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From: Fran on 7 Jan 2010 01:55 On Jan 7, 9:49 am, theo <theodo...(a)bigpond.com.au> wrote: > On Jan 6, 9:44 am, Fran <fran.b...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > What do you suppose would happen to vehicle miles (and the composition > > of the vehicle fleet) in Australia if the price of petrol went up and > > stayed up by, say, 50 cents per litre? > > It's already done that in the last few years. And nothing much > happened to the composition of the fleet, except that 'performance' > cars got bigger and more powerful engines using more fuel. > > Regardless of the pain of opening your wallet at the Servo, fuel is > the cheapest component of owning a motor vehicle. A vehicle costing > $30K new being driven 12,000 kms per annum (the stated average for > private vehicles) at 10 l/100km paying $1.20 per litre will cost $1440 > in fuel. It will cost $500 in Rego fees, $500-800 in Insurance, will > require one service at $250, depreciate by at least 25%, $7500, and > will cost at least $2400 in Finance costs (I have taken this to be 8% > of the $30K you no longer have in Fixed Term Deposit, actual borrowing > will cost more). I won't bother with tyres ($200) and other minor > incidentals, such as RAC membership. > > Your total costs are $12,590. An additional $0.50 per litre will add a > whopping $600 to your costs. 4.8%. Whoopee! As noted above, I substantially agree that *in the short run* (which is to say within the cycle in which people trade their cars) 50 cents per litre isn't going to make a lot of difference. (I'd be surprised about the 12,000 annual km figure though -- maybe there are some wealthy inner city dwellers who don't use their cars much, but I'd be surprised if more than 50% of urban commuters who use their cars o commute don't approach 20,000km each year). Work it out -- if you live just 25km from work and go to work and home 276 times per year, there's 13,800km already. Throw in recreational vehicle use, shopping etc on weekends @ 40 km per weekend, and there's easily another 2100. Annual trip to the snow and the north coast for Christmas? Add 2000 km each. Commuters to Sydney drive from the Central Coast, Wollongong, Picton and the Blue Mountains. Even Penrith is 50ks out. Fran
From: G-S on 7 Jan 2010 02:47 CrazyCam wrote: > > Scooters, pushies and walking, yup, I'll believe, but you have to be > joking about car-pooling and public transport. > Public transport in and around Melbourne and across the state of victoria is showing consistent growth of between 4% and 8% depending upon location and mode. With those sorts of growth rates sustained (and they have been for some years now) it isn't long before we'll start to see noticable pattern shifts. G-S
From: CrazyCam on 7 Jan 2010 03:21 G-S wrote: > CrazyCam wrote: >> >> Scooters, pushies and walking, yup, I'll believe, but you have to be >> joking about car-pooling and public transport. >> > > Public transport in and around Melbourne and across the state of > victoria is showing consistent growth of between 4% and 8% depending > upon location and mode. > > With those sorts of growth rates sustained (and they have been for some > years now) it isn't long before we'll start to see noticable pattern > shifts. Dunno about Vic, Geoff, but up in Sydney public transport is a complete joke. It's badly run, unreliable and over crowded. Any extra load, as in more users, and the whole system will likely collapse. regards, CrazyCam
From: D Walford on 7 Jan 2010 03:26 Fran wrote: > On Jan 6, 7:09 pm, D Walford <dwalf...(a)internode.on.net> wrote: >> Fran wrote: >>> On Jan 6, 9:46 am, "Milton" <millam...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >>>> "John_H" <john4...(a)inbox.com> wrote in message >>>> news:7qo5k59nkuhu06re9ojolvjkvdsu1suikd(a)4ax.com... >>>>> Sunny wrote: >>>>>> "Noddy" <m...(a)home.com> wrote in message >>>>>> news:4b42a411$0$66493$c30e37c6(a)exi-reader.telstra.net... >>>>>>> "Fran" <fran.b...