lol-lol

Well yes ordinary cars are often loaded way over their GVW limit. 3,4 or 5 big adults and maybe some luggage in the boot quite oft a few percent over the vehicles limit. Generally in small and even medium vehicles you only have around 500 kgs and that includes fuel luggage and passengers. On traffic exercises I have been involved in one might just get a warning for being a few percent over. I have seen 35% over the GVW when doing Anti Bootlegging exercises at Tormarton on tge M5 and at Crickade on the A417 and that is very dangerous for the occupants and other road users. You see it in elevators/ lifts. Do the maths 850 kgs and it says 12 people. Well I am 110 kgs in light clothing, add a laptop I am carrying, winter coat i could be around 120 kgs. What i hate is when the lift overloaded buzzer goes off and the little and light people around me look at me and their eyes say "well your the biggest, you get out". So embarrassing. Overloading cars is very common and sounds like might be more focus on it if it is linked to extra parking charges, more weighbridge or use of existing ones. We introduced SOLAS and weight and safety has become an much bigger issue in transportation. All car drivers and owners should ve more aware, no excuse as it is on your V5

GVW not Kerb Weight it appear to reference.

I remember from my Department of Transport time that road damage related to axle weight is to the forth power so 10% more weight does about half as much more road damage. Also, in general, survivability of cyclists and pedestrians is worse when that group is hit by these bluff SUV shaped vehicles compared to low saloons. It can really split what versions of models would get hit. My 60 kwh Scenic would be OK but the 90 kwh Scenic will get whacked. Lots of the German and mid and bigger pseudo German ie SEAT and Skoda cars would get whacked with this higher parking charge and we saw this with the Paris rules on this. They went big on this as I recall the extra charge was 3 times I think for heavy Chelsea tractors. The road damage and greater risk to others may give councils the reasons they need.

The Welsh capital heading to become the first city to charge heavy SUVs, electric ones too, extra for being SUVs..... Paris did similar a year or so ago..... https://www.aol.co.uk/news/cardiff-becomes-first-uk-council-164313745.html Cardiff council will force drivers with larger vehicles to pay more for parking, becoming the first local authority in the UK to impose a parking premium to combat the dangers of larger vehicles. Councillors voted on Thursday to approve a new parking plan for the city whereby owners of larger vehicles will be charged more for parking permits because their cars “take up more parking space and are a danger to other road users”. The plan states that vehicles that weigh more than 2,400kg fully laden will be subject to a surcharge “to encourage drivers to switch to smaller vehicles”; Sorry Graham, this includes the 2019 Kodiaq with diesel engine and auto gearbox which is 2458kgs GVW I understand. Likely to spread in to more cities. Quite clever as it picks out heavier diesel engine cars and their high NOX perhaps ? @Graham Butcher

System, audit and enforcement should be strong and economic in each part. As an HMRC issued Demand Notes for well over 10M so my cost for return had a good ratio.

When I was doing anti Bootlegging with HMRC we developed more and more useful ways of slowing down the smugglers. Of course we already had the power to seize the transporting vehicle. If it was a rental then that renter would likely be banned from renting from anyone again and small print in their rental agreement meant they were liable for restoration penalties. Also, those carrying alcohol, rather than tobacco, where oft overweight so big fines, points on licence for that. We were increasingly working with multi agencies to throw the book at such characters. But things evolve. With the Con party planning big cuts to the Civil Service it may get easier for criminals. There is lots of big data drilling going on with hmrc, bank accounts to tax returns and lots are getting caught out for under declaration and this is bringing in increasingly large amounts even if just incorrect declaration rather than "knowingly" making incorrect decision. Pay the amount owed, possibly interest charges and a fixed penalty but not so high as if HMRC can proved intent and then it is bigger fines and possible jail but jail cost us taxpayers big time. I prefer seizure of assets and spare jail.

My old department changed the rules for selling scrap metal ie one cannot get cash ie has to be paid into an account and identify checks ie passport etc when selling metal to a metals dealer. Probably helped but then things get more creative for the thieves ie export the metal like they do with stolen cars ie to certain European countries where this seems to be commonplace.

I do say, and have had had it in mind at those times, when transitioning from having ones pay in the standard tax rate to moving to when Best solution is to have them in very public places I think like 24 hour Maccy Dees and the like. Places where public are around a lot and lots of cameras. Another solution would be to have the cable fully retracted into the charger until going into use and only then does it feed out the cable.

I don't know what is a fair share and those in lower half of income mostly do not. Real policies gave to use the tax system to get in as possible but that is clearly giving Salary Sacrifice on Pension Contributions which is probably the large buyer of UK Gilts which is used to keep the UK funded and keep paying the interest on the £3T debt that this current government inherited from the last run of fast and loose Con governments. Also the last government raised the annual amount that one can put in to the tax avoiding, at time of receipt to pay possibly another rate when finally taken, to keep the GPs working and not going part time. Back to EVs and just put 9 kwh in my rental Peugeot 308 e, will get ne back to airport with no refill charge despite being given it with 100% charge as it will be more than 70% SOC on return. Done about 250 kms in it, charge at public charger just outside my hotel, 5€, not bad for 150 miles so about 3p per mile, happy with that. Will probably do EVs for all European holidays now on. Not so sure about Canada though.

