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Crash tested: are hydrogen and electric cars safe to drive? But tinkering with the Council tax to iron out the anomaly would probably not be fair; Councils already have a discretionary power to allow discounts for second homes in recognition of the fact that their owners should not have to pay twice for education and social services, but the use of this discretion, and the percentage discounts applied, are totally inconsistent and their availability or otherwise in different areas are more closely associated with political attitudes than any rational judgment.
Malcolm — It was not me who suggested simple unit pricing for energy, though I suspect that there would be a lot of public support from the public. What I have suggested is that our benefit system could be used to support people who have a medical condition or other genuine reason for having to use more energy. Information about the number of people who are in arrears with payment of energy bills or have been disconnected is publicly available, I believe.
Obviously some of this is due to poor financial management, but there are some people who are really struggling for other reasons. If we applied just a fraction of the combined intelligence and computing power currently being exercised by the energy and other utility suppliers in fragmentising and rebundling their tariffs to the problems of customising assistance to those who need and deserve it in the face of this budgetary maelstrom it would be a great service to our entire society.
Perhaps if we can get the immigration issue out of the headlines we can get the politicians back on topic. I refer to your pseudonym simply to ensure my reply is linked with the right comment. I do not see there is a universal distinction between wealth, and energy use. What single unit pricing would do is simply mean higher energy users would subsidise lower uses — why is one right and the other wrong? Fair then to all — wealthy, just-getting-by, or poor! Whether these are fair or not should be assessed and agreed.
My criticism of the Which? It was partly based on our inability to multiply two numbers and add a third, and that energy companies could not show why they have fixed costs my paraphrasing. Well, clearly they do have fixed costs, and many people can do simple arithmetic. I object to persuading people to jump on populist band wagons without giving them inbiased information to allow them to make a proper judgment. Far from convinced the different unit costs are justified on a regional basis.
Regarding Ebico and giff-gaff and infrastructure costs. My guess is that they simply tender for a volume of gas or spectrum usage which a major company then sells to them as the supplier has a surplus. For simplicity I suspect the originating supplier will have calculated some or maybe no infrastructure costs because overall it will be making money from the extra usage sold by these companies. The standing costs of the infrastructure will grow to a higher proportion of the single unit price.
Having reduced their usage considerably the standing charge portion of the single unit price increases further ratcheting the cost benefits for changing. Standing charges need to be seen for what they are not hidden in unit cost of gas or electricity. Ofgem have published the latest Supply Market Indicator which shows where on average your money goes when paying your energy bill. The supplier operating cost includes metering, customer service, sales, marketing, billing, bad debts, depreciation and amortisation.
These costs apply to all customers however much or little energy they take. If these costs are fair Ofgem should agree them then the standing charge should be set to cover them; the only variable cost in your bill should be dependent upon the amount of energy you consume — the unit rates.
Thank you for posting that malcolm. And I am all in favour of choice! For someone else on your tariff they need to be careful if they use more energy than expected — they will continue to pay a high unit rate and could end up well out of pocket.
One feature of the now-defunct two tier tariff was that once you reached a particular usage you would automatically drop to a cheaper tariff, so avoiding continuing high cost. My unit rate is You must have a very very cheap rate for Yorkshire — well done. Do you pay the normal 18p daily standing charge too? That is the next cheapest for me as shows by the switch.
I was just drawing attention to the difference in unit rates. I think Ebico in my area is around 18p. I am quite surprised Ebico has as large a difference between regions as that.
I am curious and feel much of the difference is unjustified because when I look at rates from different firms some comparison sites helpfully offer PDFs etc for downloading and the Co-Op tariff is online. Peter M, I last looked at Ebico when comparing tariffs on the Which? Switch site that I use for choosing my own tariff. I pay a standing charge plus unit rate because that gives me the best deal for my consumption.
Ebico clearly has its own fixed costs to recover out of just a unit rate so must charge significantly more per kWh. I am not proud to live in a country where we allow low users to subsidise higher users of energy via standing charges. The people who make the decisions are hardly likely to be the ones who struggle to pay their energy bills.
I suggest that the infrastructure is funded through taxation and we all pay for the energy we use. Network companies charge for these by how often they are used, how much energy is transported, and the distance covered from generation source to centre of demand so locality will affect the cost.
The charges are regulated by Ofgem. There should be no subsidy, either by low users to high users, nor high users to low users. Subsidy should be from Government via benefits and tax, not private business.
We should pay the energy companies actual costs, and these should be vetted and transparent. We should also be offered tariffs that give us a choice as has been discussed above. I suggest that you compare some of the tariffs on offer. When I did this, I found significant differences between standing charges, and of course there are tariffs with no standing charges but higher unit prices. Energy supply is an utter mess, which is why there is so little public confidence in the sector.
