Allright guys, it's just the way it is. I cannot justify the running costs (or should I say keeping costs) anymore of my P38 so I had to decide to sell it.
Registering it on LPG means €260 each month, that is road tax plus insurance. For that amount I may park it up on the public road without driving it one meter.
Registering it on petrol means €153 each month plus have to deal with petrolprices.
There is one escape, if I can become a G3 certificate roadtax will be €170 each month but only with a bill of an installer.
Further communication with the authorities learn that such a certificate for Rover V8 only is given when it has a Lovato vapouriser, they paid some 35000 euros to the government to be authorized. My vapouriser is Landi Renzo and is just as adjustable as others with a computer controlled system. (is this a banana country or not?)

I sold it to a gentleman who always wanted to have a well functioning P38, I told him I'm not a polisher but want everything technically to be sound, he accepted the sagging headliner and payd my asking price, I told the missus I'm almost running even.(☺)
Last night he sent me a message that after his drive home (1.5 hour) he was very satisfied and she drives lovely.
That's good to hear.
So guys, I thank you all for the cameradery and helpful tips, I'll be lurking of course and keep my mouth shut (and don't delete any threads).
Regards, Tony.

Sorry to hear that Tony. From what you say of the economics you did the only sensible thing, but it must have hurt given all the time and work that you've put into it.
I'll miss your banter- so keep on lurking and don't keep your mouth shut!
Mark
Edit- the 38 Euros/month it costs to insure and tax mine over here seems like an absolute bargain. Damn good thing we're leaving the EU if that level of taxation would have been heading our way.

MORE for LPG than petrol? You live in a crazy place :(
But don't be a stranger, or we'll convoy over and invade you :)

OK, so what will you be driving down to the south of France in September then? I'll still buy you a beer and might even let you have a drive of my P38 just so you can remind yourself of what you are missing.....

As the guys say, don't just be a lurker!

Just totted up my tax and insurance. It comes to GBP7 a month.

Sorry!

I'm surprised the tax is so much higher on LPG in Holland when you look at the price of the fuel. In Holland LPG is around 0.75 Euro a litre, so much the same as here (if not slightly more) whereas a couple of miles down the road in Belgium, it's half that. So in Holland you convert a car to LPG, save only a small amount on fuel costs but pay more in tax. Seems very odd and makes you wonder why LPG is as common there as it is, most LPG systems up until recently were made in either Italy or Holland.

Yes indeed, don't be a lurker - and post more links to your marine engine videos!

Road tax in Holland is based on the car's weight. The more weight, the more punishment.
Our Merc A190 shoppingcart weighs 1100 kg and costs on petrol €38 a month, I think that is reasonable to benefit from well maintained roads.
If I should run it on LPG (where to fit the tank?) it should become €53 a month, that already becomes itchy.
From 1500 kg the taxman expects you to be a sheik's relative and charges go up exponentially with differences in electric (free of charge), hybrid (a bit), petrol, diesel and LPG being top of the bill, as a bonus they add 100 kg to your cars weight because of the LPG stuff (tank etc.)
We are forced to drive small cars, preferably electric they are subsidised as the charging pole at your doorstep. It's just all politics and we have to deal with it.
My Classics I could run them because of vintage years of build but that is no longer. There were some illigal practices too, ever seen a Disco with a '74 licenceplate?
As for your encouragement to stay, thank you guys, that makes me blush.
And Richard that beer in september is still on, there will come some replacement transport.
Cheers, Tony.

I can understand diesel being near the top of the tree as it seems to be being forced out in the UK, France, Germany and Switzerland but it seems really odd that LPG is considered worst when t pollutes less than petrol. Because my car is on LPG I got a Class1 vignette for Paris,Lyon and Grenoble whereas it would have been Class 3 on petrol (and diesels are Class 4 and 5). Class 1 being only 1 level down from electric and hybrids which are Class 0. But, your Government have made the decision and there isn't a lot you can do about it. Maybe it's the cheaper cost of LPG that is behind it, much the same as the reason the tax on diesel went up over here a few years ago. Diesel cars use less fuel so as diesel became more popular the Government got less income from the tax on the fuel, so they put the tax up. It was only the haulage companies that got the retail price down to almost the same as petrol because they argued it was hitting the cost of everything.

