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Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

carwow.co.uk

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Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#161

Post by ehnto »

matsemann wrote: post #2

There is no "road tax" in the UK, is it? It's a fee for polluting, not using the road. I hate that it's being used as an argument against cyclists: "get off the road, you don't pay road tax". This of course also ignores that most adult cyclists also own a car.. Norway have the same issues now. Almost all new cars are electric. You don't pay purchase tax / vat when buying it. Pay less on toll roads. Cheaper to use. Et…

In Australia and I imagine the UK, infrastructure is paid for by the municipalities from their own budgets, a portion of which is granted to them from the federal government. Larger projects are usually taken on by the state. These budgets come out of general tax revenue, which is paid by everyone via GST and income tax. So cyclists absolutely pay, and in many many cases, they're paying to build infrastructure they don't even use. The unfair burden usually goes toward the cyclist, who's historically been shortchanged on infrastructure for cycling.

Registration goes toward running the registration apparatus, not into infrastructure. That's another misconception. The other contribution is from fuel sales taxes/excises, and that goes into general tax revenue as well, so is not explicitly set aside for road projects. Negating the potential income from fuel sales taxes, is all the fossil fuel subsidies, what once was 15bil income, after subsidies of 12bil, is now just 3billion in income from fuel taxes. So the money comes in from the consumer, and goes straight out to the fossil fuel industry through industry fuel tax credits. Absolutely bullshit, but it also means there's not much left of that fuel tax income to pay for infrastructure.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart....

Ultimately a cyclist will pay the same amount of tax, minus the fuel taxes, and get just a scrap of that tax spent back on cycling.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#162

Post by throwaway0a5e »

causi wrote: post #68
happyopossum wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re trivializing the effect that shipping costs have on every day necessities. Far more trucks haul produce and other groceries around my neighborhood than ‘fast fashion’, and as we are seeing right now significant increases in those prices have an outsized effect on the most vulnerable.

I can't find any data on what products make up what proportions of the gross weight of land shipping. Without that data it's not productive to debate who would be most hurt by shipping trucks losing their road-wear subsidy.

> Without that data it's not productive to debate

It sure is convenient that it's "not productive" to debate one of the biggest and most obvious downsides to what you're advocating for.

Don't get me wrong, I loathe the people who have a 4Runner for a household with one kid but their stupidity might just be collateral damage of an otherwise decent overall system.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#163

Post by ehnto »

makomk wrote: post #117
unglaublich wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some motorists seem to forget that cyclists don't need a 30m wide, 40cm thick, heavily reinforced highway with stabilized foundation that has to be revised every year to account for the damage caused by heavy vehicles. The costs of a cycling path that support the same flow of people is negligible compared to that of a corresponding highway.

The thick, heavily reinforced roads with stabilized foundations generally have much nicer surfaces to cycle on than narrow cycle paths though, at least around here. Probably because a lot of the deterioration is caused by weather rather than traffic and the cost reduction is mostly through having lower standards and accepting more deterioration.

I'd take a rough separated cycle path over a shared car road any day.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#164

Post by fdsafdsfdsa »

infogulch wrote: post #99
fdsafdsfdsa wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VED (Vehicle Exercise Duty), as it is currently known, is now based on emissions. It would be a hard sell to undo that, and base it on something else (like vehicle weight/size/etc). The most acceptable way to tax EVs at this point is probably taxing at the charging point.

Add an additional VED component for road damage, which is vehicle miles times the fourth power of axle load.

There isn't a way to do that without HGVs (heavy goods vehicles) paying practically all of the annual VED.

It's pretty clear that "smart chargers" will become "smart tax revenue generators" in the near future.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#165

Post by Robotbeat »

xur17 wrote: post #136
dahfizz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially considering the extra sales tax on the battery, tax on electricity, and even personal property tax on the battery. I don't understand, do you pay an extra tax on the battery? Sales & property tax on a $60k car should always be the same, regardless of powertrain.

I'm guessing the argument is that EV's cost more upfront (since they include a battery, etc), but have a lower cost of use. Since you get charged sales tax on the upfront cost, EV's get charged sales tax on a larger percentage of the overall "ownership cost" of the car.

Exactly. With gas cars, you pay for gasoline over time. With electric cars, you pay about 50/50 upfront on battery & over time on electricity. EV owners are being punished for paying for part of the “fuel” costs upfront. For whatever reason, capital costs for consumers are penalized with taxes more than incremental operating costs.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#166

Post by sokoloff »

dahfizz wrote: post #126
Robotbeat wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EV fees are already much higher than the state gas tax they replace in many places, especially considering the extra sales tax on the battery, tax on electricity, and even personal property tax on the battery. The idea EVs get a free pass is a myth.

