The UK, which already only uses half the per capita energy of the U.S. (See Note 1), is taking aim at the SUV.
As British taxes target gas guzzlers, sales of greener cars double
London mayor Ken Livingstone intends next year to triple the daily toll on driving in the city for gas guzzlers – or “Chelsea tractors” as they are sniffily known – to $50 a day. He also plans to scrap a residents’ exemption, meaning that instead of paying about $350 annually, locals who drive cars over a certain engine size could be hit for $10,000.
“This new charge will try to affect the choices people make in terms of the cars they are buying,” says a spokesman for Mayor Livingstone.
Interesting concept. Penalize people for driving inefficient vehicles. I wonder if it might work?
Indeed, amid a number of current and planned measures targeting gas guzzlers across Britain, sales of environmentally friendlier cars are rising dramatically. Figures provided by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), an industry association, show that more than 9,500 were sold in the first six months of 2007 – more than for the whole of 2006.
When Carolyn de Pury bought a Mercedes ML320 for her growing family six years ago, it seemed an innocuous beast. Now, however, the growing fixation on climate change – not to mention punitive new taxes and charges on big polluters – are making her think again.
“Even my husband and I, who are full-blown capitalists, feel the pressure of it being an environmentally unfriendly beast,” she says. “Next time it would have to be a car that does everything we want it to, but [is also] environmentally friendly and fuel efficient, in the save-the-world spirit that we are all caught up in.”
The de Purys find themselves at the sharp end of a nascent “buy green” movement in British motoring. Manufacturers say they are struggling in some places to meet demand. Local dealers like Roger Hart say business is booming. At the north London dealership where he heads up Toyota Prius sales, interest in the low-emission hybrid is booming.
“We [sold] 360 cars in March, and 190 were Priuses,” says Mr. Hart. “Interest has grown enormously because of the congestion charge and now also because of things like Westminster not charging for residents parking.
It is my personal belief that it is only a matter of time before the U.S. comes to the realization that punitive measures are needed for curbing energy consumption. Presently, our continued focus is on shirking personal responsibility, and on supply-side solutions. But I don’t believe our (growing) demand-side problem is going to be met with cornucopian supply-side solutions.
Note
1. According to Table E.1c at the EIA (XLS download), total per capita energy consumption for 2004 in the U.S. was 342.7 million BTUs, versus 166.5 million BTUs in the UK. On the low end of the scale, Chad used 0.3 million BTUs per capita. The worldwide average is 70 million BTUs. While I tend to focus a lot on usage in the U.S. due to overall energy consumption, a number of countries had higher per capita consumption, including Canada, Norway, Singapore, Kuwait, Iceland, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
hooray! Not only will we save the planet, we will save motorcyclists! One of the major cause of death for those of us riding on two wheels is the idiot in the SUV who’s yacking on cell phone and not looking at who they are pulling out in front of. I think this development can encourage people to ride two wheels more often and save even more energy.
As for the prius, after having ridden in one, I would never own one. it feels too much like an enclosed tunnel. The video display is way too distracting and should be completely turned off when driving otherwise you will drive like you are driving while talking on a cell phone.
I’m afraid I will have to wait for a hybrid designed for safe and road aware drivers.
country mouse
an additional note on energy consumption per capita. I find it interesting that most of the countries listed are either very hot or very cold (air conditioning/heating). As one evolves to a greater range of Energy sources, we will need to count something other than just plain BTUs per capita. For example, if I heat 40% of my house with solar thermal devices and run 20% of my air-conditioning energy from solar panels, in theory, I’m doing less damage and my per capita energy cost from the grid is lower than someone in an urban condo, who is completely dependent on the grid for all power yet running equivalent power and air-conditioning.
anonymous, when you set it up that way (house with solar vs condo without) you make it a battle similar to the one Robert laid out: generation versus conservation.
An urban condo, sharing walls, can certainly be very efficient. Your area may vary but my electric bills are about $15 and gas bills about $20 per month.
robert (#5) said:
PV lose half a percent of power per degree C. CSP heats up the panels. CSP panels don’t age as well because of higher current densities. Aren’t you better off just buying more silicon?
Concentrating PV does have a positive benefit in that it generates a higher density of dissociated electron-hole pairs in the junction. This acts to increase the electric field across the junction and sweeps electrons and holes out to their respective terminals faster. All the recent record efficiency numbers use this trick.
