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

Yes and how will this be enforced ? They’d have to rely on people being honest or put black boxes in people’s card? Which I can’t see happening. People will just turn them off.

Years ago the motor trade had dodgy people that would turn back the mileage on cars to make them more val. so a car with 80 k would now have 50 k.

People can hack into major companies IT systems. I’m sure it would be hard for people who know how to , to turn back the mileage on cars. And some people don’t MOT cars, they get them from new and change them at the three year point..

Sorry this might be a bit tldr, but, yeah I just think if you're going to promote electric cars and recommend them to others, you need to be truthful. I'm driving a Model 3 through a work lease scheme, on paper it says 328 miles, but in practice I get around 270-280 on 100% charge.

The car tells you not to charge above 80% regularly to retain the battery longevity so you'll lose another 20% off that mileage, so around 220-230 miles is realistic.

A full charge from around 15% to 80% on a fast charge takes around 25 minutes so it's not quick but it's not that painful either on a long journey, it also costs around £25-30 at current prices (definitely not £6).

Other factors people don't add in are things like tyre wear, they're very heavy, and also very torquey and powerful which rips through tyres, particularly the rears and they're Pirelli P Zeros so they're another £220-£250 a quarter every 8-10,000 miles.

The free road tax perk has gone now as well, I've just had to pay £195. Then there's the luxury car tax of £425 per year for 3 years which if it's over 40K and new (even the Golf e is over £40k, hardly luxury!), you'll get stung with.

Maintenance costs are definitely less as there's less moving parts and regen braking means you don't replace pads and disks as often so costs do balance out, but I think people need to stop trying to make out that electric cars are cheap because they most definitely aren't, particularly if you start adding in your own charger, solar, batteries etc..

They're quiet, comfortable, fast, and relatively eco friendly (battery production & transportation costs aside) but I think the economy perks are gradually fizzling out, and that is only going to get worse when Reeves lays out her budget.

And that was my point - fuel duty is not the same as PPM, which the other posters simply couldnt understand.

We have a hybrid,fully charged it only gets 20miles,road tax is £650 a year,£1500 for a charger,honestly they are not worth the hassle .

It’s not saying they won’t increase vehicle tax for ICE vehicles though. It’s just saying EVs will have to also contribute. And unless they want to collapse the EV market (the ECS is already an issue as from April this year), they will know they need to continue to make EVs more attractive then ICE. So they’ll raise standard vehicle tax too.

I can’t trust a word that comes out of Rachel Reeves mouth. Or Kier Starmers.

The big difference is that it is a tax on miles driven not the energy used to drive those miles.

Unlike fossil fuel tax there is no incentive to drive a more economical vehicle. That is a big flaw in my opinion.

Did they speculate this starts in 2028?

We have a hybrid, which I charge overnight most nights (sometimes forget), and I top up with fuel and run on its hybrid setting (so it always chooses the most economical energy source). I probably fill the tank once a month.

idea to tax per mile is grossly unfair here, as I’ve no clue how many of my miles are on petrol (already paid tax) versus battery.

i don’t mind paying tax. But just make it fair.

We've just had our home charger put in. I don't think I'd bother again in the future and will likely just get a cheap petrol run around car next time.

I am not happy about it but it will still be cheaper for me than petrol (I saved around £1000 this year) and I love driving my EV so I won't go back to ICE

Its beyond a joke now. I have an EV but will never buy another.

I am now paying £17 a month car tax on it. Energy prices have gone up and it's costing me more to charge it than it was to fill my diesel car for a month! So now 3p a mile tax too.

The anxiety of watching the mileage go down is real, daren't put the heating on in the car unless desperate cause it drains the battery, so if you have your phone plugged in, the radio on, the heating and heated seat and your lights on, its ridiculous how fast the battery goes. However, at this rate i'm never going to be able to sell it because no one will want one

Then on top of that they are going to raise income tax. Are they not going to be content until the whole country are on their knees, can't afford to eat and heat their homes, all suffering from anxiety & depression because they don't know how they are going to make their wage last to the end of the month

Nor me. And I don’t believe it will be 3 p per mile either.

Whoever voted Labour in , I’m afraid they shouldn’t have been that naive.

Which is why it wont happen, a few months before a GE, no Govt introduces controversial measures at this point.

This is like the "Doubling of Council Tax" scare stories, again "rumoured" to come in 2028.

Is the same Telegraph journalist concocting both stories?

Good for you -you can obviously afford it. I can’t afford to pay 15000 miles with in one go. Because that’s my annual mileage. That’s a big bill I’d have to stump up front.

I have to commute to work 60 mile round trip. I can’t afford to more and I can’t afford to live near my work. So I can only drive.

I get the argument about the government losing money in fossil fuel taxes from people switching to electric car.

But what if the whole country used just public transport tomorrow? How would they recoup the lost revenue then ?

Why are you getting your knickers in a twist about something that wont happen?

Can you not see that paying up front but then having a credit carried forward to the next year, if you do less miles, is totally unworkable?

What happens if you buy a ICE car? how do you get a refund? you split from your partner and he/she wants some of that refund....

The whole thing would be an administrative & very costly nightmare

You re being played or you are just stirring the pot.... with more anti Labour rants.

That was my point - I can't afford to pay it all up front.
I wouldn't mind paying retrospectively every month (like if you buy petrol monthly) but not some guesstimate up front. Because it would be bound to be like car tax - sell the car and the government would just keep any excess they happen to have.

Fair point. But what's the alternative? I can't think of one.

I drive to Europe a few times per year so how would that work?

Agree completely about the admin burden of this. Yet another inefficient idea that would more likely cost us more than we raise!

As I said. Lots of people won’t be happy about paying in advance about the miles they think they will do. In one lump sum.

It would be costly to administer. Car clocking could come back from dodgy people who will make the mileage reduce.

Not everyone has an MOT as some drivers trade in their cars before it’s due . How else can they tell what mileage you’ve done unless they have black boxes installed in everyone’s cars?

With the mileage up front thing, surely you would just put in a daft figure- ie 500miles. No one in their right mind would over estimate!

It's the torygraph. Wait and see first.