I dont think that RFL plays too much of a part in the running costs of a car. It certainly doesnt scale according to car type, rather it scales partly according to emmisions with a disproportionate level for battery/boring cars and interesting cars. The rest are in the middle on the 'scale'
Who said it scaled according to car type, and why should it.? Both the Tesla and Lightning cars for example are battery powered and will drag 0-62mph in under 4s. I wouldn't call that boring, unless all AMG cars are even more boring also.
Other low emission vehicles will follow the performance shown by these two, they don't have to be designed as town cars.
I posted a link to the SMMT annual market report. You should take the time to read it it is full of interesting information, from the motor manufacturers.
There is already a significant shift towards lower emission vehicles and this trend is set to continue.
They predict the average Co2 of new cars sold to be 120g/km by 2012. So people are definitely migrating towards lower emission cars
Heres the linky again in case you missed it the first three times.
http://smmtlib.findlay.co.uk/articles/sharedfolder/Publications/CO2 report3.pdf
I dont think it encourages many people at all to use less 'polluting' vehicles as the differences between bands isnt that great. Sure there will always be the 'green' brigade who will buy according to perceived impact but then there will always be those who take a more pragmatic view taking into account all factors and buy sensibly.
That wasn't the point I was making. The display of RFL band gives a clear indication of the vehicles pollution, which strangely enough is linked to fuel consumption so this also gives an indication of the running costs. People can now make a decision of how much the car will cost to run as it is clearly displayed.
I recently purchased new kitchen appliances and asked whether general shoppers are influenced by the energy rating labels. The answer was that everybody now wants A or A+ rated appliances. The same will happen with cars once people are familiar with the scheme, especially if proposed colour coding comes into force.
The bands run from £0 to £300 per annum. That is enough to make many people consider buying a lower band car. This will become more relevant when the upper band charge increases to £400 and higher.
If cost isn't an issue, why have we just had a thread about the cost of RFL, and why do we get threads about the cost of servicing and insurance?
The 'green brigade' as you so pleasantly call the forward thinking people bothered about YOUR children's future are at least looking at the problem with an open mind, which is a lot more than the ostriches and dinosaurs are doing.
As for putting RFL on fuel, the government cant do this for two main reasons. The first is it will mean a huge number of civil servants having to do something else and as fuel is so close to the £1 / litre that if it were put on fuel it would cause uproar.
It's already breached £1 per litre in areas, I don't see any Civil unrest. we recently had a thread where people said they would pay £2 per litre, so why should £1 be an issue.? However as the cost of fuel rises it will focus peoples attention back to running costs, so the RFL banding system will guide motorists towards more economical cars.
If economy isn't an issue why did you, for example, buy a low powered A class Cdi, Why not a petrol?
For the display of a 'legality' sticker, this could be issued by the MOT stations so that we all know if a car is mot'ed or not.
The RFL disk gives a clear indication of MOT and insurance...oh, and now emissions..