I'll be about 6 miles inland from Nice from 2nd to 9th September so we'll meet up for that beer if you get yourself down there. There's another P38 owner (MikeinFrance) who lives about 10 miles from where i will be, so maybe we could both meet you and make you really jealous.......

Well I was told that the philosophy behind our system is from a fueltype point of view, if you use cheaper fuel you must be doing a lot of kilometres = more burden to the roads = more roadtax, combined with the weight of the vehicle.
In theory it seems a fair point of view but it is really annoying, especially when there is more influence from environmental issues these days.
Electric driving is hot, nobody realises the environmental consequences of fabricating and recycling these batterypacks, while as you say, LPG is clean, production is easy.
I remember when LPG was becoming popular back in the sixties, it was a wast product from refining crude oil and to be blasted off at refineries.

Strange isn't it? I remember people being encouraged to buy diesel vehicles in the UK and hailed as the solution to the overuse of resources until they were suddenly (and correctly) declared Spawn of Satan. Yet these hybrid /electric things are now all the rage despite their life-cycle implications.

For how long I wonder.

Whatever solution is promoted, I can guarantee it won't be something that allows us to re-use existing vehicles but requires new vehicles. This is the main problem facing LPG - it doesn't get the blessing of the SMMT because it doesn't involve accelerating the product lifecycle and the Government don't like it because it leads to reduced tax income.
These are two reasons I LOVE it.

Morat wrote:

Whatever solution is promoted, I can guarantee it won't be something that allows us to re-use existing vehicles but requires new vehicles. This is the main problem facing LPG - it doesn't get the blessing of the SMMT because it doesn't involve accelerating the product lifecycle and the Government don't like it because it leads to reduced tax income.
These are two reasons I LOVE it.

Maybe the first few fires involving battery powered vehicles will put people off somewhat. Think a Zafira B situation but with added lithium batteries.

I would suspect the way they are looking towards is Hydrogen fuel cell in the hope they can obtain the Hydrogen from somewhere without outlaying massive amounts of energy - They are currently installing the first public filling station in the UK for it at the new Cobham services on the m25.

Funny you mentioned Hydrogen, I found a filling station at a Sainsbury's in London somewhere. If it's the one I think it was (I stop at so many to pick up something to eat or drink when I'm out and about at work), it's on the A5 at Hendon, just off the North Circular. In theory, a conventional LPG system would allow a car to be run on Hydrogen with the right tank and reducer, it's not that much different to CNG.

holland really loves its EV's at the moment, the tax breaks are so severe all the cabbys are running around in Teslas...

I have an EV, and tbh its really quiet nice. You need to drive one to experience it. Not a silly hybrid thing either, full electric no combustion engine at all.

Theres lots of nonsense spouted about them, including the comments above about fires. We forget that we're all already driving around in cars with tens of litres of readily combustible petrol onboard. A lithium ion battery is no more dangerous, and infact probably MORE robust with the design of modern lithium packs. Theres also less energy in your typical LI pack than there is in your typical car fuel tank...

It makes sense as a propulsion system. The power delivery is seriously impressive, its smooth, its quiet, effortless torque and your always got maximum power on tap with instant throttle response. If you want to clean up the carbon emissions of ICE cars, you need people to buy millions of new cars. If you want to clean up the carbon emissions of an EV, you need to replace the power generation with cleaner options. The latter is happening anyway and growing all the time, thus the EV gets cleaner over its lifetime, and the ICE gets dirtier.

It also charges overnight, and is full in the morning ready to go. No need to visit a fuel station or stand around in queues. Now granted, most are range limited and that causes issues for longer trips, but that will improve. Mine will do about 70-80miles on a charge. But that does all my commuting without issue, theres a charge point at work as well, so its full when i leave. Its a bit marginal if i visit my folks, especially in the winter, but i'll either just plug it in when i get there, or take the petrol car instead on the longer journeys. Its also costs about 3p a mile in electricity. The fuel savings are so large its paying for half the car.

