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

Jenni_D

How do you monitor mileage in terms of pay-per-mile?

• Use mileage updates at servicing? What about people who never service their vehicles at commercial premises? (Or even service their cars at all - e.g. Teslas have no specific service schedule).
• Use mileage updates at MOT? What about the first 2 years ... paying a lump sum after 3 years may lead to revolt.
• What about people who take their cars to Europe and add mileage there? They're likely already paying to use the roads in those EU countries - why should they pay again for those miles that haven't been driven in the UK?

It's not an easy thing to implement ... that's why they've used fuel tax all this time.

Nobbie1967

Jenni_D said:

How do you monitor mileage in terms of pay-per-mile?

• Use mileage updates at servicing? What about people who never service their vehicles at commercial premises? (Or even service their cars at all - e.g. Teslas have no specific service schedule).
• Use mileage updates at MOT? What about the first 2 years ... paying a lump sum after 3 years may lead to revolt.
• What about people who take their cars to Europe and add mileage there? They're likely already paying to use the roads in those EU countries - why should they pay again for those miles that haven't been driven in the UK?

It's not an easy thing to implement ... that's why they've used fuel tax all this time.

Easiest way is to mandate GPS tracking on new cars and get them to report direct to HMRC. Start with a small charge per mile until majority of cars have it fitted and then ramp up. Come to think of it, I think GPS is already mandated for emergency location.

isorox

No, the easiest way is charging at MOT when mileage is collected. If you drive to Europe then you can submit your mileage before and after as part of your paperwork, perhaps via a photo, with spotchecks and fines

Far easier and less likely to break than some fragile gps linked system.

MattMattMattUK

If it were a dumb system then MOT data would make most sense, for the first two years a required annual submission and a submission on sale of a vehicle also. If one travelled abroad there could be an allowance made for that, or a decision could be made that was just "tough luck". 

Ideally the whole system should be smart and probably makes sense to tie it in with a black box system and real time insurance as well, paid monthly. Anyone bypassing the system gets their vehicle confiscated and a driving ban. 

Mildly_Miffed

isorox said:

No, the easiest way is charging at MOT when mileage is collected.

How about MOT exempt vehicles?

How about where the odometer reading goes down in a year? Or up far more than distance actually travelled?

Will you be changing the MOT to require an odometer to be present, working, and somehow calibrated? Even where the vehicle's never had an odometer fitted from new?

What about mileage covered within the UK, but other than on the public road?

How do you propose to ensure that odometers aren't disconnected between MOTs?

tedted

and if the milometer  isn't working?

Car_54

Any mileage-based system, however that mileage is captured, will require a new, large and complex IT system.

The government's history with large projects suggests that it will be delivered late (full of bugs), and at several times over the original huge budget.

Much easier  and cheaper just to increase other existing taxes to make up the shortfall.

MattMattMattUK

Mildly_Miffed said:

isorox said:

No, the easiest way is charging at MOT when mileage is collected.

How about MOT exempt vehicles?

One could make them exempt from the per mile charge. They are few, expensive to own and operate and do not do many miles a year. 

Mildly_Miffed said:

How about where the odometer reading goes down in a year? 

Driving ban for fiddling the odometer. 

Mildly_Miffed said:
Or up far more than distance actually travelled?

Unless within the very narrow allowed error range that would indicate tampering gone wrong, so charge them anyway.

Mildly_Miffed said:

Will you be changing the MOT to require an odometer to be present, working, and somehow calibrated? Even where the vehicle's never had an odometer fitted from new?

All vehicles for the last 50+ years have had them, calibration would be a potential issue, but not a major one. Tampering would result in a driving ban. 

Mildly_Miffed said:
What about mileage covered within the UK, but other than on the public road?

Depends on the circumstances, but probably charge it anyway would be the best way, either have a vehicle off the road permanently, or have to road legal and pay. 

Mildly_Miffed said:

How do you propose to ensure that odometers aren't disconnected between MOTs?

Driving ban and vehicle confiscation for anyone found to be doing so. Increased random vehicle inspections, which should be happening anyway. 

Any MOT based solution should only be temporary whilst a fully smart system is rolled out. 

Mildly_Miffed

MattMattMattUK said:

Mildly_Miffed said:

isorox said:

No, the easiest way is charging at MOT when mileage is collected.

How about MOT exempt vehicles?

One could make them exempt from the per mile charge. They are few, expensive to own and operate and do not do many miles a year.

Really? Even all the ones that are under three years old...?

Mildly_Miffed said:

How about where the odometer reading goes down in a year? 

Driving ban for fiddling the odometer. 

Why, given it's perfectly legal?

I had a car where the odometer wasn't working. The speedo was, but the odo wasn't. The MOT showed the same mileage for the three years before I bought it and replaced the instrument cluster - and the odometer lost 40k miles.

Who should have been the recipient of your proposed ban? Me, for mending a car that had not been recording the mileage for several years? Don't you think that seems a bit harsh?

What was the true mileage anyway? it certainly wasn't what was on the odometer.

Mr MOT even has a box to tick when putting the test on the computer, to confirm the reading is lower than the previous year's - or unexpectedly higher.

Selling the car for more money on the basis it was lower mileage would have been illegal - but that would have been very easy to spot, given all those previous MOT mileages, apart from anything else...

As for all the rest - you're extrapolating from a relatively narrow set of circumstances that might well cover a majority of vehicles - but you're simply ignoring a lot of perfectly common edge cases.

How about farm or estate vehicles that do a fair bit of use on the owner's land?

As for this dreamland that you're going to be having an army of police stopping vehicles at random regularly to confirm that the odometer is accurately recording distance... You do know there's signal interceptor boxes that cause odometers to record very slowly?

Or, indeed, simply changing tyre size to one of much larger diameter so the car travels further than is recorded. Will you be introducing TuV-style approval for all modifications?

No, the only way to do road pricing is with a vast national ANPR infrastructure.

Grumpy_chap

Jenni_D said:

• What about people who take their cars to Europe and add mileage there? 

What about non-UK registered vehicles?