1757 kg. Not much difference. The emissions are obviously dramatically different especially in town use. Interior space is similar.

I guess you haven't sat in the back of a Soul. Room for three medium size adults, with a bit more legroom than an old Avensis. And it will swallow a couple of bikes with the back seats folded. Slightly less room in the boot with the seats up.

Well as my Avensis was having the aircon regassed this morning, I took the 45 mins wait to do just that, and go and look at a brand spanking new Kia Soul. And you are correct, I was surprised. Mainly I was surprised with how out of touch you were with the capacity of an Avensis

Now admittedly my Avensis is a 2016 model, which according to wiki is 3 inches linger and 2 inches wider. It weighs 1490kg according to carinfo, which surprised me. Then I looked up to 2005 model you refer to, and that is listed at 1345kg. Oddly Parkers lists both at 1460kg. So, quite a lot lighter than the Soul.

Then I got the tape measure out. With the rear seats up, the Soul is 63cm deep at the widest point, which is over about a third of the width in the middle. The max width is 110cm for a short bit behind the rear wheels, although the wheel arches impose to reduce this to under 90cm. With the rear seats down load length is 152 cm to the front seats. Let's be generous and say 60x90cm, so 0.54m2 seats up, 1.37m2 seats down.
The Avensis is 150cm wide at the widest point, and this width extends for nearly 50 cm. The narrowest width is 108cm. Load length is 110cm seats up, 195cm seats down. So 1.18m2 or 2.1m2, plus the bits at the side.

So for practical terms, ie getting 4 people and a couple of decent suitcases in, the Avensis boot is over twice the size of the Soul, although this is academic as the Soul boot would only take 1 large case (the one I'm taking tomorrow is 47 x 30 x 72, so yuo'd not get 2 in a Soul even stood on their ends).

Then to the interior. The rear of the Soul is quite tall, plenty of headroom, which is largely down to the seats being about 3 inches too close to the car floor for comfort. Sitting in there was reminiscent of a child's school chair, with a short seat squab, upright rear, amd my knees up somewhere between my navel and my nipples. There was a good 2 inches gap between the bottom of my thigh and the top of the seat, and I certainly couldn't have spent any length of time in there. And I'm only 5'10". Knee room was OK, bit I couldn't extend my feet forwards. In to the driver seat and things were better, you are high and upright, but with the seat at max height it was just about comfortable. With some playing you would get used to it.

Back inside and looking at a Niro, Xceed, Proceed, and it was the Sportage before we got to anything with a similar seating and luggage space to the Avensis. And we all know how big those SUVs are, in fact this Behemoth weighs 1600kg.d
Which is 23 stone less than a Soul.

Paul

But you haven't addressed the two simple points I made.

There is room in the back of our Soul for three adults and it will swallow two bikes with the seats down.

It's quite a wide car and our three grandchildren, two who are tall teenagers fit in it comfortably for a 100 mile journey. And no annoying transmission hump in the middle which restricts legroom for the middle passenger.

And I gave the weight (and the link to confirm it) of a 2005 Avensis which was a heavier older car and possibly smaller than your newer model. This might be owned by a less affluent person, hit by a weight tax.

Apples and Pears?

regards

Howard

[Urbandreamer]

To be fair, I believe that the OP's question was actually a way of targeting EV's and using weight as a means to do so.

I wasn't targeting EVs, I was pointing out the anomoly in the LGA wanting to raise fuel duty to pay to repair the roads, thus targetting a cohort of road users that are causing individually less damage and a proportion of wear that will reduce over time. My suggestion was to take VED back to the original purpose and structure it in a way that the vehicles causing the damage pay for the repairs.
Paul

Thanks for the clarification.

FWIW, the current Vehicle Excise Duty (aka road tax) is a sliding scale mostly based upon emissions and use rather than impact upon the roads. This may be why we don't require bicycles to be taxed (unlike some other countries).

A web search produced this document.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... hicles.pdf

You may note that there ARE taxes for goods vehicles under 3500kg, and ones for 2 or 3 wheelers under 450kg.

BTW horses are really not good for roads. Something to do with acid in their excrement. Should we tax them?

[DrFfybes]

Paul

But you haven't addressed the two simple points I made.

There is room in the back of our Soul for three adults and it will swallow two bikes with the seats down.

Howard[/quote]

And you are missing my point...

There is not room in the back for 5 adults, it will fit 3 adults, but they won't be comfortable. Neither would 1.

You can probably fit 7 bikes in the back of the Avensis.

It is a larger car - plain and simple, so comparing the weight of the Soul with something 10% longer and then claiming it isn't that much heavier is a false comparisson. You may as well compare it against the weight of a London bus, or a Jumbo jet.

But a Toyota Corolla, or Auris, will still fit 3 adults in the back, probably in more comfort than a Soul, AND take luggage or swallow 2 bicycles, so those should be your comparator. Not a large family car.

And I gave the weight (and the link to confirm it) of a 2005 Avensis which was a heavier older car and possibly smaller than your newer model. This might be owned by a less affluent person, hit by a weight tax.

Your link also says

Weight 1370 kg or 3020 lbs

then again it is a US site, and the Avensis was not sold there.
https://www.ultimatespecs.com/car-specs ... D-116.html
and
https://www.parkers.co.uk/toyota/avensi ... -t2-5d-(06)/specs/
tend to back that up.

Paul

[Howard]

I'm not sure I could live with a Kia 'Soul' - just for the name alone.

It's too open to abuse by any passing R 'Soul'

Can I suggest that your suggestion is particularly apt.

Most drivers only get a view of its backside if one puts one's foot down leaving the traffic lights. The acceleration on a dry road to, say, 40 mph is amazing. And I speak as someone foolish enough to own a Porsche 911 in the past.

Of course we BEV drivers wouldn't do that because we like to protect our range.

regards

Howard

[staffordian]

It's too open to abuse by any passing R 'Soul'

Is that better or worse than Mokka-e ?

[Howard]

Do older cars weigh more? For example a 2005 Toyota Avensis kerb weight is 1645 kg. Our KIA Soul BEV kerb weight is 1757 kg. Not much difference. The emissions are obviously dramatically different especially in town use. Interior space is similar.

I'm surprised the interior space is similar, the Avensis was the top of the range family car, whereas a Soul is/was a small city car. I'd be surprised if you could take a family of five on holiday in a Soul. 315L of Soul boot compared to 520L in the Avensis. Probably better to compare the Soul with an Auris (circa 1300kg) or the new 1400kg Corolla.

The Soul EV is also £40k, a lot more than the Avensis were.

The latest Mini is a lot heavier than an early land rover. Wonder how they compare for interior space

We may have wandered away from the question in your original post.

I happily concede that your 2016 Avensis is a large family car. However, hopefully now you have sat in a Soul you might agree with me that it isn’t a “small city car” but, inside it’s a mid size car. As country dwellers we use ours as a second car which will comfortably seat five (it regularly does) and it will swallow lots with the back seats folded. The rear legroom is excellent.

As someone who is lucky enough to drive nice cars I’m supporting the KIA by reporting our actual experience of using it for over two years. We have been impressed with it and I’m comparing it with previous second cars which included a BMW 3 series and a Mercedes C class estate (quite different cars but no more practical for our second car use).

Answering your original post, I hope you might agree that an owner of a 2005 Avensis model, which weighs much the same as our KIA, might be a little peeved that they were expected to pay the same “weight tax” as the driver of a BEV which, as you pointed out, cost more. For that reason, the weight tax might not be a practical idea?

regards

Howard