Here’s an article from the AP about the expansion of the old car tax in London. They’ve had it for a while in the central city and now are expanding it to the suburbs. If your car is older than 2006 or a diesel and older than 2015 you are subject to a surcharge for driving it. Not surprisingly, some citizens are angry enough that they are vandalizing the cameras recording license plates to aid in assessing the old car charges. Seems outrageous to me and I’m glad it’s not here.
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A very regressive tax. A tax on those that can least afford it.
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The British government never met a tax they didn’t like.
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That is the case for most European governments IMO.
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+1
And yet, the Nordic nations–which tax their citizens to an incredible extent–consistently rank as the “happiest” countries. Go figure!
I see both sides of this.
It’s a regressive tax, one placeing most of the burden on those wha can afford it the least, but here in the USA we have Sales Taxes and State Flat Taxes, every bit as regressive and frankly harder to avoid.
On the other hand, London, like NYC, LA, Chicago and Washington DC are all major cities and sometimes the air should come with a fork and knife so sometimes my patience with some of these Hookahs on Wheels becomes pretty limited.
So as much as I hate the Semi-Annual Emissions/Safety Inspections and our often idiot politicians, I think that in this case we got it right.
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I think something like this would be better accepted if they based the add’l tax on the car’s weight, mpg, & measured tailpipe emissions, rather than the model year. As far a gasoline engine vehicles at least, seems unfair to someone owning a 1990 4-banger Civic would have to pay a pollution tax when someone owning a 2007 SUV Ford Explorer v8 isn’t.
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Well, generally speaking, they probably have better healthcare, more vacation, less crime, etc. than many people living here
So there’s that . . .
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It’s based on emissions, if it doesn’t meet Euro4 strandards for gas or Euro6 for Diesel you’d pay the charge, there are exemptions for classics but only ones 40yrs or older already registered as historic or made before 1973. From reports on X (Twitter) 90% of the cameras have been vandalized.
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Are you sure there isn’t a tax on being unhappy? It could just be another case of tax avoidance.
2006 seems like a very late year for emissions to be the reason on a gasoline car. How much better is a 2010 car versus a 2000?
Best Chart I’ve been able to find that shows the difference
European emission standards for passenger cars (Category M),[a] g/km
| Tier | Date (type approval) | Date (first registration) | CO | THC | NMHC | NH3 | NOx | HC+NOx | PM | PN [#/km] | Brake PM10[b] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diesel | |||||||||||
| Euro 1[c] | July 1992 | January 1993 | 2.72 (3.16) | – | – | – | – | 0.97 (1.13) | 0.14 (0.18) | – | – |
| Euro 2 | January 1996 | January 1997 | 1.0 | – | – | – | – | 0.7 | 0.08 | – | – |
| Euro 3 | January 2000 | January 2001 | 0.66 | – | – | – | 0.50 | 0.56 | 0.05 | – | – |
| Euro 4 | January 2005 | January 2006 | 0.50 | – | – | – | 0.25 | 0.30 | 0.025 | – | – |
| Euro 5a | September 2009 | January 2011 | 0.50 | – | – | – | 0.180 | 0.230 | 0.005 | – | – |
| Euro 5b | September 2011 | January 2013 | 0.50 | – | – | – | 0.180 | 0.230 | 0.0045 | 6×1011 | – |
| Euro 6b | September 2014 | September 2015 | 0.50 | – | – | – | 0.080 | 0.170 | 0.0045 | 6×1011 | – |
| Euro 6c | – | September 2018 | 0.50 | – | – | – | 0.080 | 0.170 | 0.0045 | 6×1011 | – |
| Euro 6d-Temp | September 2017 | September 2019 | 0.50 | – | – | – | 0.080 | 0.170 | 0.0045 | 6×1011 | – |
| Euro 6d | January 2020 | January 2021 | 0.50 | – | – | – | 0.080 | 0.170 | 0.0045 | 6×1011 | – |
| Petrol | |||||||||||
| Euro 1[c] | July 1992 | January 1993 | 2.72 (3.16) | – | – | – | – | 0.97 (1.13) | – | – | – |
| Euro 2 | January 1996 | January 1997 | 2.2 | – | – | – | – | 0.5 | – | – | – |
| Euro 3 | January 2000 | January 2001 | 2.3 | 0.20 | – | – | 0.15 | – | – | – | – |
| Euro 4 | January 2005 | January 2006 | 1.0 | 0.10 | – | – | 0.08 | – | – | – | – |
| Euro 5a | September 2009 | January 2011 | 1.0 | 0.10 | 0.068 | – | 0.060 | – | 0.005[d] | – | – |