As an aside, human powered motion is appealing to me on so many levels … simplicity, fitness, exposure to nature …
The places these guys have gone in the last few days blow my mind. Nice country around there, Robert.
World fossil oil demand roe 3.1 percent in 2004, then 1.4 percent in 2005, then 0.7 percent in 2006. We had a healthy world economy. Thanks to $60 oil, we are close to de-linking world economic growth from growth in fossil oil use. That is a Post Fossil Economy, or Peak Demand. I think we are there now.
The fact that the Brits use half the energy US’ers do shows how much waste and fat we can boil out of our economy. We can cut energy use a few percent each year for a generation, and obtain higher living standards and pollute less. What is there not to like about that?
The USA is a world laggard in reducing energy consumption, and we have zero political leadership on this issue (or any other issue?).
But Mr. Price Mechanism can do it without help from our “leaders.”
The good news is that there is no crisis. The price meachanism is already curtailing world energy use. We may see an oil glut soon. We will see a refinery glut by 2010, and if there is no crude glut, we will have gluts of gasoline.
Yet, the European nations keep mandating reduced use of fossil fuels, and China is moving towards energy self-sufficiency, and may be there in 15 years. Remember, China can achieve goals by fiat. If there is a powerful group within China that wishes to control and supply domestic energy markets there, then it will happen.
I see game over for the ofossil boys.
test
Red Ken Livingstone? I’m not sure I would quote him. He is mayor of “the City” with only 9,200 inhabitants. City of London
The “City” is mostly the financial center of London, so basically he is imposing a parking tax. To avoid the tax you just need to rent a different parking spot, in Westminster or one of the other adjacent cities.
I’m sure Red Ken would run a nanny state if he could get away with it. The guy is a buffoon.
Our big SUV has been in the garage for over a month. We need it for carpooling mostly. Tax the fuel not the vehicle. There are better approaches.
I have been driving my wife’s old mini van. I removed all the back seats. I was hauling plywood and needed the extra room. Noticed that I got a lot better gas mileage. So I stripped out every bit of excess weight, carpets, even the spare tire and jack.
I am using just about 10 gallons of gas per week. I fill it up to 1/2 and then run back to empty to avoid carrying the extra 50 lbs or so of fuel. I leave the house at 7:50am to avoid morning rush hour stop & go traffic. I use a new route that has just 2 stop signs and 2 stop lights. I average about 25 minutes for my 15 mile commute (36 mph). I avoid fast starts and stops, making a conscious effort to save fuel. It works.
We need a couple of things from the store, I rode my bike there and back, about 2 miles. Do I get a cookie? It is about 95 F – HOT!
I suppose lowering the speed limit on highways makes too much sense.
Two reasons (other than the mild climate issue brought up by one of the commenters) that Britain’s per capita energy consumption is 1/2 of the U.S. is 1) Higher population density/higher urbanization/less commuting and 2) extremely high gas taxes.
Amazing! Raise the price and demand goes down! Now where did I read that…
Thank you KingofKaty. Tax the fuel!
Also, looking at the list of other high energy consumers makes me wonder if the average Canadian/Icelander actually uses a lot of BTUs. I bet it is actually the aluminum smelters in Iceland (powered by cheap, renewable geothermal energy) or the oil sands refiners in Alberta which tip the scale.
So if you have a diesel engined land rover and run it on old veggie oil from chip shops( no fossil fuel at all) you are penalized, while a prius driver still fuels up with petrol and is lionized for saving the planet?
Benjamin Cole (who is becoming indistinguishable from other trolls) writes:
“The good news is that there is no crisis. The price meachanism is already curtailing world energy use.“
I guess that gasoline shortages in Nepal, blackouts in Bangladesh, humanitarian aid cutoffs in Sri Lanka, and blackouts in Ghana causing losses of $5 million/day (among other problems) isn’t a crisis per Benjamin Cole. Why? Because it doesn’t directly affect him? Just wait.
“We may see an oil glut soon. We will see a refinery glut by 2010, and if there is no crude glut, we will have gluts of gasoline.“
I remember that. The USA had gluts of gasoline when the Asian financial crisis of 1998 dropped oriental demand drastically. I bought premium unleaded for under $1/gallon for a while. But the USA glut was a consequence of the orient being unable to afford oil (like Africa can’t afford it today). If the dollar collapses, the orient will briefly have a glut of crude and gasoline too; it has to go somewhere over the short term, and the USA won’t be able to afford it.
