Good Idea?

[Avocet]

Years of training it in The White Lion, and when I do need to break the seal, it only requires a quick 5 min stop for another lovely fresh tank of diesel and a waz.

Not a 3 hour break and copious amounts of coffee while I wait for the amps to flow.

You can't help yourself, can you? What is it with the anti-EV brigade and a pathological aversion to telling the truth?! I think you and Nutjob have been peddling your propaganda for so long, in your attempt to put people off EVs, that you've started to believe your own BS...

I'm taking middle sprog back to uni on Saturday. That's close to a 500 mile round trip. Tell me how long you think I'll spend charging...

 

[Avocet]

Back on topic though, I wouldn't mind paying some "road tax". Forget swanky, Japanese-style services, some bloody tarmac on the roads would be nice! Britain's roads are in as bad a state as I can ever remember right now, after 15 years of Tory rule, and we need to slowly start dragging ourselves back up to where the country belongs. Hell, we can't even afford to cut the branches away from the signposts!

The problem, is that only a fraction of motoring revenue gets spent on the roads. The motorist has long been a cash-cow for governments of every colour, and I don't suppose shifting the tax to pay-per-mile will make any difference to that. The motorist will still subsidise other sections of the economy.

There was talk of EVs paying £190 VED from next April. OK, that seems fair. We use the roads, after all. At current rates, it'll take me maybe 6 weeks to recover that in fuel savings, so it's no big deal! Of course, that won't be enough for the not-in-the-least-bit-spiteful folk on here who also get stiffed for fuel duty. They'll want EVs to pay some form of fuel duty as well (hey, Reagan, sorry to have to break it to you but my heating oil is only 5% VAT and just under 10p a litre in duty, so however hard Big Oil is kicking my butt for it, the chancellor is kicking yours a great deal harder)! Still... you must feel it's worth it to you.....

I don't much fancy the idea of camera or tracker-enforced pay-per-mile, because of the privacy issues surrounding it, but a quick annual check of mileage at an MOT station wouldn't be too onerous. It would hit folk in rural areas harder than those in urban areas, of course, which isn't ideal, but ultimately, I see it as being inevitable.

£1-a-mile is cloud cuckoo land, though. This needs to be revenue-neutral. The Treasury is losing revenue as a result of the transition to EVs, and (despite what certain people on here keep telling us), the number of EVs is growing and is now large enough to start hurting the chancellor in the pocket. I've seen 6p per mile mooted too - which I still think is too high. if the average annual mileage is (say) 10,000, then that's £600 a year for the average motorist. That's rather worse than £190! Of course, if the intention is to replace both VED and fuel duty with the same pay-per-mile figure, then 6p / mile is about right for an ICE - maybe a tad light, in fact.

 

[Odds]

You horrible, spiteful rotter.

I do my best.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I listened to a discussion about this on the radio, a woman was suggesting that they should pay perhaps £1 per mile.
I only do about 6000 miles a year, that would give me a £6000 bill per year.

At times I used to do 50 to 70K per year, now only maybe 2k. Even so, that would be a ridiculous £2k per year..

 

[morqthana]

Which will drive the numbers of cloned cars up and illegal number plate sales through the roof

No it won't. Most people are honest.

I wonder why the idea of being dishonest comes so naturally to you?

 

[morqthana]

Back on topic though, I wouldn't mind paying some "road tax". Forget swanky, Japanese-style services, some bloody tarmac on the roads would be nice! Britain's roads are in as bad a state as I can ever remember right now, after 15 years of Tory rule,

We used to be a country that drives on the left.

Now we drive on what's left.

I don't much fancy the idea of camera or tracker-enforced pay-per-mile, because of the privacy issues surrounding it, but a quick annual check of mileage at an MOT station wouldn't be too onerous. It would hit folk in rural areas harder than those in urban areas, of course, which isn't ideal, but ultimately, I see it as being inevitable.

