Road charges to fill £40bn black hole?
 

It seems the penny might have finally dropped re the use of electric cars and the governments now stated aim of no more petrol/diesel cars sold after 2030.

It seems they have woken up to the fact that this puts at risk the tax revenue they take from us petrol/diesel heads.

Broken down this brings in £27.5bn pa in Fuel duty

Vehicle Excise Duty brings in £7.1bn

And VAT on fuel brings in £5.7bn

The Institute of Fiscal Studies reported that this was a “huge long-run fiscal challenge to government” in that the stated desire to cut carbon emissions to net zero by the middle of the century “means that revenue from fuel duty will completely disappear over the next few facades”.

Road charging seems to be the most likely option. My son bought a widget that sits on his dashboard and when he travels in France on toll roads, the tolls are automatically counted and he is billed each month.

He says it works well.

I would have thought the simplest thing would be to change VED back to the old system of a standard fixed rate "road tax" (as we used to call it). :shrug:

I suspect you're right though, and some form of road charging will be introduced. The deficit will have to be made up somehow, that's for sure.

Cliff

I read that all commuter routes with twice daily traffic jams will be getting levied the most along with work place parking place levies being implemented also.
Most new cars will have the V2X (vehicle to everything) 5G chips & GPS in them which will automatically bill your account where you have driven.
The new Euro Cat 6 (d) emission standards starts on 1-1-2021 with 80kg/kM the limit. My hybrid Kia Niro is 95kg/kM so I'm wondering if VED will be going up at the start of next year :shrug:

You would have to increase VED to several thousands of pounds per year to make up for all the lost fuel revenue.

With the rise of electric vehicle sales this had to come, because as it stands at the moment you can charge your car for free if you have solar panels - so free electricity and zero VED = free motoring.

It is exactly this combination that has prompted one of my friends to order an electric car.

I wonder how long it will take them to recover the cost?


It was obvious something would be done to make up the shortfall in Government income from the loss road fund licence and fuel duty from newer cars.
Will those using petrol and diesel pay yet again, we pay via fuel tax, we pay via road fund licence, will we now have to pay via tolls?:eek:
Roads that do not attract a toll will probably become busy as people look to avoid the toll if only certain road attract the toll.

Even the score, apply it only to electric and those already on reduced road fund licence:D

macafee2

I've just been reading about the upcoming Euro Cat 7 emission standard could de facto ban cars with combustion engines as early as 2025 :eek: https://www.electrive.com/2020/11/16...ions-standard/

My brother in law is actively looking at leasing an electric Renault, not sure of the model. He claims the lease cost will be less than his spend on petrol. The government will not stand idly by and let motorists get cheaper motoring. Something will be afoot for sure in the corridors of power to smack us all down again when the timing is right!
Just wait until 2040 when they discover that the massive EMF's created inside electric cars have induced millions of motorists with electrohypersensitivity. :getmecoat:

Am I correct in thinking that (at the moment) you can only have an electric car charging point fitted if you have your own off road parking, ie garage or driveway. I suspect that 50/60% of car owners have no option but to park on roadside or in communal car parks, has anyone even given this a thought?
Add to that that they (electric vehicles) are useless for anything more than a short commute to work or popping to the shops and I fail to see how they can replace petrol/diesel powered vehicles for longer journeys or freight carrying.
Without doubt cars/vans/trucks will need to have a different source of power in the future but I don't see the alternative power source being battery driven.

When you say lease, do you mean lease the car or lease the battery? Not sure if Renault are still doing the latter, but if that's the case then it's an option to avoid. That arrangement meant that the car owners were tied into a contract which required them to get subsequent owners to sign up for the battery lease, making it difficult to sell on and potentially leaving the car owner with an ongoing monthly lease even if they were no longer using the car. In the event of a write-off, they would have to pay Renault to dispose of the battery. Probably worth advising him to double-check this before signing anything.

As a couple of people have mentioned above, it's to be expected that if the revenue from petrol & diesel is no longer available, the coffers will have to be filled some other way. Some model of road pricing is likely in the medium term. Whether that cost to motorists will be offset by the fuel savings of running an EV remains to be seen - as a rule of thumb, the running costs for an EV should be less than 20% of those for an ICE, so there's at least there's some wiggle room.

No, nobody's thought of that at all. :p:

The new MG 5 estate is good for 200 motorway miles between charges, more in mixed driving. There are several other examples of EVs with similar or greater range - premium level saloons like the Polestar 2 or the Tesla Model 3, mid-size hatchbacks and crossovers like the VW ID3, Skoda Enyaq or the most recent Nissan Leaf, superminis like the Peugeot 208e, Vauxhall Corsa E or Renault Zoe and so on. All of these are capable of more than a short commute.