I wonder if Benjamin Cole will dare to tell anyone to their face that there is no crisis, and how long he will survive if he does?
High carrier density is bad. It means that each electron has a large number of possible holes they can recombine with and visa versa. So carrier lifetime is short. Otoh you use a high electric field to chaperone the carriers to the metal leads before they can consumate their relationship. So carrier lifetime is short but so is diffusion time.
The high electric field is due to the diode drop of 0.7V for silicon (actually PV cells are lightly doped and more like 0.5V) being across a very small area of silicon. So you can write up in your journal paper that you achieved 40% efficiency without mentioning that this is for a single square micron of silicon.
Compare to raw silicon PV cells. There is a large depletion region where photons can generate electron hole pairs. The carriers take their sweet time getting off the stage, but it is a lonely voyage and nothing bad happens to them on the way.
I suppose lowering the speed limit on highways makes too much sense.
I have gotten a fairly hostile response when I have suggested it. I wrote an essay about it, and a lot people said their time is just too valuable.
So if you have a diesel engined land rover and run it on old veggie oil from chip shops…
I agree with the comments about taxing the fuel and not the car. A lot of people do have inefficent vehicles, but use them infrequently. They shouldn’t be penalized. Over the long run, gas taxes will have the desired effect. A vehicle tax will have more immediate effects, but will punish a lot of people who are doing little harm.
We need a couple of things from the store, I rode my bike there and back, about 2 miles. Do I get a cookie?
I give you a cookie for riding your bike anywhere in Houston. That’s not exactly a bike-friendly city.
Red Ken can’t tax the fuel. If he could he would.
To state the bleeding obvious, what the US needs, what the UK needs, and indeed what the world needs is an across-the-board carbon tax. We all know this, what we lack is the courage to do it.
Doug said…
I suppose lowering the speed limit on highways makes too much sense.
I lived through the 55 mph fiasco in the first US gas “crisis”. The speed limit reduction was soundly ignored. What makes you think it would be different this time?
The next question you should ask yourself is: how effective is speed limit enforcement today? (Answer, not very) the proof is in the traffic patterns even if there is a speed trap active on the road at the moment. A half a mile past the speed trap, everyone is back up to normal speeds. The speed trap had no effect except to make money for the state.
Arguments about time a pretty silly for the most part. Even traveling 55, a car so much more efficient than public transportation timewise that the two don’t compete.
The downside of reduced speed limits is the availability of surplus attention. Because you’re no longer needing to spend as much attention on the road, you now have attention to spend on things like cell phones. I suspect people will multitask with cell phones, eating etc. because they perceive they are at lower risk.
Another risk is that some people will go the speed limit and others will go at their normal speed increasing the speed differential between vehicles on the road which is even more dangerous than everyone going the same speed even if it is higher.
country mouse
I give you a cookie for riding your bike anywhere in Houston. That’s not exactly a bike-friendly city.
I live out in the ‘burbs. We have bike and walking trails here. I can get most places within 3 miles with only a bit of riding on the street. Have been riding to the fitness center. Seems silly to drive. I see people driving circles around the fitness center parking lot just to get a space close to the door. Silly Americans!
Still thinking about trying to ride my bike to work. The problem is the road construction. The first 10 miles are ok, the last 3 are terrifying.
May try to take the bus. It is 5 miles to the nearest park & ride. But the nearest stop is 1 mile from the office – but road construction has taken out most of the sidewalk. So I would need to walk on the feeder road. Saving a gallon of gas isn’t worth becoming a dead pedestrian.
Engineer-Poet:
Here is a lead to the upcoming refinery glut:
HOUSTON: Gasoline prices could decline by 2010 amid a “potential oversupply” of oil products, even though U.S. refining capacity will be expanded less than previously thought, according to a new report by Edinburgh, Scotland-based consultancy Wood Mackenzie LTD.
Despite lagging refinery expansion and growing demand, the report suggests that new biofuels, natural gas liquids, and liquefied petroleum may replace some conventional fuels, resulting in a potential oversupply that depresses prices at the pump.
The central conclusion — that a glut of fuel supply from outside the conventional refining system could depress gasoline prices — differs from the consensus of many energy experts, which holds that the supply impact from biofuels and other sources will be limited between now and the end of the decade. The report comes amid an industry-wide reevaluation of refinery expansion projects that were once considered likely to be online by 2010.