Except that we already have a lot of the tracking/"privacy invading" infrastructure already there. It's used for enforcing speed limits, red routes, bus lane restrictions, congestion zones, LEZ zones - the list goes on.

Plus how many contactless smart travel cards are in use in the UK?

Then there are all the people who don't use pre-paid mobile phones.

And shall we talk about facial recognition systems?

Like it or not, the tracking/"privacy invading" horse has not only bolted it's collapsed and died of exhaustion.

Collecting via MOT mileage provides no scope for carrot/stick methods of influencing where and when people drive.

£1-a-mile is cloud cuckoo land, though. This needs to be revenue-neutral. The Treasury is losing revenue as a result of the transition to EVs, and (despite what certain people on here keep telling us), the number of EVs is growing and is now large enough to start hurting the chancellor in the pocket. I've seen 6p per mile mooted too - which I still think is too high. if the average annual mileage is (say) 10,000, then that's £600 a year for the average motorist. That's rather worse than £190! Of course, if the intention is to replace both VED and fuel duty with the same pay-per-mile figure, then 6p / mile is about right for an ICE - maybe a tad light, in fact.

Setting the rate(s) will always be a problem, there will always be winners & losers, and without even more surveillance it will be difficult to implement some loser-minimising measures like differential pricing based on public transport alternatives.

But I don't understand why people object, seemingly, on principle to pay-per-mile. What is their problem with the basic idea of paying for goods and services on the basis of the more you use the more you pay? Do they object to pay-per-pint for beer? Pay-per-litre for petrol/diesel? Pay-per-kWh for electricity? Pay-per-kg for potatoes?

Do they really believe in some kind of socialist utopia where people pay the same but get as much as they want of things?

Right now if Bill has two cars and does 5,000 miles per year in each, and Ted has 1 car and does 20,000 miles per year in it, Bill pays 2x what Ted does rather than 50%. Do they really think that's fair?

Imagine if we'd had p-p-m for the last 100 years, and the govt said we're going to abolish that and replace it with a per-vehicle annual charge. Imagine the howls of outrage about the unfairness of that from people who had more than one car, or who covered a low mileage each year.

 

[mattylad]

My car tax for this year is £30 and I drive a petrol car.
Somehow I think EV drivers will not think it fair if they have to pay more than that.

 

[JohnD]

At times I used to do 50 to 70K per year, now only maybe 2k. Even so, that would be a ridiculous £2k per year..

Only ridiculous if you fixate on the ridiculous £1 suggestion.

If you have an ICE car, you pay 52.95p per litre fuel duty for both petrol and diesel, while VAT at 20% is then charged on both the product price and the duty.

Depending on MPG of your vehicle, you are paying quite a lot per mile.

 

[Brigadier]

Somehow I think EV drivers will not think it fair if they have to pay more than that.

You think wrong.

You do you, and I'll go my own way

 

[mattylad]

You think wrong.

You do you, and I'll go my own way

And why is that old chap?
Will an EV driver think "Oh well it's good for the environment, after I've paid loads for this nice EV car then I surely musty also pay more than a petrol car in the way of tax" ??

Doubt it.

 

[Brigadier]

Will an EV driver

I can only speak for myself and frankly, I'm not bothered what you pay or don't.

I'm happy with my BiK saving (hundreds per month at the moment), silly-cheap cost per mile, quietness, warp acceleration,......

Too many people worry about what someone else's business is, which causes all sorts of problems.

 

[Mottie]

My car tax for this year is £30 and I drive a petrol car.
Somehow I think EV drivers will not think it fair if they have to pay more than that.

Same here. Our Audi was registered in Feb 2017. If it was registered 6 weeks later it would be £195

 

[Avocet]

My car tax for this year is £30 and I drive a petrol car.
Somehow I think EV drivers will not think it fair if they have to pay more than that.