(a)gmail.com> wrote in message >>>>>>> news:42baf50b-1c00-4a42-899d-7014e3609473(a)b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com... >>>>>>>> Let's hope so. I'd prefer it to be a lot more but I'll take six cents >>>>>>>> as a start. >>>>>>> Why? >>>>>> It's watermelon speak, for "all walk or ride a horse." >>>>> -- >>>>> John H >>>> I'd say more like "weird"?? What a stupid thing to say! Maybe she is >>>> actually a Sheik?? >>> What do you suppose would happen to vehicle miles (and the composition >>> of the vehicle fleet) in Australia if the price of petrol went up and >>> stayed up by, say, 50 cents per litre? >> Not a lot, the demand for increased wages followed by an increase in the >> price of everything wouldn't be a good thing though. > > > You're assuming a level of elasticity that doesn't correspond to the > real world. Not all people can pass on price hikes. > No assumption needed, its historically what happens when prices go up. > Some people can work more overtime, or pass on increased prices, but > not all can. > Unions will demand and most likely get pay increases which end up flowing to most workers, increased wages cost will result in employers putting up their prices. These things won't happen overnight and there would be a period where people just wear the increase but eventually it would balance out. > One suspects most people will cut back across the board by redcuuing > their vehicle usage in the lowest priority settings, driving more > economically, car pooling and cutting back on other discretionary > purchases. Maybe for a short period until things get back into balance as they will in a relatively short time. As someone else already pointed out fuel is only a small percentage of the total cost of vehicle ownership, keeping a vehicle for 8yrs instead of 4 would save you considerably more than saving a few dollars per week by reducing the amount of fuel you use. Daryl
From: D Walford on 7 Jan 2010 03:30
Fran wrote: > On Jan 7, 9:49 am, theo <theodo...(a)bigpond.com.au> wrote: >> On Jan 6, 9:44 am, Fran <fran.b...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> What do you suppose would happen to vehicle miles (and the composition >>> of the vehicle fleet) in Australia if the price of petrol went up and >>> stayed up by, say, 50 cents per litre? >> It's already done that in the last few years. And nothing much >> happened to the composition of the fleet, except that 'performance' >> cars got bigger and more powerful engines using more fuel. >> >> Regardless of the pain of opening your wallet at the Servo, fuel is >> the cheapest component of owning a motor vehicle. A vehicle costing >> $30K new being driven 12,000 kms per annum (the stated average for >> private vehicles) at 10 l/100km paying $1.20 per litre will cost $1440 >> in fuel. It will cost $500 in Rego fees, $500-800 in Insurance, will >> require one service at $250, depreciate by at least 25%, $7500, and >> will cost at least $2400 in Finance costs (I have taken this to be 8% >> of the $30K you no longer have in Fixed Term Deposit, actual borrowing >> will cost more). I won't bother with tyres ($200) and other minor >> incidentals, such as RAC membership. >> >> Your total costs are $12,590. An additional $0.50 per litre will add a >> whopping $600 to your costs. 4.8%. Whoopee! > > > As noted above, I substantially agree that *in the short run* (which > is to say within the cycle in which people trade their cars) 50 cents > per litre isn't going to make a lot of difference. (I'd be surprised > about the 12,000 annual km figure though -- maybe there are some > wealthy inner city dwellers who don't use their cars much, but I'd be > surprised if more than 50% of urban commuters who use their cars o > commute don't approach 20,000km each year). Work it out -- if you live > just 25km from work and go to work and home 276 times per year, > there's 13,800km already. Throw in recreational vehicle use, shopping > etc on weekends @ 40 km per weekend, and there's easily another 2100. > Annual trip to the snow and the north coast for Christmas? Add 2000 km > each. Commuters to Sydney drive from the Central Coast, Wollongong, > Picton and the Blue Mountains. Even Penrith is 50ks out. 16,000klms is the figure that is used as the national average for klms travelled per year. Daryl |