For shrinking increases in world fossil crude demand, look at BP’s website. All developed nations are consuming less fossil crude every year, not more. I suspect world demand this year about flat. The US obviously has lots of blubber we could cut, w/o any decrease in our living standard.
On poverty in the Third World, I care as much as the next guy, and my wife is from a Third World nation. Crappy leadership in oil exporting nations, and OPEC, are the reasons oil costs so much, not Benjamin Cole. Low living standards in many Third World nations are due to horrificly poor leadership, corruption, religious and political intolerance. (I hope there are some clues here for you).
I have stated conservation is a key component of any energy program. I support much higher gasoline taxes.
But mostly, I do not bash others with a different point of view than mine. I suggest you go back to your “forum”, TOD. Or, if you want to really hold a discussion, reveal your real name.
I tell people all the time there is no oil crisis, only a crisis in political leadership, and civility. So far, no one has punched me for a having a point of view different from theirs.
I am sorry honest and hard-working individuals (probably the majority of such populations) in crappy Third World nations suffer, due to parasitic and criminal leadership.
There will still be a gasoline and possibly an oil glut soon. If you care about Third Worlders, this is good news.
Tax motor cars by weight, not engine size
Robert,
Tax cars and SUVs by weight – not engine size. Fuel economy is largely a function of weight, not engine displacement.
Nothing burns my bacon more than to see a 120 lb woman or 200 lb man driving a 6,000 lb SUV to cover the five miles between a suburban home and workplace.
The sad truth is that most of the motor fuel we burn each day in the U.S., is burned doing nothing more than pushing around the thousands of pounds of steel, rubber, glass, and plastic with which people feel they must surround themselves on the road.
Those thousands of pounds of material add little to the ability of a vehicle to fulfill basic transportation needs, but largely support purely emotional needs: status, self-worth, and even sexual fulfillment. A smaller, lighter car can do just as well for that daily commute. (Larger cars do increase the safety factor in a crash because of their mass, but that is only a factor because there are heavy cars on the road.)
One solution to reduce fuel consumption is to convince people they don’t need heavy cars hauling around thousands of extra pounds of steel, rubber, glass, and plastic — a proportional tax on heavy vehicles would provide an incentive pushing peole in that direction.
Best,
Gary
The Benjamin Cole troll writes:
“But mostly, I do not bash others with a different point of view than mine. I suggest you go back to your “forum”, TOD. Or, if you want to really hold a discussion, reveal your real name.“
Names are irrelevant to the issues under discussion. I bash false claims, because they are antithetical to a rational outcome. I bash people who push false claims or use faulty reasoning, because truth is inherently more moral than falsehood and anyone who uses false claims of fact or faulty reasoning to derive conclusions which may mislead others harmfully is morally wrong.
“Here is a lead to the upcoming refinery glut“
What makes you a troll is that you make contradictory declarations just to obfuscate the issue. For instance, you don’t cite the source of the article. What you quote from the article makes claims about biofuels, NGLs and whatnot without specifying how much of these are likely to come into the motor fuel supply and how much they will offset the decline in conventional oil. Last, a shortage of crude will lead to a refinery glut almost by definition; gasoline would become scarce and expensive, but refinery margins would go down to the minimum.
FYI, I was responding to this claim of yours: “The good news is that there is no crisis.“
Ghana is losing $5 million/day in GDP, or about $1.8 billion/year out of a $10.2 billion GDP. That’s not a crisis? It most certainly is a crisis, and any claim to the contrary is proof of moral deficiency at best. Calling yourself “Benjamin Cole” instead of “Suetonius” or “Draco” doesn’t change the quality of what you say, and what it says about you.
In that same response, you said: “Mr. Price Mechanism can do it without help from our “leaders.”” The price mechanism only works perfectly in a frictionless market with perfect information. The US government (our “leaders”) along with OPEC has been using tax policy to boost demand for oil products while concealing the imminent peaking of supplies. This has denied the market both the necessary price signals and the information required to anticipate future prices and make appropriate investments. These distortions require opposite corrective action to prevent very sub-optimal outcomes (up to and including depressions), but you’re railing against it. Together with your refusal to speak against or even acknowledge the original distortions, this indicates that you are either ignorant of them (and your conclusions are in good faith but worthless) or you are knowledgeable about them (and everything you’ve written on the subject is a deliberate lie and morally reprehensible).