| Euro 5b | September 2011 | January 2013 | 1.0 | 0.10 | 0.068 | – | 0.060 | – | 0.0045[d] | – | – |
| Euro 6b | September 2014 | September 2015 | 1.0 | 0.10 | 0.068 | – | 0.060 | – | 0.0045[d] | 6×1011[e] | – |
| Euro 6c | – | September 2018 | 1.0 | 0.10 | 0.068 | – | 0.060 | – | 0.0045[d] | 6×1011 | – |
| Euro 6d-Temp | September 2017 | September 2019 | 1.0 | 0.10 | 0.068 | – | 0.060 | – | 0.0045[d] | 6×1011 | – |
| Euro 6d | January 2020 | January 2021 | 1.0 | 0.10 | 0.068 | – | 0.060 | – | 0.0045[d] | 6×1011 | – |
| Petrol and diesel | |||||||||||
| Euro 7[12][f] (proposed) | July 2025[12] | July 2025[12] | 0.50 | 0.10 | 0.068 | 0.02 | 0.060 | – | 0.0045 | 6×1011 | 0.007 |
Not yet anyway…
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I’m glad they’re doing something about those THC emissions. It’s been a growing problem here with marijuana becoming legal.
Looks like CO and (T)HC became more strict in 2005. That must be what the pre catalytic converters and vapor recovery during refueling are for. I think NOx is more of an issue with diesel vehicles, but maybe for gasoline too. I know that in the 90s in the US some cars lost a few horsepower to comply with emissions rules.
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A “gas guzzler” tax, what we in the States would term it.
In my hometown, it was called a “luxury” tax. In 2004 or so, my Dad had to sell his 1969 Chrysler because, even though it was old by then, our fine city govt. classified it among “luxury” vehicles!
It was a bear of a sedan, but was his daily driver since the late 1980s, when he bought it with relatively low miles.
It use to be MUCH MUCH worse. I remember driving into Syracuse with my Dad back in the 50’s and 60’s. You couldn’t even see the skyline on a bright sunny day because of the auto air pollution. I was totally amazed when I got back from Nam that I could actually see the skyline.
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Well, that is one way to “Get you coming and going…”
In Virginia, my 2001 Dodge Ram Truck and my '85 Toyota Corolla are taxed at the old rate and the license registration remains the same. However, a couple of years ago, the DMV added a Highway Use Fee that doubles the yearly registration fee on newer vehicles that get good gas milage and somce my 2019 Toyota and 2020 Honda are “high-mileage” vehicles and they only “sip” gas, the state thinks I am now “paying my fair share of the highway tax on gasoline since I use so little gas…”
"It’s going to make poor people poorer,” said Anna Austen, who says she relies on her 15-year-old diesel car to get to work and take her children to school.
“I have no money to pay the fines, I have no money to replace my car,” said Austen, who joined a recent protest by several dozen ULEZ opponents beside a busy road in south London. "
indeed.
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It’s interesting from 1992 OBD I to 1996 OBDII in HC emissions levels halved for gasoline engines. I wonder why? For some reason starting in 2000 there are no numbers listed for HC.
Does anyone know how to convert the units of g/km to ppm? Calif emissions reports list HC in ppm.
State testing measurements of CO, HC, CO2, NOX are in parts per million or percentage.
Manufacture test standards are for total weight of all tailpipe emissions in grams per mile or grams per km.
The two methods don’t compare, a V-10 engine can have a very clean PPM output but a higher than acceptable total output in grams per mile.
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Yeah, people like my now middle age “kids” don’t realize what pollution was really like during he “Good Old Days” of the 1960’s.
When Beth Steel would fire up their blast furnaces the local house wives would all run outside to get their washing off the lines because otherwise they’d be as dirty as when they first went into the wash and the cars all looked like they developed a case of acne.
On the water side, up in Western Maryland between the mine and paper mill pollution and the often non-existant sewerage systems the Potomac River, which supplies the water for Washington DC, was so polluted that the kids were cautioned to watch out for the “crappies” and I don’t mean the fish. 
Back then when the EPA was getting started there was much screaming and complaining about the cost and Big Government and we’re still doing it today but the fact is that it worked and if we somehow managed to get rid of all the regulation and revert to what is what like, everyone would be screaming bloody murder!!!
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