As a driver of both and EV and an ICE, I wouldn't mind paying "road tax". However, as the more militant cyclists love to constantly remind us, there's no such thing as "road tax". "Vehicle Excise Duty", on the other hand, isn't ringfenced for spending on the roads - or even transport infrastructure. We have ridiculously expensive trains and we have politicians wondering why people choose to stick to their cars and how to deal with traffic congestion. We have little by way of rural bus routes too. And, of course, our roads are fast becoming "Third World" in quality...

EVERYONE in the country benefits from the roads - even folk who don't drive. I really don't have a problem paying a fair price to use them - regardless of whether I'm in an EV or an ICE. I'm less keen on paying an extra "general purpose tax" simply because I "have the use of" a car. By all means, put more of it on fuel duty, so that those who drive more, pay more, or put it on a pay-per-mile basis for the same reason, but a tax that applies whether you use the vehicle on a public road or just park it there, is unfair.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

whether you use the vehicle on a public road or just park it there, is unfair.

No objections to using the road, but something certainly needs to be done about long term obstruction of some of the roads, by parking.

 

[Avocet]

We used to be a country that drives on the left.

Now we drive on what's left.

Quite! I think there are a few memes to that effect, doing the rounds.

Except that we already have a lot of the tracking/"privacy invading" infrastructure already there. It's used for enforcing speed limits, red routes, bus lane restrictions, congestion zones, LEZ zones - the list goes on.

Plus how many contactless smart travel cards are in use in the UK?

Then there are all the people who don't use pre-paid mobile phones.

And shall we talk about facial recognition systems?

Like it or not, the tracking/"privacy invading" horse has not only bolted it's collapsed and died of exhaustion.

It does, but it doesn't cover that much of the road network and it's not "joined-up". I'd be all for it, of course, because living where I do, in rural Cumbria, I have to go quite a way before I see an ANPR camera - never mind a LEZ or bus lane or congestion one! You only have to pop out of sight of the camera network once, and then pop in again, and it won't really be able to work out accurately how far you've gone in between.

Literally NONE of the surveillance methods you've listed, would work reliably where I live.

Collecting via MOT mileage provides no scope for carrot/stick methods of influencing where and when people drive.

No, but it would be cheap and easy to implement, and transparent. Carrots and sticks could be applied in other ways. For starters, we already have "sticks" in all the LEZ and congestion zones you've mentioned. Also, I don't mind fuel duty as another "stick". But I do feel that VED should be a flat rate commensurate with what's required to maintain the roads, plus a bit for public transport subsidy, by way of a "carrot".

Setting the rate(s) will always be a problem, there will always be winners & losers, and without even more surveillance it will be difficult to implement some loser-minimising measures like differential pricing based on public transport alternatives.

So... let's not do it by surveillance?

But I don't understand why people object, seemingly, on principle to pay-per-mile. What is their problem with the basic idea of paying for goods and services on the basis of the more you use the more you pay? Do they object to pay-per-pint for beer? Pay-per-litre for petrol/diesel? Pay-per-kWh for electricity? Pay-per-kg for potatoes?

Do they really believe in some kind of socialist utopia where people pay the same but get as much as they want of things?

Right now if Bill has two cars and does 5,000 miles per year in each, and Ted has 1 car and does 20,000 miles per year in it, Bill pays 2x what Ted does rather than 50%. Do they really think that's fair?

Imagine if we'd had p-p-m for the last 100 years, and the govt said we're going to abolish that and replace it with a per-vehicle annual charge. Imagine the howls of outrage about the unfairness of that from people who had more than one car, or who covered a low mileage each year.

Indeed. I don't mind pay-per-mile (and that's speaking as someone in a rural area who has to do more of them than someone living in an urban area). However, we already have a pay-per-mile system called "fuel duty". It's even better than pay-per-mile, because it automatically hits the guy with the Range Rover Sport harder than it hits the guy with the 1 litre city car, even if they both do the same number of miles. It's self-policing, and the administrative provisions are very cheap and already in place. What's not to like? About the only thing I can think of, is that it'll put the price of goods that are moved by road up a bit.