What excuses will be used to increase electric car tax?

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mustang1

Guru
Location
London, UK
I'll just call it road tax instead of VED. Right now, e-cars have very little or zero road tax due to low pollution status. In the future, when there will be a lot more e-cars, what excuses will the govt use to increase road tax?

My guesses are:
1. Batteries are harmful to environment.
2. The tyres wearing out cause harm
3. Congestion charge will be back (the Toxicity Charge will be revamped)
4. If you don't have a space in your house to park the car, you will be charged (we don't want cables everywhere, well, we don't mind it so long as you pay for the privilege)
5. Your car is too long or wide this taking up too much road space, or heavy etc.
 

derrick

The Glue that binds us together.
Why do they need an excuse, they take up the same space as a normal car. They all cause congestion. The building of them causes pollution. It's only a matter of time.
 

winjim

Smash the cistern
I would suggest that actually making it a 'road tax' proportional to the overall effect the vehicle has on the road might be no bad thing. You could take into account emissions, congestion, wear and tear, annual mileage, the whole lot. Of course that would lead to a massive sense of entitlement from the drivers of the 'worst' vehicles...
 

Drago

Legendary Member
I think it should be increased. Cars are still the biggest non natural killer after suicide, and they pollute at largely the same scale as an ICE powered car, just not locally out of the tailpipe.

All car tax revenue should be ringfenced and spent solely in public transport initiatives, and improved cycling infrastructure.

Personal car use should be discouraged, period. An electric car isn't really any better for society at large than a conventional one. It'll kill you just as effectively as it drives over your chest, and while no smoke comes out of the tailpipe as it goes past your house there are almightly great emissions as the rare earth minerals are dug out of a hillside in Bolivia, then transported to another country to be refined, then transported to a third to make batteries, then a fourth to the car production line, then a fifth to market - a small capacity, lightweight, petrol powered car creates less emissions cradle to grave, so this idea that electric cars will save us is ridiculous.

Our bone idle, lazy ass society simply needs to get its lardy backside out of the drivers seat, irrespective of the source of motive power - car driving should be the exception, the unusual, not the daily default for a 2 mile drive to the shops or a 400 metre drive to school. It will happen, its unavoidable, there simply aren't enough rare earth minerals in existence to replace every ICE car like for like with an electric one. Even if a vast, endless deposit were discovered this afternoon it couldn't be brough to market in sufficient time to enable a 1:1 replacement scenario, so a wise and benevolent government would be planning now, today for this. Of course, the contradiction is that a government can't see past the next election. and one that cracks down hard on needless car use won't be in government next time around. QED, nothing will fundamentally change as a result of political initiatives.

Talk of free car tax is fiddling while Rome burns. Fiddling with a bucked of petrol while puffing on a Benson.
 
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southcoast

Über Member
They could be taxed on power output or engine efficiency.
The pollution factor depends on the source of the electricity supply to charge the cars. If they are charged by electricity generated from burning fossil fuels, you are only moving the pollution source from the tail pipe to the power station.
 

Electric_Andy

Heavy Metal Fan
Location
Plymouth
All car tax revenue should be ringfenced and spent solely in public transport initiatives, and improved cycling infrastructure..
I agree, but the improved infrastructure needs to be in place first to tempt people away from their car. You can't price people out of using their cars if they see no viable alternative. The public and private sector workplaces also need to do something e.g. flexible working hours, shower and change facilities, bike and gear storage. It might be ok in Amsterdam but most other cities you can't cycle to work without arriving sweaty even in winter (due to hills and miles of diversions necessary to not get killed on a busy narrow road).

This won't do much for the school run brigade though (of which I am one). If I cycled to work after school drop-off, I'd be 40 minutes late for work.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
You can price people out of their the cars with no viable alternative. Necessity will create solutions. Plenty of people can't afford to run a car, or choose not to do so, and they adapt. They don't suddenly cease to exist, or starve to death. These are excuses Andy, not objections.

Cars are bad for the planet, for human health, and society. Period.

So you get sweaty cycling to work. So what? Is that worth killing the planet and risking human life to avoid? Driving around in a 1.5 tonne or more metal box with 4 empty seats. even an electric powered one, is a ridiculous solution to getting a bit sweaty.

Cars are bad. You, me, society needs to get over it. I own one (I wouldn't at all if I didn't need it for Sesrch and Rescue callouts), but I do my bit by simply avoiding using it as much as possible (less than 400 miles this year so far). I live in the country. I'm in my 50's. I have health and injury problems. These are all excuses I hear from people to justify their bone idle dar useage, but I seem to overcome these excuses with nothing more than a bit of willpower.

I can't think of a simpler way to say it - cars are simply bad. Objections are excuses that lazy people, usually car drivers, make in order to continue using cars without consequence. Dress it up any way you like whatsoever, that is still all it is.
 
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Smudge

Veteran
Location
Somerset
Who knows what excuse they will come up with, if any at all, but it will happen. Just like they substantially raised the VED on £0, £20 and £30 p/y ICE cars.
 

Electric_Andy

Heavy Metal Fan
Location
Plymouth
So you get sweaty cycling to work. So what?
You'd have to convince the nation, and employers that it's ok to stink at work and be uncomfortable. And aren't you retired?! So you don't have a commute, or a school run to do.

Pricing people out of their cars would only work for people with lower income. The richest 30% or so would continue to drive around polluting, whilst most of the working class would have to change habits, possibly to their disadvantage regarding accessing work, which might impact more on social and economical climates even though it's slowing the Earth's rate of decline.
 

welsh dragon

Thanks but no thanks. I think I'll pass.
You can price people out of their the cars with no viable alternative. Necessity will create solutions. Plenty of people can't afford to run a car, or choose not to do so, and they adapt. They don't suddenly cease to exist, or starve to death. These are excuses Andy, not objections.

Cars are bad for the planet, for human health, and society. Period.

So you get sweaty cycling to work. So what? Is that worth killing the planet and risking human life to avoid? Driving around in a 1.5 tonne or more metal box with 4 empty seats. even an electric powered one, is a ridiculous solution to getting a bit sweaty.

Cars are bad. You, me, society needs to get over it. I own one (I wouldn't at all if I didn't need it for Sesrch and Rescue callouts), but I do my bit by simply avoiding using it as much as possible (less than 400 miles this year so far). I live in the country. I'm in my 50's. I have health and injury problems. These are all excuses I hear from people to justify their bone idle dar useage, but I seem to overcome these excuses with nothing more than a bit of willpower.

I can't think of a simpler way to say it - cars are simply bad. Objections are excuses that lazy people, usually car drivers, make in order to continue using cars without consequence. Dress it up any way you like whatsoever, that is still all it is.


How many vehicles do you have @Drago ?
 
Cars are bad for people outside the car and good for people inside the car. Tax is a way if clawing back these externalised costs.
Government will probably have to create tax bands for electric cars using eg weight, size, some kind of power rating.
A very low tax at the low end will encourage people to drive the traditional electric car as glorified golf cart rather than electrically enhanced supercar.
 
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