Electric cars - Reeves to hit drivers with pay-per-mile tax

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Todays telegraph. Can imagine there will be howls of protest to this one.

Rachel Reeves to hit drivers with pay-per-mile tax in Budget

This only penalises people with long commutes that usually drive on A Roads and motorways. Yet again we penalise people trying to get to work on purpose built roads whereas people doing unnecessarily short journeys clogging up town centres and residential streets out off sheer laziness pay less.

This in combination with high energy costs would probably put us off buying electric.

How many miles do you do though? Its OK being happy if you only drive 3k or are rich enough to absorb 2k a year. Most of us aren't.

This is one idea that I think isn’t necessarily a bad one.

It was fairly obvious that, as people moved away from petrol/diesel, there’d be a shortfall of tax to find from somewhere.

At the moment, petrol/diesel car owners have to pay almost 54p per litre in duty, with 20% VAT on top of that. That’s effectively taxing those cars per mile (ie the more miles you drive, the more tax you pay). Charging an electric car at home only attracts VAT of 5%. Electric cars use the road system in the same way as other cars so should surely contribute through the tax system.

Well good for you. But it will put a lot of people off buying an EV and set the encouraged move to all electric vehicles back several years.

Surely you realised you'd have to contribute to road repairs?

No one has mentioned £2k per year. The speculated charge is 3p per mile, or an average of £250 per year. The average petrol/diesel driver is already paying more than double that in fuel duty.

The government are absolutely desperate for money and will stop at nothing, no matter how 'unfair'. We'll all end up targeted at some point, none will escape, so it's no use complaining about the nuances of which vehicle owners pay which tax and how much etc. This appalling government are determined to fleece us and make our lives as miserable as possible whilst they're doing so.

Use public transport if you don't want to pay road tax (yes, this is sarcasm).

Some other sources had said 9p a mile so 22k a year would be paying nearly 2k.
22k is not unusual in some parts of the country.

Yep it’s just filling in the money Labour lost due to last budget and sky high debt servicing.

You really think that is this PPM is introduced to EVs, that the Govt wont introduce it for ICE cars too?

If you think that, you are mistaken and deluded. Any Government would do it - especially if it generates them revenue - the only reason it hasnt been done is because of the backlash - but its clear, Labour politicians do not care and have wanted to do this since forever.

Now they are in power, thats the path they're going down - everyone can see it.

Also, money for older people etc - I dont care about that. What I do care about is being shafted for more tax when I have to drive - to work.

This isn’t logical though. No Govt would ever be able to change anything following this thinking or changes would have to be published at least 10 years in advance which would be unworkable.

The average ICE car gets around 13 miles per litre.

Say petrol is at its current price, around 137p/L. 23p of that is VAT, 53p is fuel duty. So you're paying 5.8p in tax per mile.

3p per mile for EV drivers starts to look pretty reasonable.

There is a lot of unfairness built in with EVs unless we get major structural change (such as the ability to access your household electricity account from a street charger near your house, for example - the real incentive for EVs comes from being able to mainly charge using flexible EV tariffs, and that will only increase as more variable tariffs come onto the market.) But "you might have to pay some tax based on how much you drive, same as ICE drivers" is unlikely to be one of the unfair things.

It was always going to happen once takeup got past a tipping point.

It's already there for ICE engines. Every mile you drive, more than half the cost of fuel is tax.

But that isn’t remotely logical, if they don’t buy EV then they’ll be on petrol/diesel and pay much more?

I’m beginning to wonder on this thread if anyone actually uses logic anymore?

I have a tiny Smart EV that does hardly any mileage so its ok. By me, but practically how would it work? Would the car send in the data?

Yes that's correct I think it will be one or the other, happy to be deluded. Many Labour politicians will care they know Reform are chomping at them.
You may not care about the demographic problem but it will mean more tax like this , people will start to come around to it in 5 years or so.

So you think its fair that people in ICE cars have to subsidise those who pay no fuel duty because they have an EV..

Any Govt would have to introduce this, lets see if Reform or the Cons say they reverse it shall we?

IF it is even bought in..... as it will be quite difficult to collect, how do they even know what your mileage is? new cars don't need an MOT for 3 years.....

In what way do those two sentences make sense?

If it was extended to non-electric cars, how would that be a useful way of getting people out of them when the same already applies to electric?

I’m not a Labour supporter - I’m merely a bystander reading through comments on this thread and slightly despairing at the ability to form logical arguments.

I don't know whether this is the Telegraph making mischief. Their article states that the way it will work is that we have to estimate the mileage for 12 months ahead and pay a fee based on that. What sort of economic fuckwittery is that?

No logic just permanently outraged foaming at the mouth so much so a wet and dry vac is needed.

Yes, exactly, didn't we have a raft of anti Labour scare stories pre the last GE?

Collecting the mileage data would require additional tech in the car and then would spring up a load of hacking software to falsify mileage.

The only thing I dislike about the scheme is that one would have to pay for 12 months upfront or pay it off in one go.
With my diesel car, I can choose not to do cretin journeys if I am unable to pay for the fuel...
This could hit the motor industry and poorer people hard. Not sure if it is the golden key to more tax revenue.

We need fairer wages and a stable economy...

Well marvellous, but its not practical is it?
Elderly parents to appointments
Big shops
Work commute
to name but a few.

Also in a rural area with minimal public transport its just not feasible to NOT use a car.
??

I am an electric car driver and have always thought this was inevitable. I am happy to pay as long as we stop holding down fuel duty. Petrol is less than it was a decade ago and we are supposed to be invcentivising the switch. Tax rises are inevitabe and we are not as highly taxed on income as other developed countries so it has to come from somewhere