> especially considering the extra sales tax on the battery, tax on electricity, and even personal property tax on the battery. I don't understand, do you pay an extra tax on the battery? Sales & property tax on a $60k car should always be the same, regardless of powertrain.

The electric car I drive (LEAF) costs about $12K-15K more than the roughly comparable ICE car (Versa). Taking the lower estimate, the sales tax difference in my state is $750, which is the state gas tax on just over 3100 gallons or about 100K miles of gasoline purchased for the car.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#167

Post by Robotbeat »

enragedcacti wrote: post #158
dahfizz wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electric cars are also fairly comparable in curb weight due to massive weight reductions elsewhere, Seriously, this meme needs to die. A Tesla model 3 is the same weight as a BMW 340, and the model 3 is hundreds of pounds lighter than an SUV like the BMW X3. Batteries are heavy, but so are gas engines & transmissions.

> A Tesla model 3 is the same weight as a BMW 340 Sure, but its also 500-1200lbs heavier than a Civic depending on the trims of each which has very similar utility to an M3 and is much closer in TCO to a model 3 than a 340 or an X3 is. We shouldn't be having our cake and eating it too by saying "electric cars are more expensive but the TCO so much lower than ICE that its worth it" and then make comparisons to ICE veh…

It’s comparing to a similar performance ICE vehicle. Model 3 is much higher performance than the civic, more comparable to the BMW.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#168

Post by unethical_ban »

gruez wrote: post #47
dazc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not a long term alternative but taxing drivers behaviour via extreme penalties rather than the type of fuel or vehicle they use would not only raise revenue but may also encourage people to drive in a safer and more fuel-efficient manner? For example, overtaking a cyclist regardless of the fact that you are already approaching a stop junction should result in a fine of at least £10,000. Tailgating in a dangerou…

This sounds good until you realize it's extremely regressive and will cause the average offender to go into a debt spiral.

It doesn't sound good at all, it sounds absolutely tyrannical.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#169

Post by prmoustache »

stefan_ wrote: post #125
causi wrote: post #5

Tax vehicles based on actual wear to the road surface and add it to the annual tag renewal. Of course, that would stop us from conveniently ignoring the fact that the vast majority of road wear comes from semi-trucks and other heavy vehicles.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that roads have terrible capacity as a transport system and therefore many many many miles of terribly expensive road only exist to accommodate the space taken up by a comparatively small number of vehicles, with semi-trucks and other heavy vehicles often a minority. Count the heavy vehicles: https://twitter.com/urbanthoughts11/status/11912952051876864... Don't get me wrong, the tax sys…

Imho individual cars should be banned except maybe for people with disabilities. They simply make people hateful, angry at everyone and generally unhappy. And an awful lot of space is wasted for them to stay parked most of the time.

Between 15 to 50% of the existing roads should be dedicated to non motorized use (depending on the geography, moutains can pose some challenges at times), the rest to a dense network of autonomous buses and last miles autonomous delivery trucks. Long range goods transport should be allowed only on railways, we could remove space used by multilane highways to reallocate them to rail.

Re: Electric Cars – fuel duty and road tax: how to replace £35B annual revenue

#170

Post by throwaway0a5e »

yohannparis wrote: post #150
nemo44x wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate that it's being used as an argument against cyclists: "get off the road, you don't pay road tax". It's really more that many cyclists are in the way and aren't going the speed limit. You end up holding up a lot of traffic that is forced to go slower and that's annoying to everyone. to be frank, when you're driving a car a person on a bike taking up the entire road is annoying. This is why people really disli…

> many cyclists [...] aren't going the speed limit. It's a speed upper limit, not a minimum. Are you upset when an agricole machine is using the public roads? This "annoyance" against people not travelling at the speed limit on public roads is based on a lack of time management and the expectation that the road is empty. This is a selfish point of view. When I want to control my travelling time, I walk or cycle. When…

>It's a speed upper limit, not a minimum. Are you upset when an agricole machine is using the public roads?

This is an infantile way of framing it. 99.9999% of road users (all types) DGAF what you do as long as you meed expectations for your type of traffic.

Pretty much nobody gets angry at slower traffic (tractors, cyclists, commercial vehicles) so long as it is meeting their expectations for what it is. If you drive a normal car and try and act like something slower don't be surprised when it pisses people off. Likewise if you cycle or have to operate heavy machinery on road and try and act like a car outside of some narrow circumstances don't be surprised when it pisses people off.

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