From Zero to £335 - Electric van tax hike in April 2025

400ixl

nottsphil said:

Respondents keep stating how much cheaper electric vehicles are to run without mentioning the decreasing longevity of the batteries. Factor in replacements and you'll get the true cost per mile. And then there's the larger capital outlay for EVs....

Show us where the majority (or even the smallest of minority) of EV's have had to have their batteries replaced during their lifetime. There is no durability problem for EV batteries.

EV prices have dropped to a degree where there isn't that much of an additional capital outlay either.

henry24

And if people wait a little bit longer they'll be able to have a EV for nothing as the manufacturer's won't be able to afford the cost of storage 

Goudy

henry24 said:

And if people wait a little bit longer they'll be able to have a EV for nothing as the manufacturer's won't be able to afford the cost of storage 

And if people wait the a little longer, EV owners will be paying the same sort of revenue to the government as petrol and diesel owners do now to use the roads.

There's two main revenues, the base VED. 
This is now in the process of being levelled up.
And
A "gas guzzling tax" or more like a pay per mile tax, which at the moment is in the form of fuel duty. The more you use, the more you pay.
At the moment only petrol and diesel owners pay it.

Revenue from fuel duty is was around £25 billion last year and is falling from it's peak in around 2017/18 of around £28 billion and it's expected to continue to drop as the years roll on.

Now the government have options, like always, to raise revenue but it will be a difficult sell to replace this revenue from everyone or groups that aren't related to the original loss of tax. It will need to be focused on road users.

As the shift continues away from petrol and diesel, that leaves a growing group of road users that are ripe for further taxation.
They will continue to increase or introduce new forms of taxation until the government ropes in enough revenue as they need from all the road users.

At the moment, up until April next year it's been incredibly cheap to run an EV as far as taxation is concerned compared to petrol and diesel.

From April it's still going to really cheap.

In the near future it's going to be cheapish.

Eventually it's all going to even out and we all pay the same as petrol and diesel are the minorities, if they even still exists.

This isn't an EV, it's just a fact. EV's don't pay fuel duty and the government need that revenue so they need a way of levelling up. As EV owner currently pay little, it's the EV owners that will need to up their contributions to the coffers.

I also expect the last of the diesel and petrol users will always continue to pay more as it seems likely a road pricing scheme will be the answer but fuel duty at some level will continue while these fuels are available. Then it's just a matter of cranking up the per mile price when it's gone.

WellKnownSid

Goudy said:

Revenue from fuel duty is was around £25 billion last year and is falling from it's peak in around 2017/18 of around £28 billion and it's expected to continue to drop as the years roll on.

The oil and gas industry in the UK employs around 280,000 people - directly and indirectly.  How much national insurance, income tax, and contribution to the economy does that make from the payroll alone?

The big irony is that to refine a litre of petrol or diesel takes electricity - enough electricity to push an electric vehicle along the road between 15-25 miles.  What we effectively have is a big Ponzi scheme which produces an intermediate product which is completely superseded using technology which is available right now, today, but the continued production and distribution of which contributes a great deal to the economy.

Change is coming!

Goudy

Oil is used for many more things than just turning into petrol and diesel.
Your average EV (and other things) is full of oil based products like synthetic rubber and plastics.

They even make dentures out of it, they just can't charge fuel duty on them per litre!

There will still be a oil industry well after petrol and diesel cars disappear off the roads and as rightly pointed out, it contributes massively to a lot of economies worldwide and it still will.

We'll use less directly ourselves but each of us will still go through our fair share of it.
Hopefully we won't burning it like we do now, though I expect more than should will end up burnt as waste at the end of it's life, which will be out of sight, out on mind.

I agree, change is coming but I am more than confident it's not going to be all roses and champagne.
For one the change needs paying for, we seeing that in the price of EVs and other electrical storage facilities as it's this in particular that is very expensive. Very little of what is generated is stored in batteries because of the expense.

Then the difference between what the government made out of the pre change will need made up in the post change.

As far as the car, EV's will just end up bringing in the same ratio of revenue as ICE cars did before them. Just by then there's no more comparison to be made as the others will no longer exist.
So even if they appear to be cheap by todays/yesterdays standards, people won't think that, they never do.

Nobbie1967

WellKnownSid said:

Goudy said:

Revenue from fuel duty is was around £25 billion last year and is falling from it's peak in around 2017/18 of around £28 billion and it's expected to continue to drop as the years roll on.

