Fuel up/down again

ubersonic said:
But then why is LPG like 1/2 the price of petrol when it has ~90% of the energy?
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LPG is around 26 MJ/l, around 70% the energy of diesel, or the other way around, a litre of diesel has 43% more energy in it than a litre of LPG.

Of course LPG duty is far lower (15.805p) compared with petrol and diesel's 57.95p. LPG's duty is 42p less (before VAT).
 
Rilot said:
For the last 2 days, I decided to test our public transport system rather than take the car.

So, train from Twyford to Four Oaks yesterday - £93 - 3 hours elapsed time (would have been just over 2 hours to drive) and I didn't get a seat from Reading to Birmingham. 1.5hrs standing.
Then I had the problem of getting from our office to my hotel. No station near the hotel so I had to take a taxi - £8
Taxi again this morning - £8
Then 3 hours home later. Probably standing again.

So, I spent £109 and had to stand for most of it.
Next time I'll drive.

Until fuel is £3+ per litre, it's still better to drive when you consider the comfort and speed.
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£93 from Twyford to Four Oaks?

There isn't a £93 fare, the anytime fare via XC is slightly more but provided you are ok to use a train that arrives at Paddington after 10:10 then an Offpeak Return route London is £60 and will pretty much guarantee you a seat. There is a cheaper Route Oxford ticket valid on any train after 0930 at £52 but as you've already discovered CrossCountry services can suffer from capacity constraints.

I don't know how you managed to pay £93 unless there was some sort of combination of Advance tickets in which case you would have had a seat reservation.

If you insisted on travelling at peak time using the route you used today using a combination of split tickets you can do it forl £74, which is cheaper than the standard Anytime Return.

Alternatively for not much more than the £93 you apparently paid, you could travel First Class anytime for £112 route Oxford (ie, the route you took).
 
What the government doesn't seem to understand is that if the price of petrol goes up, we will buy less of it, change to a diesel, stop driving for the hell of it etc. If it stays low or drops, we use more of it, use it more frivolously, buy a bigger engined car, if you get my drift. They might get a short term gain but they pretty much end up with hardly any difference in tax either way, but raising the duty also has the effect of ****ing everyone off.
 
[TW]Fox;23848004 said:
£93 from Twyford to Four Oaks?
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My bad, I was adding things up in my head incorrectly.
I bought the tickets from the ticket office on the day (machine) and it was £105 return. I travelled at peak times.
Yes, I could have got it for £52 if I didn't need to travel when I did.

Not that it matters really as my company pays.

However, you have highlighted an interesting point. If one shops around, uses the trains wisely and are flexible with travel times, one can save a fair bit. But again, this is just a pain in the bum compared to just jumping in the car and going.

I would have used the car but it's currently broken :(
 
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[TW]Fox;23848013 said:
Because you are making things up. In 2008 for example the gap was even bigger.
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Yeah going back to my trip down memory lane, when petrol was 85p, diesel was close to £1.10
 
pugheaven said:
The problem I have it's all a matter of money making from governments. Diesel used to be cheaper, then everyone switched and now it's more expensive. The same thing with LPG. If everyone in the country decided to switch, they'd double the price of it... they have to make their taxes etc... so it's a no win situation really. Therefore what we have now is the prices now affecting what people want to drive i.e. their freedom.
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That's why I've switched to an electric bike for commuting - gets me to work 10 mins quicker than the car (25mins vs 35mins), less stress, car free cycle routes and 4 pence in electricity for an 18 mile round trip, no insurance to pay for, no VED and no yearly MOT.

The government hates car owneship by the hoypoloy.
 
Well it was one of the reasons I bought a motorbike... nice CBR 600, 46mpg (still astounds me it's so low for a 599cc bike that weighs 190kg), cheap tax for the year... so, when I was cummuting to Manchester everyday (that was costing me £600 per month in the Saab and 3 hours of journey everyday), I thought get on the bike, cut my costs right down and also cut time due to be able to filter on the bike. It worked, BUT was a boring journey lol as it was M56 for miles lol.

The handful of times I took the train from Flint > Manchester, I just didn't feel I got the service required to do it everyday... seating was alright but 25% of the time I'd say the train was late in some sort of way...

hey ho... nowt we can do... however I'm still off the opinion, fuel prices will NOT dictate what I will drive, but I'm in the fortunate position that I can afford the fuel. I do feel sorry for the people who can't though. Somethings got to stop at some point. Maybe when it hits £3 per litre it might lol... I'll just end up paying whatever it takes for me to enjoy driving... but everyone has a breaking point lol.
 
clv101 said:
Indeed, things are changing.

"...there's been a 20% drop off in the number of 17 to 19-year-olds learning to drive over the last 5 years." http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...the-star-for-a-mobile-generation-8511080.html
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Blimey that is a big %... not surprised though as young people are the ones now priced out the housing market and also out of the motor market now. Unless you start work on mega money, you're always now playing catchup me thinks. Although i believe there was a big increase last year in the amount of youngsters learning to ride bikes etc. hence the price of 125's starting increasing... (some oof this was probably due to law changes for 2013 though to be fair).

The problem is, if the government reduce petrol prices/tax or whatever, they'd have to make that money up someway so they'd just increase another tax to counter balance... no win situation :D
 
amigafan2003 said:
That's why I've switched to an electric bike for commuting - gets me to work 10 mins quicker than the car (25mins vs 35mins), less stress, car free cycle routes and 4 pence in electricity for an 18 mile round trip, no insurance to pay for, no VED and no yearly MOT.

The government hates car owneship by the hoypoloy.
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Details of the electric bike please. Interested.
 
clv101 said:
That's not true, see the AA's fuel price archive here:
http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fuel/fuel-price-archive.html
Diesel consistently more expensive than petrol through 2003.

Higher Octane Unleaded petrol (incl Lead Replacement Petrol) was more expensive, but I'm sure you weren't referring to that?
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I just checked that link out to look at the dates I was talking about.

Petrol was 120p at one point in 2008 :eek: and then fell as low as mid 80s. Wouldn't it be lovely to have a drop like that now :(
 
Must have been were i lived because i still have the receipt somewhere of my first fill up, paid 73.99p at morrisons in september 2003 and remember asking why diesel was only 70 odd pence
 
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Steedie said:
Petrol was 120p at one point in 2008 :eek: and then fell as low as mid 80s. Wouldn't it be lovely to have a drop like that now :(
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Just need someone like RBS to close down and fear of others and it could do it I guess. Even then I think Chinese and others might just wise up and snap up production, two big gas deals by them recently.
OPEC is compensating for Iran now, they can always opt to turn the tap down some days so 80p is less likely then before.
Also the dollar is worth less, pound also which means its not just the price rise we fell some

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