EV Drivers Paying 3p Per Mile???? Tax, Tax, Tax.
Electric cars are going to be charged 3 p per mile apparently. Who could have seen that one coming 5 and a half years ago? This has been kind of touted before by the government. Is a situation where you’ll end up paying per mile. If you do 10,000 miles a year and they’re charged x pile, that will that that’s where the revenue will come from. I’d love to call myself the Oracle after saying that five and a half years ago, but even back then it was pretty much a guarantee that at some point they’re going to have to even up the score when it comes to petrol tax receipts and of course electric vehicles cuz the more people get EVs, the lower the tax receipts are obviously from people buying petrol and diesel. So this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. And when I say a surprise, this is a report from a newspaper saying that this is what they think is going to happen. It doesn’t mean it is. I do think it’s likely. I do think I think it’s very likely. I think this is probably one of those accidental leaks that the government has put out there to essentially test the water. But it is just an announcement that apparently EVs will have to pay 3 pence per mile. This will be from 2028 onwards. uh after a public consultation ju so just to be clear this isn’t definite this is uh a report that a newspaper has come up with so how is this going to play out how are we going to be build I guess that’s the first thing to mention well again according to the report it will be part of your road tax or veed call it veed plus that’s what everybody else is so effectively what you’re going to do if you got an electric vehicle that is £190 per year in its VED rate in its road tax. Then you would say, okay, I’m going to be doing, let’s say, 10,000 mi. So they’ll go, okay, well, you’ll pay £190 plus 3p * £10,000, which is £300. So you’ll be paying in that year £490 for your road tax as it were for your ve. If you say £10,000 and you only do eight, then you knock it off the following year. And essentially, if you do more than you say, then you add it on to the following year and so forth. Now, the reason I’m doing this is because Extra Content Tuesday is back. I thought I’d give it a shot for a couple of months, see how it goes, and pick a topic like this one, talk about it, and let’s see what you think in the comments. I had actually got another one ready to start this Tuesday, but as this uh this has just started, this this announcement had just come out, this report, I thought this is probably a good one to start with. So, Extra Content Tuesday is back. If you got a topic you’d like me to discuss, then let me know. Can we all agree if you’re watching this, whichever side of the fence you’re on, that this has to happen at some point. The government are going to get that the money from somewhere. They’re going to have to fill that uh shortfall. And this is probably the best and fairest way of doing it by, as lots of anti-EV people have been telling me for many years, for the last 10 years, it’s about time EVs paid their share fair share. This isn’t probably a bad way of doing it because there’s no way to do what you do with petrol vehicles, which is taxed at the source of the fuel. You go to a petrol station, you buy fuel. So, the more you drive, the more tax you pay, uh, the more or the more inefficient the car is. You get a big SUV that does 20 m per gallon. Again, you pay more tax. So, I guess that’s a fair way of doing it. But again, you can’t do that with an EV because according to the RAC at the moment, roughly 55% of UK households will have the ability to easily charge from home. So that’s a lot of people that could charge from home. And there’s no way of knowing or taxing that home charger. It’s possible technically to do that, but it’s a very very unreliable system of collecting taxes because I can charge an EV from any plug socket anywhere in any building. I could use a three pin plug socket, plug it into my car, and charge the car using that, which would bypass my charger, stop me paying tax, and no one would know of whether I’m charging my car at 2 kW or a fan heater or a heat pump or anything really. And before you say, the smart meters can tell what you’re using. No, they can’t. Just just shut up, go away, and complain about the moon landing somewhere else. as a method of collecting tax. Getting your home charger to report back when you can just put a commando socket in or something is not going to happen because it’s so easily worked around and so many people would do it. It would they would lose tons of revenue. So that’s not the best way of doing it. Is this the best way of doing it? The VED plus way. I guess it’s a familiar sort of uh thing that people are already using. The infrastructure is in place. There’s no extra bureaucracy really needed. And when you sell the car, it has to be retaxed. I guess it’s sensible option. The problem is it does go against what the government are pushing EVs. And not just this one, previous governments as well. We want everybody to be driving an EV. So if you want to buy a brand new one by 2035, you’re going to have to get an electric car if you want a new car by then because a hybrid that’s not plugged in is just a petrol car. So it’s 2035, not 2030. the in the incentivization for buying an EV for me 10 years ago was financial. That’s why I got an EV. I saved a ton of money by charging at home uh and being lucky enough to be able to do so. And because I do 25 30,000 miles a year, I save a lot of money. In fact, I saved more money in fuel than the my first Leaf was costing me per month. That was my original reason to get one. So financial incentivization works. The trouble is this is eroding some of that. It’s not making it bad. It’s still considerably cheaper than petrol or diesel, but it is eroding the incentivization. And the more you do that, the less people are going to choose an EV, which goes against what the government are telling us they’re pushing and have done previous governments for many years. If you’re banning something, you need to make it as easy as possible, not