Should get it back for this Winter 25/26 as that was what was being reported. Think it will still be flawed as under the £35k or less of income i will get the Winter fuel allowance next year 26/27 even though I had got my retirement tax free lump sum of more than twice the £35k so I think there should be some other measure ie pension pot holding or the like. Tax planers could drawdown, get pensions etc of say £34.9k maybe to still get the £200, hopefully not as it's not a kings randsom and not worth doing that but a few may. UK tax system seems set to penalise anyone who had saved with tax being charged on interest on saving from as little £1k if standard tax payer or £500 if Higher rate tax payer. Thinking of a chuck of my Lump sum going on a Megane e, especially if it can get the 20% off Blue Light discount rather than just get hammered for tax on interest. Helps with the transition to Zero carbon too I suppose, will miss the Zoe.

Winter Fuel Payment are available for those of income, pension etc of less than £35k i heard. Marxism is defined as this below. Perhaps it encourages an irresponsible and lazy society? From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is a slogan popularized by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme to describe the ideal communist society. It suggests a system where people contribute to society based on their capabilities and receive what they require for their own well-being, based on free access to and distribution of goods and services. In this vision, production and distribution would be managed by the workers themselves, with no class divisions or private property.

There is a distribution curve of course and interesting the UK Government came out with 3 figures for subsistence, comfortable and luxury which wax 19k, 33k and 50k pa from memory. Based on two retirees but as we know many of us are single retirees and expenses are not half those figures above ie 10k, 17k and 25k as many costs are same if single or pair. What many have not realised is that the golden, but not perfect, 4% pension rules means one needs to achieve a pension pot of 1.25m to be in the luxury ie couple of holidays and nice car zone and even 800k pension pot (s) single or combined for comfortable living. Again the figures are there that half are not making any real savings and the other half have an average pension pot of around 150k, nowhere near enough for comfortable or luxury living. It is true that using a little money, for a cheap EV or solar panels, batteries xan really reduce those big outgoings of running a car or home. Be pleasantly surprised how many Renault Zoes there are running around here around Lisbon. Mine for the last 4 years had been such a cheap transport car.

Sounds a bit Marxist ?

Soon to be son in law is a film sparks and is turning towards getting an EV as it can be realised how much saving can be done but range and costs to lease or whatever are a factor. Needs to carry quite a bit of tools sometimes so it might be an EV van rather than an EV car. Fast moving market and choices including a lwb Buzz perhaps.

Me neither. Pay for on Am to get some kick back, move the debt over to Lloyds at 4.9 pa APR and use the lower electricity bills to gradually pay it off. Over a fifth of pensioners are Higher rate tax payers and that percentage is increasing due to the £70B pa of avoidance with salary sacrifice and massive drawdown of tax free lump sums and six figure crystallised Drawdown funds. Whilst I don't want to see pensioners either cold or hungry there are plenty of systems where they should have saved up for their retirement and now bleating for more handouts seems a bit of a cheek, how much tax and NI did you pay in your working career. That said I think the UK government should stop excepting NI for salary sacrifice ie the 2% over £50k pa rate, and maybe reduce the amount of percentage of income exempting for the 40% and 45% levels to say 39 and 44 and gradually bring it down and possible reduce the 25 % that can be tax free, down to 24% and then even lower to perhaps 20% in a few years time. Not until I have drawn mine out later this month of course. More tax receipts and we can give more handouts to pensioners, disabled, mothers etc.

They were that £600 and more but usually not just a battery but a combo device of battery, invertor for the DC to AC plus the solar input typically up to 60v or 80v so 3 or 4 solar panels, or 6 or 8 in parallel and series combo, or even more of course 9, 12,15 etc. 150 Ah 12.8 Lithium battery ie 1.92 kwh, is £300, Ecoworthy, good stuff have bought their batteries and solar tracking arrays. So actually about what you were saying above. Lithium Iron Phosphate so thousands of charges before it stop to even 80% capacity. Wish my Allpower was LFP but my Bluetti EB180 is but invertor and solar input not quite a good as the S2000 pro. Be interesting to see the how low the new Apex 300 system, want to see it under £1k and with that beast even air fryers, kettles, oven could be run from it.

They encourage it by their pricing and their margins will be even bigger perhaps on the free sessions when giving it away for free but being paid 42p for taking tge power tgen, very nice margin. Win for supplier win for users who can flexible use tge power when free. Losers are those who pay a day long flat rate for not playing the electricity market and pay the sucker All Day rate.

