This will kill EV adoption, just to put it into perspective this is the equivalent of an average ICE car (38.6MPG) having 25.5p added per litre of fuel, in a single budget.
The even more ridiculous thing is plug in hybrids are 1.5p per mile, so people with 80+ miles of range in their Golfs etc. will pay half price, even though they are needlessly dragging around an internal combustion engine for 99% of their journeys.
It’s a really interesting point and I hadn’t thought about street parking as an uncosted benefit before. I suppose the suburban semi with a drive also has street parking, which means that they get the benefit too, it’s a public good, but they’re only using it for visitors or n+1 cars. No easy solution for that.
The key point I was making though, before we get too distracted by the parking argument, is that for those of us driving electric without home charging it’s already very expensive and it would be nice to rebalance that if we’re going to move to per mile road pricing.
It is also strange to move just one vehicle fuel type to per mile taxation, rather than all of them.
@TIN I agree with your last point: the per-mile setup should apply to all vehicles according to size and weight if it is truly for road wear. Pollution can then be captured separately according to fuel source. Unfortunately the government has been too toothless to increase fuel duty for years.
Regarding your other point: yes! I think councils should run permit charging like resident parking: if you have a resident permit you can charge in council car parks for £x.
Why would it be for road wear specifically? That’s not the current situation (as indicated by the fact that vehicles with lower emissions pay less), and none of it is hypothecated for road-specific funding anyway.
@HermitBee because that’s why Reeves said electric vehicles should pay per mile. She announced it by saying "Because all cars contribute to the wear and tear on our roads, I will ensure that drivers are taxed according to how much they drive, not just by the type of car they use.”
I’m not saying this particularly carries through to how roads are funded; I’m saying if this claim *is* the reason to tax EVs then the tax should be structured differently.
Ah fair. I didn’t listen to the words that went with the policy, because they are usually in direct opposition to it. Like how she didn’t just raise income tax.