LPG and the Tax on the car?

[A210AMG]

Hello,

I have been looking around on Piston heads as you do...at stuff....

Noticed a few LPG cars that say 'cheap tax' as LPG ??

Is this true? even if I had gas in my car its still a petrol 3.7 and how do they know you would be runining on gas? so why would it be classed as cheaper?

Cheers

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

IIRC my father has tried to get his VED reduced on his Range Rover fitted with LPG and they've point blank refused. I think they said it only applies to vehicles with dual-fual capability from new, which is pretty much just a few Vauxhalls.

 

[SilverSaloon]

i think LPG conversions warrant £10 a year cheaper tax (it was when i considered a conversion about 2 years ago anyway)

 

[DaveK]

If you have a conversion done and have the V5 changed to dual fuel ( by the DVLA - you provide cert of lpg fitting and fill in change details ) then you get £15 off VED. Next year this drops to £10 and the year after is abolished altogether. Funny isn't it.... the labour govt gave a way millions of pounds towards conversions in the PowerShift scheme afew years back once the grant money was used up, decided that lpg was not as clean as they first made out. ROBBERS

 

[BTB 500]

LPG emits about the same amount of CO2 as a diesel (around 10% less than petrol). So if global warming is the concern, it doesn't warrant a VED discount.

 

[A210AMG]

Thanks Guys...

I thought that be the case.

 

[TonyVianoAmbiente]

LPG emits about the same amount of CO2 as a diesel (around 10% less than petrol). So if global warming is the concern, it doesn't warrant a VED discount.

It isn't quite as simple as that.

If the LPG is derived from gas associated with oil extraction, that gas would normally be flared off. If that LPG is instead used to fuel a car, it will produce just the same amount of CO2 as if it were flared off, but it will save the CO2 that would have produced by the petrol that would otherwise have been used to fuel the car.

In other words, LPG that would have been flared off saves the CO2 that would have been produced by burning petrol, and doesn't emit any more CO2 than would have been produced by flaring it off.

Now the problem is that LPG became too popular. The demand could not be fully satisfied from only the sources associated with oil extraction, and the additional LPG had to come from gas suppliers. This definitely wasn't zero carbon.

So the Government had to try to balance the amount of subsidised LPG with the amount being produced from oil fields. This is why the subsidy for converting vehicles to dual fuel was withdrawn, and why the reduction in vehicle excise duty was phased out, bringing the demand for autogas LPG more into line with the supply from sources that would otherwise have been flared off.

The good news is that LPG itself is still cheap. But now, the only saving comes from the lower fuel cost.

 

[DaveK]

Of course LPG is one of the most widely used fuels in China and India... don't suppose they worry about it's C02 content.

 

[BTB 500]

It isn't quite as simple as that.

If the LPG is derived from gas associated with oil extraction, that gas would normally be flared off. If that LPG is instead used to fuel a car, it will produce just the same amount of CO2 as if it were flared off, but it will save the CO2 that would have produced by the petrol that would otherwise have been used to fuel the car.

In other words, LPG that would have been flared off saves the CO2 that would have been produced by burning petrol, and doesn't emit any more CO2 than would have been produced by flaring it off.

Now the problem is that LPG became too popular. The demand could not be fully satisfied from only the sources associated with oil extraction, and the additional LPG had to come from gas suppliers. This definitely wasn't zero carbon.

So the Government had to try to balance the amount of subsidised LPG with the amount being produced from oil fields. This is why the subsidy for converting vehicles to dual fuel was withdrawn, and why the reduction in vehicle excise duty was phased out, bringing the demand for autogas LPG more into line with the supply from sources that would otherwise have been flared off.

The good news is that LPG itself is still cheap. But now, the only saving comes from the lower fuel cost.

LPG has always been popular. Calor etc. have sold it for decades, it's been used for domestic heating/cooking where no mains gas supply existed plus all the other uses for bottled gas.

AFAIK there's no link between flaring and use of LPG in motor vehicles. Oil companies moved to flare-gas recovery systems to decrease waste (they found economically viable ways to recover the gas) and reduce emissions (following pressure from environmentalists, although if the gas ends up being stored, transported, and then burnt somewhere else this is probably worse overall than simply burning it on-site).