What excuses will be used to increase electric car tax?

[Andy in Germany]

I work for a Japanese firm & believe me there is no slack in the system, indeed everything is pared down so far now that we don't have enough staff, new starters don't last, they can't cope & everyone nationwide is just frazzled, if I meet staff from anywhere in the UK the story is the same, we are just run ragged.
Genuinely Japanese firms work on Genchi Genbutsu (Go & See to get to the bottom of an issue) Kaizen (Continuous improvement) Challenge, Respect & Teamwork, basically Team Sky's marginal gains, but basically it all points to efficiencies, in other word if you can save 2p thats what you do regardless of the consequences

That's very interesting because Japan generally doesn't work that way. It's efficient but nothing as aggressive as what you describe. I wonder if it is because they want to get as much out of their overseas investments as possible, or if it is our interpretation of Japanese concepts?

Either way, I think what is "Economical" will change, there will have to be a lot less travelling and transporting people about in the future.

 

[RoadRider400]

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.

Because at the moment its not car tax its vehicle emissions duty. With the increase in electric cars with zero emissions revenue from motorists will drop. They will have to change VED to something else to recoup their money. Personally I think vehicles should be taxed relative to weight.

 

[Drago]

Tax them by weight, battery capacity in kW (that electricity and those nasty battery chemicals have to come from somewhere, and its ain't environmentally harmless) and number of seats. Electricity used to charge private cars should also he taxed too. Some kind of mile-by-mile levy for every unoccupied seat might make a few of the bone idle lazy think twice.

Perhaps keep the tax as zero for super light 2 seaters under a certain length, so people who currently commute by ICE cars with 4 empty seats have an attractive alternative that might encourage them to downsize, with a modest battery capacity to reduce weight, the use of rare earth metals, and load on the power grid.

Get as many cars as possible off the road, reduce unnecessary motoring as much as possible. Not a popular manifesto promise in DM reading middle England. Nevertheless, the mad fuel prices rises of a few years ago reduced road miles considerably at the time, proving that the only way to curb motorists is to hit them in the pocket.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Tax them by weight, battery capacity in kW (that electricity and those nasty battery chemicals have to come from somewhere, and its ain't environmentally harmless) and number of seats. Electricity used to charge private cars should also he taxed too. Some kind of mile-by-mile levy for every unoccupied seat might make a few of the bone idle lazy think twice.

Perhaps keep the tax as zero for super light 2 seaters under a certain length, so people who currently commute by ICE cars with 4 empty seats have an attractive alternative that might encourage them to downsize, with a modest battery capacity to reduce weight, the use of rare earth metals, and load on the power grid.

Get as many cars as possible off the road, reduce unnecessary motoring as much as possible. Not a popular manifesto promise in DM reading middle England. Nevertheless, the mad fuel prices rises of a few years ago reduced road miles considerably at the time, proving that the only way to curb motorists is to hit them in the pocket.

This gentleman has some ideas on road pricing. Unfortunately he stopped writing on the subject some time ago but he knows what he's talking about and has some examples in his posts.

The basic idea is that people are charged per Km travelled and the price -I think- increases in places which are more congested. This balances the problem of people in rural areas having to pay more because the travel longer distances: if you drive from Wick to the edge of Inverness via Cambletown it is still cheaper than driving from central Birmingham to Trafalgar square.

The system described works off GPS which could raise some eyebrows -I wouldn't trust the UK gov with that information- but I know in Germany, where we use a similar system for trucks on Autobahns, it is run by a company who are not allowed to give the data to anyone -there was even a court case a few years ago where they couldn't release the data in a trial case.

 

[Flying Dodo]

And as @DRM says, replacing the current vehicle fleet with electric vehicles is impossible; even if we had enough lithium we don't have the generating capacity, we never will, and any attempt to build the systems or power stations to achieve this will be met with massive public resistance.

Not actually the case, as electric cars don't all plug in at the same time to charge. National Grid have done some modelling to show that even if every single car on UK roads was fully electric now, then the grid only needs 15% more capacity. Bearing in mind that currently electric only cars are 1% of the total, and the Government's 2040 deadline will still allow hybrid cars, it will be a very long time before there'll be capacity issues.

 

[byegad]

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...

We couldn't have that............... Oh! Hang on, that's what we've got already.

