Running a car on Electrons vs LPG

[Country Boy]

Hi All

Many moons ago I drove a big V8 Chelsea Tractor (I did get it muddy) which was powered by LPG. There were not many places to fill up, especially in Mid Wales, but it was cheap. The conversion cost quite a lot of money, but it was much cheaper to run.

Over the years there were a few more filling stations opening up, and there was a system whereby I had an electronic key and I could help myself to bunkers around the country and get billed at the end of the month.

From time to time these LPG pumps would be out of service, and it could take months for them to be repaired. It made travelling around something of a lottery.

But hey, it was cheap.

Then the prices of the fuel started to rise, and the differential between LPG and petrol became less and less. Tax was increased on the fuel, and when the price of oil went up, so did the price of fuel. It never seemed to come down through.

In the end, the price differential was not worth the hassle, so I went back to using petrol.

Does this sound familiar to anyone with electrons?

 

[Adopado]

Since LPG fuel for cars was essentially a tax dodge that can't have come as too much of a surprise!

Aside from tax the price you pay follows the market ... like everything else... so I don't expect EV charging to remain a bargain forever.

 

[mnobleuk]

Nope because I get my electrons at home, and even the most remotest wildest places seem to have 3 pin plugs !

Sidenote - I really don't understand the anti EV argument around "its cheap now but just wait until they tax it" - that's kinda like someone offering you £100 a month for an undetermined time but you turn it down because its going to stop sometime ...

 

[Watts_Up]

@Country Boy May be I could be wrong, but I believe that there are some compressors that you could install
in your garage to compress and refil your Land Rover with the gas that you use for cooking at home?

 

[Yev000]

You can make electrons at home, you cant make LPG or Petrol at home. They would have to make it illegal to install solar to tax electricity specifically for road use. And illegal to charge with a 3 pin plug. And illegal to install non-smart charger.

You can't just put a flat tax on electricity because that will consume all that pension income.

Not to mention other ways to get electricity.

They will probably just tax the roads

 

[Dilly]

You can make electrons at home, you cant make LPG or Petrol at home. They would have to make it illegal to install solar to tax electricity specifically for road use. And illegal to charge with a 3 pin plug. And illegal to install non-smart charger.

You can't just put a flat tax on electricity because that will consume all that pension income.

Not to mention other ways to get electricity.

They will probably just tax the roads

Round here, they’d get more by taxing the potholes…

 

[Regulo]

I ran two LPG converted Volvos. Had only one problem with the first (easily sorted) and 100% trouble free with the second. Then changed to my present Outlander PHEV. I've noticed that a lot of places I used to fill up with LPG now no longer have it. It would make filling up now a bit of a lottery. Of course the two Volvos still retained the ability to run on petrol, so no real anxiety regards obtaining LPG - just ran on petrol until I could refill on LPG.

 

[GRiLLA]

I do think that EV owners should be less defeatist in accepting "they will tax electricity like petrol one day". I see absolutely no reason that should be the case.

1. We tax people largely based on income, spending and use of council services to run the country, then have additional taxes to discourage things that are bad like drinking, smoking and fossil fuels. I can see there be more congestion charging, but otherwise there isn't really strong reasons why driving an EV is bad. Outside of cities, cars increase opportunity and social mobility for people, they are a good thing. I would also make all public transport free, so it's always absolutely clear it's the best and simplest option.
2. It doesn't raise a great deal of money, Fuel revenue raises about 1% of the annual tax income. Half of what's raised goes back to petrol companies as subsidies and encouragements. We can clearly afford not to have it. We don't tax aviation fuel, surely that is a higher priority.
3. It will take far too long to bring in a mileage tax of any kind, how far and how long has smart electricity meters taken already? imagine trying to put a device in every car. By the time they figure that out it'll be 2035 and so it would seem like just implementing a new tax, for what reason?

So I can see there being some kind of measure to avoid growth in numbers of cars, but not a mileage tax. Clearly current incentives will end, company car tax return, and I can see VED coming back as a second car tax to mitigate rapid increases in the number of cars.

 

[Big Earl]

@Country Boy May be I could be wrong, but I believe that there are some compressors that you could install
in your garage to compress and refil your Land Rover with the gas that you use for cooking at home?

That would be CNG (compressed natural gas) as opposed to LPG (liquified petroleum gas).

To the OP: No, your experience does not sound similar to my electric experience. EV charging infrastructure expands every year, while CNG and LPG are stagnant, at best. Many EVs also enjoy the benefit of charging at home.

 

[Plagued]

I'd say it was fairly similar, but charging is VERY slowly getting better. While I'm not exactly an early adopter I've been driving EV's for over 5 years, and previously owned LPG cars. There's a lot of similarities in journey planning, unreliable infrastructure, but the EV infrastructure was far worse and less reliable than the LPG network. Even when LPG was in its infancy the stations were manned, so there was less chance of things sitting broken for weeks/months as someone there would fix it, or pull another lead out of a shed. the "you can charge at home" is one argument, but you can also run an LPG car on petrol if you want and the range is HUGE if you have a tank of both, so even with home charging on an EV if you do a lot of mileage you're still going to need the public charge network, which only this year is starting to dig itself out from being an utter disgrace. So Superchargers are great for Tesla owners but no so great for everyone else. But as the charging network is improving the LPG is declining, so they've crossed over, and the charging network will have to start rapidly improving.
Also There's plenty of ways taxes can be placed on EV's you can tax on mileage based on your MOT mileage, so low rate for the first 3 years (to help encourage new car sales) then a mileage based rate auto calculated. You could even add road tax to tyres. They could also tax domestic electricity by giving a base rate on up to 5KWH to cover heating and power for your house then a higher rate from there. This would mean less efficient EV's would pay more tax ... You're always going to get taxed and I'm sure they'll come up with some half brained way of taxing EV's.