“I tell people all the time there is no oil crisis, only a crisis in political leadership, and civility.“
Lying is one of the gravest breaches of civility, no matter how smoothly the lies are phrased. The US political leadership has been lying through its collective teeth on this issue since the inauguration of GWB, and you don’t look any better. I refuse to withhold moral judgement on either of you, because that would be a moral failing on my part.
If you think I’m judging on faulty information, let’s have the straight dope. Let’s have the most up-to-date information on all the major oilfields in the world placed in the public domain, for starters. When Stuart Staniford has no more sleuthing work to do because all the facts are there for everyone to see, then we’ll see what Mr. Price Mechanism has to say about it. Until then, price is as misleading as everything else.
“There will still be a gasoline and possibly an oil glut soon. If you care about Third Worlders, this is good news.“
You don’t mention that the only reason there may soon be a refining glut is that the Third World, and increasing numbers in the First, will be priced out of the market. Because of the faulty information about oil scarcity, they had no warning and no time to invest in alternatives. I believe in letting them take the consequences of their own mis-steps (tough love), but this wasn’t their doing. Unfortunately, I doubt that there is anything which can be done in the face of 16% and accelerating economic contractions. If we could deliver the MIT solar-trough solar generators to these nations by the shipload, we could eliminate their daytime oil dependency and make oil irrelevant. But our own lack of planning means we have nothing of the sort, so this crisis will deepen before it has any chance of getting better.
B. Cole – If history is any guide, prices in the energy business don’t stay high for long. The industry goes through these natural cycles where high prices leads to more production and less consumption, followed by lower prices.
I’m with you, I think there is a pretty good chance of a glut. Every hybrid or higher mileage car sold is reducing demand a little bit out into the future.
And for a different opinion, consult the short guy wearing red in Venezuela:
Chavez predicts $100 oil
I think he just wants in on Robert’s $1,000 bet.
Socialised medicine and scapegoating anti-capitalist income distribution. Robert, have you found a European Socialist Plank you didn’t like?
😉
1) SUV energy consumption increases are patently marginal. Like wiping your bum with more than a single sheet of toilet paper. Not gonna kill the world, not gonna save the world.
2) Most people own SUVs because they find that such designs provide what they want in a transportation solution which other designs can not provide.
Robert, care to share what kind of personal computer system you’re using to write this blog? I propose you and us readers vote on if you really need all the cpu power you paid for. :Op
“First they taxed the SUVs and I did not speak out…”
Socialised medicine and scapegoating anti-capitalist income distribution. Robert, have you found a European Socialist Plank you didn’t like?
All political systems have good and bad aspects. I like socialized medicine, because I don’t like the idea of people weighing their health against their financial situation.
Most people own SUVs because they find that such designs provide what they want in a transportation solution which other designs can not provide.
What some people want, and what is good for society as a whole, are not always the same. Many people don’t want a 55 mph speed limit, because it would inconvenience them. But it would stretch our dwindling oil supplies, and give us a bit more time for alternatives to scale.
I propose you and us readers vote on if you really need all the cpu power you paid for.
I do a lot more with my laptop than write this blog. In fact, some of the work I do is very CPU-intensive. But in a world where massive consumption of electricity by people using more computer than they really need is causing us to deplete our reserves at an alarming rate (and pricing some right out of the energy market), then sure, that’s fair game. But my laptop already has a very low energy footprint.
Most people own SUVs because they find that such designs provide what they want in a transportation solution which other designs can not provide.
That just sets up a variation on The Tragedy of the Commons.
It is perhaps to our individual advantage to own an SUV, but in our collective disadvantage for all of us to.
From a world-resource perspective it’s a “commons” situation. A fixed amount of oil is out there for past, present, and future generations. We can burn it fast for our benefit. But burning it prevents someone else from using it in the future.
This is clouded, admittedly, because we have a strong tendency to “assign” property rights for this common heritage. Most countries view oil first as a national resource, but then action rights to that oil to private entities.
… and then, suddenly, people forget it is a commons.
(I’m not saying that auctions or assigned property rights are necessarily bad, or that (re)nationalization is necessarily good … more observing the mismatch that might exist in “privatizing” a limited resource.)
“Most people own SUVs because they find that such designs provide what they want in a transportation solution which other designs can not provide.”