North Sea gas comes ashore at three places on the East Coast so my guess would be that the pumping of the gas to local areas will be cheaper than to Liverpool. As for paying infrastructure costs through taxation this suffers the same problems that a] You disguise real costs from the public b] You subsidise holiday homes c] People who are out all day from their London flat and go to their country home at weekends. Options could include standardising the rate for the entire country benefitting rural dwellers and certain areas to the detriment of others.
It could be a means tested payment which also looks at the property of the applicant and how they use power. I have a neighbour who at all times seems to have a window open — a ventilation system where for 60watts an hour you exchange stale air with fresh air using the same piping to pre-heat the incoming air would be a good measure. This week's spotlight poll What kind of Christmas tree do you put up each year?
Vote in our latest poll Have you invested in cryptocurrency? Yes No I would be interested, but don't know enough about it I neither know about, nor care about, investing in cryptocurrency Something else - tell us in the comments.
Add a comment. Please don't email me Email me when someone replies to only this comment Email me when someone replies to my comments on this conversation Email me when new comments are added to this conversation. Jonny says:. Yes — stop moaning, drivers! Fat Sam, Glos says:. Yes, good old public transport, eh? Very amusing. Thank you to those who passed the Muppet Test. James says:. I take it you will now stop using the bus for environmental reasons and buy a car instead.
Hari says:. David says:. Diddydo says:. The fuel economy tests are a joke!!! We need these tests to be looked at again, because at the moment they are of no use to anyone. Patrick Steen says:. Peter Fisk says:. John Evans says:. Alan Springall says:. Good acceleration is as good at preventing accidents as having good brakes. Chris says:. James Cole says:. Tim says:. Happily that's exactly what we explain, plus give a rundown of the best hybrids available, with our guide to the best hybrid cars you can buy.
If you're a Which? Not yet a member? You can try Which? You will also unlock all of our online reviews, including our expert car reviews. Hybrid fuel economy is at its best when driving around town. But on faster roads such as on motorways, hybrids rely more on their combustion engine which diminishes fuel economy. However, as hybrid technology evolves, we expect to see more cars with improved overall and motorway fuel economy.
As you can see above, some hybrids are already getting there. Which means there will be ever-diminishing reasons to buy a diesel car. But while hybrids can offer brilliant fuel economy, don't believe the hype around official plug-in hybrid fuel economy claims. In official tests, they're able to offset their fuel economy results with the electric-only range, but to an unrealistic degree. Our tests also reveal how polluting a plug-in hybrid can be if you're not able to top up the battery yourself.
Read more about about our research, hybrids and which models we recommend by heading to our page on the best hybrid cars. You can use our simple fuel-cost calculator, below, to easily work out the fuel costs between two cars.
Enter the respective fuel-economy figures for the cars and your mileage to see the difference. For the most accurate results, don't use the manufacturers' claimed figures. Current fuel prices can be looked up on sites such as TheAA. You might be surprised to find out that a car that has two methods of propulsion would be less problematic than a car with just a combustion engine, but it's true. Every year, we ask people to complete the annual Which?
We gather details on what faults owners encountered in the 12 months prior to answering our survey. We find out what faults occur and reoccur , how severe the faults are, breakdown rates and the time required for cars to be fixed, among other information.
In our most recent survey, 47, owners told us about 55, cars that they own. The figures are very clear: hybrid owners suffer fewer faults and breakdowns. The faults that full hybrids do have are, on average, less severe than the average fault suffered by petrol and diesel cars. Which subsequently means they require less time off the road to be repaired. We don't yet have enough data to be able to report on plug-in hybrid cars as, like electric cars, they're still establishing themselves.
But the more people who buy them and feedback in our subsequent reliability surveys, the clearer the picture we will be able to present of how reliable, or not, these cars are. Find out more about why hybrid cars are more reliable, how they differ from electric cars and what are the best hybrids you can buy right now by heading to our pick of the best hybrid cars.
Typically, yes. Diesel cars, on average, produce a lot more NOx Nitrogen Oxide than petrol cars. NOx is harmful and has been linked to tens of thousands of premature deaths around the world. It comes out of all cars with a combustion engine so diesel, petrol and hybrid cars. But looking at figures from our current test programme, despite diesel becoming substantially cleaner in recent years, diesel engines still produce on average:.
For more on the cleanest and dirtiest diesel cars, we reveal all of our emissions results - go to low emission cars. They might not produce a large amount of NOx, but with petrol cars comes the potential of high CO carbon monoxide emissions. Just like diesel cars, we penalise petrol cars that produce excessive amounts of CO.
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