 

[Adopado]

I do think that EV owners should be less defeatist in accepting "they will tax electricity like petrol one day". I see absolutely no reason that should be the case.

I'm defeatist about public charger prices... nothing to do with the tax element. The companies will set the price according to the market. I don't think electricity tax generally is likely to be the route to collect more tax from EV drivers. I disagree that tax based on mileage is particularly hard to do ... many people already have their mileage taken into account for their car payments.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Hi All

Many moons ago I drove a big V8 Chelsea Tractor (I did get it muddy) which was powered by LPG. There were not many places to fill up, especially in Mid Wales, but it was cheap. The conversion cost quite a lot of money, but it was much cheaper to run.

Over the years there were a few more filling stations opening up, and there was a system whereby I had an electronic key and I could help myself to bunkers around the country and get billed at the end of the month.

From time to time these LPG pumps would be out of service, and it could take months for them to be repaired. It made travelling around something of a lottery.

But hey, it was cheap.

Then the prices of the fuel started to rise, and the differential between LPG and petrol became less and less. Tax was increased on the fuel, and when the price of oil went up, so did the price of fuel. It never seemed to come down through.

In the end, the price differential was not worth the hassle, so I went back to using petrol.

Does this sound familiar to anyone with electrons?

Some similarities, but there are significant differences for EV because of:
- refuelling at home
- higher vehicle efficiency
- use of electricity as energy source
- low-maintenance drivetrain
- differences in vehicle operation

LPG/propane doesn't fundamentally change anything, although it has benefits of being cleaner burning.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I do think that EV owners should be less defeatist in accepting "they will tax electricity like petrol one day". I see absolutely no reason that should be the case.

1. We tax people largely based on income, spending and use of council services to run the country, then have additional taxes to discourage things that are bad like drinking, smoking and fossil fuels. I can see there be more congestion charging, but otherwise there isn't really strong reasons why driving an EV is bad. Outside of cities, cars increase opportunity and social mobility for people, they are a good thing. I would also make all public transport free, so it's always absolutely clear it's the best and simplest option.
2. It doesn't raise a great deal of money, Fuel revenue raises about 1% of the annual tax income. Half of what's raised goes back to petrol companies as subsidies and encouragements. We can clearly afford not to have it. We don't tax aviation fuel, surely that is a higher priority.
3. It will take far too long to bring in a mileage tax of any kind, how far and how long has smart electricity meters taken already? imagine trying to put a device in every car. By the time they figure that out it'll be 2035 and so it would seem like just implementing a new tax, for what reason?

So I can see there being some kind of measure to avoid growth in numbers of cars, but not a mileage tax. Clearly current incentives will end, company car tax return, and I can see VED coming back as a second car tax to mitigate rapid increases in the number of cars.

The UK government has made it clear, consistently, that they are not planning to add taxes to electricity, but would instead move to road pricing based on miles driven.

 

[pgkevet]

The UK government has made it clear, consistently, that they are not planning to add taxes to electricity, but would instead move to road pricing based on miles driven.

They've also made it clear that we're all going to get conned charged more for energy to pay for hydrogen and whatever other greenwashed scheme they can think of... along with a few Covid taxes, HS2 overspend and politician excesses...

 

[GRiLLA]

The UK government has made it clear, consistently, that they are not planning to add taxes to electricity, but would instead move to road pricing based on miles driven.

I don't see that they have. There are suggestion in papers that 'sources' have suggested that Rishi Sunak is keen for the treasury to look into it. This is how they leak a suggestion and see how well it does with the public. If we all casually accept it as seeming fair then they are more likely to proceed.

I see no justification for it.

 

[Js1977]

You can make electrons at home, you cant make LPG or Petrol at home. They would have to make it illegal to install solar to tax electricity specifically for road use. And illegal to charge with a 3 pin plug. And illegal to install non-smart charger.

You can't just put a flat tax on electricity because that will consume all that pension income.

Not to mention other ways to get electricity.

They will probably just tax the roads

Makes you laugh really. You can run a car on veg oil but have to pay tax on it. I dont know if any remember the small scandal (in Wales I think) where cheap veg oil was being sold and people were just people were clerking it up like toilet roll during the pandemic. Needless to say they were not cooking with it and this was clamped down. This was also cleaner for the environment.

Roll on "today" and we are running cars on electricity at the same rate that we also use for cooking. You really could not make this up!

A bit of a can of worms, EV's and even hybrids are for the government. But as usual where there is a will there is away and Im sure they cooking the pot as we speak.

 

[Neilman]

There is a difference though - the VAT on home electricity is only 5% whereas from a public charge point its "full-fat" VAT at 20%.

 

[pdk42]

“In the end, the price differential was not worth the hassle, so I went back to using petrol”. Whatever the electricity price does, I hope that’s not what people do. The whole point of EVs is to reduce CO2 emissions and make city air cleaner.

 

[Js1977]

“In the end, the price differential was not worth the hassle, so I went back to using petrol”. Whatever the electricity price does, I hope that’s not what people do. The whole point of EVs is to reduce CO2 emissions and make city air cleaner.

In case you haven't noticed...Most of us here are just cheapskate petrol heads

 

[Js1977]

There is a difference though - the VAT on home electricity is only 5% whereas from a public charge point its "full-fat" VAT at 20%.

And what is the vat on vegetable oil then? I think you are missing the point?