Our community is divided over Rachel Reeves’s proposed 3p-per-mile EV tax. While some called it a fair replacement for lost fuel duty, others warned it could risk slowing the transition to electric vehicles
A flat “per mile” is a bad way to measure road consumption for a vehicle. The more accurate measure is weight of the vehicle+mileage. A heavier vehicle will do more damage to roads. There is at least some correlation on petrol/diesel because a larger vehicle will have to consume more fuel to move a heavier vehicle.
However, if there is a flat 3p tax per mile irrespective of the weight of the vehicle, then smaller/lighter EVs will be paying disproportionately more of the cost of road damage than larger EVs.
Yeah but a city mile is different to a motorway mile. You could do loads more motorway miles, cause fewer issues to the road and pay more tax than the city driver that’s constantly stopping and starting and torquing the road up.
Could it be simplified rather than just per mile? Instead give allowances in vehicle tax. Low medium and high usage kind of thing.
If you want it to be proportional to road damage it needs to scale with the 4th power of vehicle weight and then multiplied per mile. That would make EVs a proper trade off (since they tend to be heavier).
Should also take into account the age of the combustion engine vehicle as it is more likely to be leaking oil which breaks down asphalt
The only fair road/gas tax is to charge all vehicles (not just EVs) per mile using a formula based on mileage and vehicle weight. This includes buses and semi trucks.
We should be encouraging EV adoption. I think it’s bs.
Electric vehicle odometers can be tampered with using specialized equipment, so taxing based on mileage would be inapplicable if the fees were excessive. Currently, China has the most developed electric vehicle market, yet it has not yet resolved the issue of electric vehicle taxation, which is worth considering.