The big irony is that to refine a litre of petrol or diesel takes electricity - enough electricity to push an electric vehicle along the road between 15-25 miles.

You’ll need to show your working on that outlandish claim.

Grangemouth produces about 7 billion litres of fuel a year and has its own power station generating a maximum of 145MW. Do the maths and it works out to about 0.2kWh/litre or enough to move an EV less than a mile.

MattMattMattUK

400ixl said:

nottsphil said:

Respondents keep stating how much cheaper electric vehicles are to run without mentioning the decreasing longevity of the batteries. Factor in replacements and you'll get the true cost per mile. And then there's the larger capital outlay for EVs....

Show us where the majority (or even the smallest of minority) of EV's have had to have their batteries replaced during their lifetime. There is no durability problem for EV batteries.

EV prices have dropped to a degree where there isn't that much of an additional capital outlay either.

Absolutely, even the early small battery Leaf and Zoe which had no battery cooling and would have been heavily cycled due to small size seem to still only be showing around 10% capacity loss after a decade and more than 100k miles. Tesla's seem to show less than 5% even with lots of fast charging at 100k miles and around 8-10% at 200k miles. The fears of battery degradation are almost entirely unfounded and it seems that apart from a few unfortunate cases (no different to a catastrophic engine failure outside of warranty for an ICE) EV batteries will last for the life of the vehicle with minimal capacity loss. 

Mildly_Miffed

Nobbie1967 said:

WellKnownSid said:

Goudy said:

Revenue from fuel duty is was around £25 billion last year and is falling from it's peak in around 2017/18 of around £28 billion and it's expected to continue to drop as the years roll on.

The big irony is that to refine a litre of petrol or diesel takes electricity - enough electricity to push an electric vehicle along the road between 15-25 miles.

You’ll need to show your working on that outlandish claim.

Grangemouth produces about 7 billion litres of fuel a year and has its own power station generating a maximum of 145MW. Do the maths and it works out to about 0.2kWh/litre or enough to move an EV less than a mile.

It's also worth remembering, if we're looking at the total economic contribution of the petrochemical industry, that PetroIneos (a joint venture between Ineos and PetroChina) are going to be closing Grangemouth as a refinery, turning it into an import depot - from 475 jobs down to 100.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3gwkkk4mo

Grangemouth is one of six refineries in the UK, currently producing about 14% of UK petrol and diesel.

MattMattMattUK

Goudy said:

This isn't an EV, it's just a fact. EV's don't pay fuel duty and the government need that revenue so they need a way of levelling up. As EV owner currently pay little, it's the EV owners that will need to up their contributions to the coffers.

It would probably be easier to just claim that revenue from general taxation. Some sensible moves such as abolishing the personal allowance, combining Income Tax and National Insurance and a small increase to all bands would be a good start. 

I am not against a pay per mile scheme, a base rate and then with multipliers for vehicle weight and peak/off-peak would make most sense, but I suspect that we might have to start with a dumb system rather than smart. It should absolutely have a modifier for vehicle weight though. 

Goudy

MattMattMattUK said:

Goudy said:

This isn't an EV, it's just a fact. EV's don't pay fuel duty and the government need that revenue so they need a way of levelling up. As EV owner currently pay little, it's the EV owners that will need to up their contributions to the coffers.

It would probably be easier to just claim that revenue from general taxation. Some sensible moves such as abolishing the personal allowance, combining Income Tax and National Insurance and a small increase to all bands would be a good start. 

I am not against a pay per mile scheme, a base rate and then with multipliers for vehicle weight and peak/off-peak would make most sense, but I suspect that we might have to start with a dumb system rather than smart. It should absolutely have a modifier for vehicle weight though. 

That'll be a hard sell for any government.
You want to suggest a VED rate for bicycles and an increase in income tax to replace the lost duty on fags when they ban them? 

But I think your attitude towards a pay per mile scheme might see you in a claimer place than most in future.
It does seem the answer to replacing the usage part of the revenue collected from vehicle use that is currently from fuel duty.

I think fuel duty will stay on petrol and diesel even with a pay per mile scheme.
That's the incentive then as it still makes EV's more attractive when compared to ICE's.

Eventually when ICE's are the minority, the price per mile creeps up and hey presto, the revenue is looking good.

There are some troubles with any pay per mile system but I think the wrestling of control of the roads back from local authorities is going to be interesting.
The likes of TFL have London sewn up with a usage fee already.
What's going to happen to these ULEZ schemes when we're all emissionless?

Double trouble/double pay or will the central government grab back control?