the other way round. If you were in charge right now and said, “Look, we have to make up the tax receipts from these EV drivers.” How would you do it? Tell me in the comments section. I genuinely want to know how much would you charge? What’s the best way of collecting it? Would you do it yet? I mean, this isn’t starting, if the report is correct, for 3 yearsish. So, it’s not going to happen tomorrow, but it is coming. And it will have an effect on people buying an electric car, especially those that cannot charge from home. Because now we’ve gone from what a year ago paying zero road tax and no pence per mile, no no fuel tax, if you will, apart from the 5% on your electric. We’ve gone from zero a year ago to in what three or four years later to paying 190 for road tax or veed plus another let’s say £250 on top of that. So you gone from zero to £440 in just a few years and that’s per year. So over three years that’s like 1,500 quid nearly extra that you will be paying out as an EV owner that you weren’t beforehand. that is going to put people off. So, if I couldn’t charge from home, I would be using the public charging network. And even if it was in a good state, there was lots of round. It’s a lot more expensive, of course, than charging from home. Still cheaper than petrol just cuz you would use the destination chargers, not the rapid chargers at service areas that are 80 90p. But it, this added on to that would get it to the point where you go, “All right, I can’t charge from home. I prefer an EV for its driving style or whether it’s environmental, whatever the reason is. But now it’s costing me the same, possibly even more than an efficient petrol car. You know, I’m just going to pick an easy life over something different, an EV. There’s been other channels that say it’s about control. This is another step to control. I’m not arguing with the fact that that might be a thing in the future as in like you pay pence per mile and it might be based on time of day. You know, peak times you pay more just like electricity is now. Some chargers charge you more like Tesla charge you more at peak rate than they do at 3 in the morning or something like that because electricity is more expensive at peak times than it is in the middle of the night off peak times. So I can see that coming to road charging. Absolutely. connected services from BMW. I think started in 2004 and I think it was an option on all BMWs in 2007, long before EVs even existed on the mainstream market. If EVs never happened, we this telematics, the app that controls your car or can connect to your car would still be happening because that’s technology. It’s the smartphone that’s created that, not the car. So, if you blame EVs for this control thing, you’re way off the target. I’m sorry. And at the end of the day, these people who are worried about control, apart from posting up constantly on social media, they’re walking around with a mobile phone in their pocket, which is tracking literally their every move. Which is why when you get in your car and connect to CarPlay, it says, “Oh, you’re going to work, are you? There you go. I’ve programmed it for you.” I’m not saying I’m for this. Again, to be clear, I I don’t want, you know, telematics to be mandatory in a car. It will probably happen in decades to come, but it’s again it’s not the fault of an EV thing. And I don’t think this tax is going to change that. If you think this is about control, okay, then I’m asking you direct. How would you tax EVs? You cannot tax it at you at the charger because those that charge from home would circumvent that easily. So you have to do it a different way. How would you do it? Genuinely, I’m not saying the government are right or wrong. I’m saying, how would you collect taxes from EV drivers? I mean, for me personally, if I still do 25,000 miles when, yeah, when this comes in, shut up. Then I’m going to end up paying 67800 depending on how many how many miles I actually do on top of what I pay already. I’m going to notice this. That’s going to this is going to be a big big financial hit for me personally. It’s still going to be a lot cheaper than doing that sort of mileage in the equivalent petrol car or diesel car. And there’s other reasons for me to have EVs as well. But that aside, I’m going to notice this. It’s going to change other things like if you rent a car, you know, if you if you just, you know, get one for a couple of days cuz you need to borrow something, they’re going to have to have a a maximum amount of mileage you can do on that. Otherwise, it’s going to cost them a lot to tax it, isn’t it? because you’re no longer taxed at the fuel source. It’s going to change little things like this. And again, we don’t know this is actually happening. It’s just a report. I think it will be and it let’s face it for years and years we’ve said the same thing. As I said five and a half years ago, this has to happen at some point. So therefore, I guess we’ve reached that point. the fact I’ve had over a decade’s worth or by the time we get to 2028, 13 years worth of not paying tax on or a lot of tax anyway on the fuel. I I’ve had the benefit for many years. I’m I’m not regretting anything. Well, there you go. Let me know what you think. Uh again, Extra Content Tuesday is back and uh I’ll I’ll see what happens after a couple of months and whether it stays. If you do have any uh topics, let me know and we’ll discuss them. Uh so, thanks for listening. That’s my take on it. And if again, if it happens, it’s not guaranteed. Then, let’s face it, it shouldn’t be a surprise to you. It really shouldn’t. We always knew this was coming. I want I want the comments to light up. I imagine this is going to generate a lot of anti-government stuff. Um, all I’ll say with that is it would be happening whoever’s in charge, I reckon, because tax has to come from somewhere. Like I said, tax is inevitable, isn’t it? like death on that jolly note. Thanks for watching. See you soon.
It’s reported that the next budget will include adding 3p per mile for EV drivers. So is this realistic?
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