Hydrogen is a waste of time, Its only being tabled because it allows the oil companies to continue their model of charging you to pump fuel into your car, and my the car manufacturers as it can be burned in a combustion engine. The energy involved in producing the hydrogen is bonkers and it makes no sense at all from an environmental POV. we might as well just keep burning petrol.

I'd be tempted by a Tesla, but even with their long range the charging time sucks if you're driving a long distance. In the meantime, we should just make LPG compulsory on every forecourt and convert all petrol cars. Ban diesels - they're just terrible.

Aragorn wrote:

holland really loves its EV's at the moment, the tax breaks are so severe all the cabbys are running around in Teslas...

I have an EV, and tbh its really quiet nice. You need to drive one to experience it. Not a silly hybrid thing either, full electric no combustion engine at all.

Theres lots of nonsense spouted about them, including the comments above about fires. We forget that we're all already driving around in cars with tens of litres of readily combustible petrol onboard. A lithium ion battery is no more dangerous, and infact probably MORE robust with the design of modern lithium packs. Theres also less energy in your typical LI pack than there is in your typical car fuel tank...

It makes sense as a propulsion system. The power delivery is seriously impressive, its smooth, its quiet, effortless torque and your always got maximum power on tap with instant throttle response. If you want to clean up the carbon emissions of ICE cars, you need people to buy millions of new cars. If you want to clean up the carbon emissions of an EV, you need to replace the power generation with cleaner options. The latter is happening anyway and growing all the time, thus the EV gets cleaner over its lifetime, and the ICE gets dirtier.

It also charges overnight, and is full in the morning ready to go. No need to visit a fuel station or stand around in queues. Now granted, most are range limited and that causes issues for longer trips, but that will improve. Mine will do about 70-80miles on a charge. But that does all my commuting without issue, theres a charge point at work as well, so its full when i leave. Its a bit marginal if i visit my folks, especially in the winter, but i'll either just plug it in when i get there, or take the petrol car instead on the longer journeys. Its also costs about 3p a mile in electricity. The fuel savings are so large its paying for half the car.

Hydrogen is a waste of time, Its only being tabled because it allows the oil companies to continue their model of charging you to pump fuel into your car, and my the car manufacturers as it can be burned in a combustion engine. The energy involved in producing the hydrogen is bonkers and it makes no sense at all from an environmental POV. we might as well just keep burning petrol.

I'm thinking more the risk fires wise is the manufacturing a few years down the line once the usual wear and tear has set in - From what i've seen of phones/laptops etc they can't get the batteries right on those with heavy use, they fail far too quickly, thats without something else causing the Vehicle itself (not the battery initally) to catch fire which then spreads to the battery etc. Probabbly far worse than the results of any conventional fuel espically if it was in a tunnel/enclosed car park or similar where the dense smoke generated from those kind of batteries would be a significent hazard.

The biggest problem with battery power is that there is a limit to the amount of lithium available to make batteries from - the battery tech needs to come on somewhat to make it more practical for me (charging for hours is not an option given you can never guarantee the availability of charging points etc as well).

Hydrogen wise i think they are trying to cater to fuel cell use, not ICE. But the production issue is obviously the one thing that needs to be overcome (if its even possible to do so, as you say the energy or electricity used to make it from water is not efficient at present)

The chemistry used in a car is somewhat different to whats used in a phone but fairly similar to most laptops. Its pretty robust.

I think your really underestimating what a vehicle fire in a normal ICE vehicle is like, the batteries wont really make any significant difference, if its going to go up, its going to make a big mess in the process. Liquid fuels can also leak (and fuel tanks are usually plastic...), and spread around on the floor, spreading fire, the battery pack cant do that.

The main limiting factor at the moment is manufacturing capacity for the batteries. But ofcourse, as demand increases, so does the production. The cost of batteries is constantly falling as more manufacturing capacity comes online, which suggests, at least at the moment, theres no real supply issue for lithium.