In my experience with SUV owners, this is not true. In the U.S. especially, SUVs are status symbols, the bigger the better. Or people who need a vehicle for transporting large items or hauling trailers pick an SUV as a “statement” that no one can tell them what not to drive. In fact, I would argue that there is absolutely no need for the SUV to exist, since a pickup truck does a better job hauling things, and a mini-van has more seating capacity.
London’s proposed tax on SUVs strikes me more as class warfare than an honest attempt at energy conservation. SUVs are not the only vehicles with poor gas mileage, but they do tend to be the vehicles driven by the rich. What about the 15 year old cars that are only getting 20 mpg? Why are they any better than the modern SUV? Across-the-board taxes and/or tolls is a much better solution, if a solution is indeed what they are looking for.
Why don’t we get it here in the US? I think this is a great program you’ve got and wish there were one here, especially in the South. Robin is correct about our “beloved” SUV owners … the vast majority only have them because it says “hey, look at me” to everyone around them.
Of course, there would be a lot of rich folks who work for the oil companies here who’d be pissed if anything like this were to occur. Something tells me many of them work for our government as well.
It’s just a dirty situation over here and I applaud other lands like the UK for taking measures to try and stop it. We are still in denial in the US.
In the past, when prices were low and global warming was outside public consciousness, it was possible to buy an SUV for ‘extra capacity’ and use it just a couple times a year. No big deal.
There wasn’t really a (perceived) downside.
We are entering another era, with higher prices and broader acceptance of global warming.
And the new buying patterns filter through our society slowly …
And for a different opinion, consult the short guy wearing red in Venezuela:
Chavez predicts $100 oil
That settles it then. $100 it is.
I mean, Chavez wouldn’t lie about this, would he?
My comment going to be posted Robert?
As long as people here are going to promote socialism over science I think I should be able to call it like I see it. People can then counter and then become explicit about their intentions.
My comment going to be posted Robert?
I am not holding any comments for moderation. If you haven’t noticed, moderation has been turned back off. In fact, your “European Socialist Plank” comment is just up the page a bit. If you made another comment around this theme, I don’t know where it is.
As long as people here are going to promote socialism over science I think I should be able to call it like I see it.
First, nobody here to my knowledge is promoting socialism over science. I am a capitalist, but I recognize that there are some parts of socialism, particularly socialized medicine, that I think are good for society. If you ever find yourself in need of medical care you can’t afford – especially if it’s for a child of yours – you will understand.
Second, you have been allowed to call them as you see them. Nothing you have ever written has been censored.
Well, no. A post wasn’t approved. No big deal, your blog, not mine.
And you’re one odd capitalist. Well, maybe you should look into free market philosophy. China is really capitalist these days so I don’t trust that word.
But it does seem a rather bit like a hippy anti-car type around here. You could earn some street cred if you just admit to it. 😉
ok, nevermind. somebody just show me a new way to reform biomass into useful biomaterials so I can get my techno-rocks off.
Unless I am mistaken, it is neither terribly hot nor terribly cold in the UK. I live in Florida where the heat index has been in the triple digits for the last couple of weeks. I am not surprised we use more energy per capita than the UK.
Matt Clary
Tallahassee, FL.
Yeah, and believe it or not Kuwait uses more energy than Tahiti.
Some caribbean islands have higher per-cap oil usage. Why? Because they’re Evil Rich People? Or because they spred the wealth?
Robert, I’m an academic chemical engineer in Edinburgh, with a recently accquired interest in biofuels. I was pointed at your
blog by someone who I suspect is a mutual
accquaintence and I’d like to get in touch.
Email: jack@ecosse.org.
Comments or recent posts:
Mr Livingstone’s taxes are indeed straightforward class warfare. However
the UK government is increasing annual car taxes on a vehicle’s CO2/km
rating basis. This hits equally SUVs, light trucks and luxury cars. Unfortunately it’s a tax which takes no account of annual mileage or when, where or how the vehicle is driven.
The UK is indeed neither as hot nor as cold
as the US. Everyone has to keep warm in the winter, but until recently no one expected to use energy to keep cool in the summer. In northern Australia (at least as hot as anywhere in the US) few homes are air conditioned, they are use architectural styles developed in 19th century India to keep them tolerable in the summer.
If you must have air conditioning, why not use a solar absorption heat pump?