It is at least £1 a day on the 5 kwh from solar and nighttime loaded electricity which is free or 8.5p per kwh. Almost every day since the vernal equinox I have managed to supply all of what would have been the use of the expensive daily electricity at 28p per kwh but used a combination of nighttime and free solar and free Octopus sessions so an average of about 5p per kwh so saving around 23p per kwh or about £1.15 a day or put another way £100 a quarter. Usually get additional solar generators ie the combo device of battery, solar input circuitry and invertor for AC output, 1 kw, or 2.4 kwh in one of the devices case, at the Black Friday events. Did order one a few days ago that wad £299, 1.2 kwh with 1.5 kw ac supply and good 12v output to and could take 650w solar input to charge the batteries during the day. But they failed to supply but accidentally sent me a 100 Ah, 12.8v lithium battery in error. Have credited me for the solar generator bur not sent me a returns label, may have forgotten to do so so this would be my first decent sized battery. I happen to already have a 1 kw 12v DC to AC convertor so that may pair well. Pay back probably a couple of years but this is diminishing quarter by quarter and I have High Hopes that Next month Black Friday will have some awesome bargains judging by the high rate of fall in lithium battery prices and massive competition between Allpower, Bluetti, Ecoflow, Jackery and other big players in this market.

Wait for Black Friday and Cybermonday

It's more of a game than saving every penny. Just how low canone go for energy use. I am using sub 50w in normal dat use, except for the occasional use of coffee machine etc. At night when the 8.5p per kwh kicks in that goes up to around 14 kw withEV charging, home batteries etc.

Takes 2 seconds. Keeping a TV on standby can use significant energy so instead of plugging it in to mains in the morning plug it in to the solar generator power. It's not only about saving money for better things but not adding to the electrical load at peak times when The Grid brings online those dirty gas etc power stations so environmental as well as economic. Passing on less climate charge burden to the children, grandchildren and next generations.

Only the Fridge Freezer and the TV when i use that and the laptop. Don't change plugs on router, sky, BT box and the water pump for the gas boiler as they only use a few watts where as fridge freezer and TV use quite carefully bit more. Boiling the kettle, microwave use,air fryer etc just use from the mains as their use is short in time. Fridge Freezer would use about 2 kwh in the Expensive time of day, TV about 1 kwh of expensive day time if not run off batteries. The 3 EVs are the big save and the above small by comparison. I may put 50 Kwh in to two of the EVs in a night and that is near £10 saving per day if I was on a single rate tariff of 28p per kwh instead of paying 8.5p per jwh as i do. Even if people had a near linear usage across each hour of the day I reckon they would be as well off on dual tine zone tariffs. Of course when there is free electricity sessions i will use the sockets, charge the EVs etc and that has got me about £50 credited to my Octopus account. Not too much hassle as I have 1 and 2 kwh batteries close to each high power usage device.

With the plunging prices it is difficult to know when is the optimum time to buy though scared mongering keeps saying China will look to increase the margin it makes and EU, rather than UK, Anti Dumping Duty can add quite a bit to the landed cost. I am buying 100w solar panels at sub £33 and as they are on self adjusting in 2 axis solar trackers they are more effective. Batteries, mounted within solar generators so they have solar to battery charging and built in invertors which can do AC supply as well as the multiple Type C and A outputs for laptops etc. Aim has to be no mains electricity used during the day time so all electrical power is from. Solar or cheap Nightime electricity downloaded abd used during the high priced time. Next EV will have V2L ie almost definitely a Megane e MY 26.

And expensive times are likely to change also for everyone unless on is daft enough to only choose to pay the single rate across the whole 24 hours. Some places pay about a 50 % premium for using electricity 1600 to 1900 hours. Octopus Cosy Heat Pump do, just need to remember to get ones system toastie between 1400 and 1600, let it cruise lightly in the Expensive period and the have it kick in again on higher power later in the evening. All about paying the fair market price for the real time. Exploit the cheap lecky, avoid it when pricey. Device can be ad cheap as £14 i have found and that is for a little battery, little balcony solar panel and two LED bulbs. Like Boxt boilers there a devices which you can get that just pay for themselves, high efficiency ie 90 % replacing a less than 70% efficient ones and one is better off even paying the £11 a month buying plan. Heat Geeks are doing some incredible Thermodynamics work which is now removing the need for large water tanks for Heat Pumps and tge Leggionares cycle. Game change foe Heat Pumps.

Actual generation costs, especially solar abd wind, can be as low as a penny per kwh but add on all the transmission and even Octopus costs and you get to 4.7 p per kwh, a, sixth of what non pro active are paying. Then of course there is the steam turbines that take hours to heat up and cool down and so cheaper to sell their power for a negative amount, minus 42p as we recently saw. Then there is the clever predictive planning that Kraken and Tesla software does. Given cheap or free electricity in the middle of the day and those with batteries will use less and tea time when the real price of electricity is circa £1 a kwh as those expensive Peaker plants are called for online. Have been paying £133 a month, but our last ICE car going to EV means more lecky usage. I like to just top up with Am Ex now and the so I get cash kick back. Don't think Octupus are too keen on me doing this though. I wonder how long the 5, 6, 7, 8 p per kwh will stay as it is an obvious cash cow for domestic users, battery storage people small and large to take big advantage of, buy low sell or use when high.