The charging is a wee bit complex and is the bit that takes some understanding. There are various "speeds", the fastest chargers (called rapids) might fill the battery most of the way (on the typical sized pack available today) in about 30minutes, realistically the time you'd spend stopping for a pee and a coffee at a motorway services. Fast chargers vary from 7 to 22kw depending on supply and vehicle ability, and thus charging time on those varies substantially. Cars themselves also vary as to the maximum power they can draw on the fast chargers.

For me, it does a lot of my journeys without issue. I leave for work with a full battery, its usually down to 40-50% by the time i arrive at work depending on the weather. I plug it in while working, and when i finish its full and i set off home again. And realistically for a lot of folk, the range of the current models is fine for the majority of their driving. If your barreling up and down a motorway doing hundreds of miles, then sure diesel is still the best option. But for a lot of folk, and especially two car families, an EV can work well, even with its current limitations. Once the Model3 and other cars arrive in the next few years, we should see another step change in usefulness.

Aragorn wrote:

If your barreling up and down a motorway doing hundreds of miles, then sure diesel is still the best option.

Diesel is never the best option. If you are doing serious mileage, LPG is by far and away the best. Vastly cleaner than diesel and cheaper too.

Hydrogen could be used relatively easily in an ICE.. It has an Octane rating of >130 so could allow an engine to be tuned to take advantage of that and it's stoichiometric ratio should mean decent economy. For petrol and diesel it is around 14 parts air to one part fuel (by weight) and for LPG it is 15.5 but for hydrogen it is 34 parts air to one part hydrogen. Admittedly as this is by weight and Hydrogen is lighter than air, that would require a greater volume but would still make it viable. With a boiling point of -253 degrees C it couldn't be stored as a liquid but then neither can Methane and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) is used as a fuel in conventional ICE engines operated by some fleets in the UK and is common for consumer use in Italy. CNG stores the fuel in a purpose made tank at around 100 bar. As far producing it, two electrodes in water and there it is, it is as close as we are ever likely to get to running a car on water.

In terms of overall experience, diesel will surely win out over LPG. LPG might just pip the cost per mile numbers in certain circumstances, but for the vast majoirty of folk who want to buy a standard unmodified car from a dealership with a warranty, LPG simply doesnt feature.

The problem with hydrogen is numerous. The electricity used to produce it (with your two electrodes) has to come from somewhere, and its MUCH more efficient just to directly use that electricity. Once you've got the hydrogen, you need even more electricity to compress it, then store it, then move it around using trucks or ships or trains. Its just a really really inefficient use of energy. And if you put it into an ICE, you need to package seriously substantial tanks. And once you've got it into your combustion engine, about 70% of the energy you get from burning your fuel gets thrown away out the exhaust pipe and radiators. Fuel Cells are not quite as wasteful, but you still have all the issues of producing, storing, moving and dispensing hydrogen which unfortunately arent particularly easy to fix.

Its MUCH more efficient to charge a battery (lithium charging is extremely efficient, most of the losses are actually in the power supply!), and simply power an electric motor to drive the wheels.

Its also MUCH easier to cleanly produce electricity in a big plant, than it is to cleanly burn fuel in millions of little engines. Even more so for short journeys where your combustion engines running super inefficiently. Furthermore, the electricity plants are remote, and thus not filling our cities with combustion byproducts, and we can use renewables like wind and solar with no combustion required at all.

The problem is theres lots of utter bullshit being spread by big oil and the media as well as many of the large car companies who have billions invested in combustion engines and dont really want to see that disappear, that you only really begin to realise once you start looking into it properly. Tesla have given them all a bit of a scare really, and they're now all scrabbling to get EV's to market.

I guess only time will tell, but i think a lot of people get their eyes opened once they actually drive a proper EV. I certainly did. And my reasons for buying mine werent any sort of green environmentalism. Wife wanted a newer car, and i wanted something non-shit. We couldnt afford to buy a nearly new car with decent engine, but when we realised the fuel savings offered by the EV meant that half the lease cost essentially vanished, it suddenly became quite viable. I had a short test drive and it seemed fine, so we went for it.