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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

#31

Post by blibble »

faichai wrote: post #19

Everyone always seems to jump from general schemes (road tax, fuel duty) to Orwellian tracking (GPS everywhere). Seems like a simple scheme of mileage tracking and net charge tracking would do. You then have an overall energy use / mile figure that you can use to price each mile so people who buy more efficient cars are rewarded, and then charge by total number of miles, so people who do fewer miles pay less.

there's a couple of edge cases for odometer based tracking, namely private roads and tracks (e.g. racing)

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

#32

Post by matsemann »

smackay wrote: post #20

The UK Government currently spends around £11 billion on roads, https://www.statista.com/statistics/298667/united-kingdom-uk... so the excess is a handy revenue stream which clearly it would lothed to give up. That means the real opportunities with the switch to electrifying transportation, like moving freight traffic to rail will not be seized as that would entail even more spending. Instead we are stuck with the pr…

> The UK Government currently spends around £11 billion on roads

How much does it spend on secondary things? At least in Norway, I think the number is that even for a normal ICE vehicle and all it's costs, you're still not paying what the government actually spends in total. With something like $1000 per car or so.

Mostly because of secondary effects. Higher hospital costs vs what would have happened investing that money on public transport, walkable cities etc. Street parking is basically free compared to what that land is worth. Cost of accidents. Etc. etc.

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

#33

Post by 7952 »

belorn wrote: post #21
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…

bicycle and pedestrians could be exempted from a road tax based on fairly simple assumption: the wear and tear is minimal compared to a car. It wouldn't even surprise me if the wear and tear is so small that it can't even be measured. But I could be wrong. It would be interesting to hear if heavy bike/pedestrian roads have higher road maintenance than those that are used lightly. My guess would be that the major wear…

I think road wear is axle weight to the fourth power. So lorries are massively more damaging than cars. And cars are massively more damaging than bikes. Anecdotally the issue with bike and pedestrian paths is intruding vegetation which slowly narrows the width.

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

#34

Post by em500 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #10

How about the government just finds a way to make do? It's kind of preposterous that we're staring an economic slowdown and high inflation in the face after decades of incomes flat-lining and the .gov is telling people to cough up more. I get that EV owners are statistically richer but you're not gonna change that by raising the TCO via taxes.

Here's an overview of the government expenditures: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-spending-sta...

What should they cut? Every department will tell you they're underfunded.

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

#35

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

smackay wrote: post #20

The UK Government currently spends around £11 billion on roads, https://www.statista.com/statistics/298667/united-kingdom-uk... so the excess is a handy revenue stream which clearly it would lothed to give up. That means the real opportunities with the switch to electrifying transportation, like moving freight traffic to rail will not be seized as that would entail even more spending. Instead we are stuck with the pr…

> The UK Government currently spends around £11 billion on roads, https://www.statista.com/statistics/298667/united-kingdom-uk... so the excess is a handy revenue stream which clearly it would lothed to give up.

There's no excess when you account for the effects on climate. At some point, we'll have to pay to mitigate the impact of fossil-based transportation, and any operators in the industry (from oil extraction to road constructions) will be bankrupt unless we keep externalizing/socializing the costs and pretend climate change is not caused by CO2 emissions.

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

#36

Post by blibble »

techterrier wrote: post #8
chrisco255 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of road taxes is to pay for maintenance and expansion. Roads break down over time if you do not maintain them.

this is paid out of local taxation. Which is why pedestrians, cylists, equestrians, tractors, cows and ducks are allowed to used the road. There is no such thing as road tax.

trunk roads and motorways are definitely not paid out of local taxation

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

#37

Post by MafellUser »

dazc wrote: post #30
faichai wrote: post #19

Everyone always seems to jump from general schemes (road tax, fuel duty) to Orwellian tracking (GPS everywhere). Seems like a simple scheme of mileage tracking and net charge tracking would do. You then have an overall energy use / mile figure that you can use to price each mile so people who buy more efficient cars are rewarded, and then charge by total number of miles, so people who do fewer miles pay less.

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…

You will NEVER catch the perpetrator. Period. Also the cost of enforcement will quickly outpace any revenue gained, as council's parking enforcements has shown.

Even when caught says on CCTV, there's no guarantee you can find and fine the driver. There are over half a million uninsured cars on the UK streets at any time. Twice that many uninsured drivers. Even getting them to pay for insurance is hard enough, how difficult do you think it'd be to get them to pay £10k fine?

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

#38

Post by techterrier »

blibble wrote: post #22
techterrier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a handy dog whistle so we know they are part of the car lobby edit: spelling

or it could simply be that the commonly used term for Vehicle Excise Duty is "road tax" (even if it's technically incorrect) not everything is a conspiracy

commonly used by people who disingenuously use it's etymology to imply that all 'road users' (by which they mean cyclists) rather than 'vehicle users' should pay it

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

#39

Post by techterrier »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #24
techterrier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a handy dog whistle so we know they are part of the car lobby edit: spelling

When you try and look for dog whistles everywhere the world becomes a useless cacophony of high pitched screeching. Road tax and vehicle tax are used pretty much interchangeably and I wouldn't read into the word choice any more than I'd read into the results of the coin toss.

*listen

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

#40

Post by tigerlily »

cocoflunchy wrote: post #28
tigerlily wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear road wear scales with the fourth power of vehicle mass.

Found this discussion while looking for a source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25171899

Ah, thanks that’s where I must’ve read it.
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