 

[winjim]

We couldn't have that............... Oh! Hang on, that's what we've got already.

No it's not.

 

[derrick]

No it's not.

I think you will find a lot of people think it is.🤣🤣

 

[BoldonLad]

It is not only Electric cars which a zero VED. My diesel Renault is zero rated.

The tax take from VED is trivial when compared to the tax take from Fuel Duty.

Fuel duty brings in £28.4 billion pa (approximately £1000 per household).

As the number of vehicles using petrol and diesel diminishes, the Government will have to tax something to make up the shortfall (or, spend less, pause for flock of flying pigs to pass).

What will they tax?

They could always just print more money of course, which appears to be the current fashion, but, think up a new name for it.

 

[BoldonLad]

Congestion charges round every town and city would sort it. Fine for getting to the edge but you come inside you either use public transport, walk or cycle. Plus make the very inner of a city / town car free.

Haven't reached the end of the thread, yet, but, surprised this has not been mentioned already, what about the disabled or mobility impaired, to be more PC. I think I am right in saying that approximately 10% of the new cars registered each year are Motobility cars.

 

[BoldonLad]

It’s easy, they purchase a vignette on the ferry, they still pay the tolls in France, and everywhere else that has toll roads, why get away with it here

It is perfectly possible to drive most of mainland Europe (including France), without paying tolls. We have done it at least once a year for the past 30 years.

 

[Drago]

Tax on the should be incrementally ramped up as ICE cars slowly start to fall out of favour:

There is still a massive environmental penalty for building a "green" car.

They cause as much congestion as an ICE car.

They're equally capable of killing innocent people as an ICE car.

Particulate tyre and brake emissions, the ones that are really harmful to health, are little better than an ICE car

they don;t solve any problems. They might bring about a minor reduction in their contribution to one particular problem (CO2), but it really is minor at best, and in many cases actually no better at all in NET terms. In every other regard they're as much a menace to society and health as any other car, and like any other car a forward thinking society should be discouraging their needless purchase and frivolous use. Sadly, we are not a forward thinking society - we are a selfish and lazy one.

 

[cyberknight]

True. My colleague used to pay £70/month to get the bus to work and back. They were unreliable. He had the option to arrive 1 hour early for work, or risk it and get in at 9 by the skin of his teeth. And the journey took an hour. He now drives in and does the journey in 20-25 mins. There really needs to be a strong motivation for people to ditch their cars (I know, they pollute, but that is often not a strong enough motivator for most people). I still think 1000W electric bicycles (limited to 15mph but able to maintain that up a hill) is the answer, if only they were legal, or at least easy to register as a powered vehicle.

Its even worse for me, to get to work on public transport would involve catching 2 buses and take a couple of hours followed by a mile or so walk,thats each way assuming you can get your connections right and they dont have a service early enough for my night shift finish.The car takes me 20 mins and the bike 35 ,I ride because we cant afford to run 2 cars and it leaves the car free for mrs ck to get about as you say the public transport links are terrible even though there is a bus stop outside the house taking a trip to the local town as a family which is mebbe a mile or so away is a hit and miss affair assuming the bus turns up .
I grew up in a village with no car until we were mid teens , i for one wouldnt want to go back that scenario of lugging stuff around .The only way we got to go on holiday was the train and we only could afford that as my dad worked on the rail and we got it cheap .

 

[Drago]

Its even worse for me, to get to work on public transport would involve catching 2 buses and take a couple of hours followed by a mile or so walk,thats each way assuming you can get your connections right and they dont have a service early enough for my night shift finish.The car takes me 20 mins and the bike 35 ,I ride because we cant afford to run 2 cars...

I like that - instead of making excuses, you're out there simply doing it.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Haven't reached the end of the thread, yet, but, surprised this has not been mentioned already, what about the disabled or mobility impaired, to be more PC. I think I am right in saying that approximately 10% of the new cars registered each year are Motobility cars.

That's in the context of a transport system built for cars. A good cycle network gives people freedom who can't own a car because of disabilities or other reasons, and a good public transport system extends that freedom. Many of my disabled clients get free public transport all over the region of Freiburg, and here are companies making bikes for people with disabilities to use the many cycle lanes.
Instead the UK forces car use and thus forces people with disabilities to spend a lot of their income on a car, then uses this as evidence to claim they are giving people a choice.