Vocal Voices

We said it would happen but they brushed it off.

Well the Transport Select Committee, Treasury and Department for Transport are now saying that the £35bn 'black hole' will have to be paid somehow. Their preferred method at the moment is the 'black box' pay per mile system. Technology will be used to monitor our every move - even petrol heads. There are other ways, of course, but they do not give the same amount of 'control' over us. One is for an annual odometer reading when the vehicle has its MOT, to be paid either in full or over the next 12 months. Another is for the odometer reading plus car weight, to even things up. Whatever happens we are all going to take the hit.

The thinking, according to the RAC, is that something will have to be in place by 2028, not 2030 when new car fossil fuel sales are banned.

Well, yes, they need to transition the existing tax system with something else when it all goes electric.

The fact that they are trying, yet again, to implement pay per mile, is nothing really to do with EV as such. It is to do with opportunism during a time of change.

For instance, right now fossil fuel vehicles are paying for the transition to EV. Once the transition is in place, there is no reason why EV should not pay exactly the same tax as fossil vehicles. After all only EV will be allowed to be sold therefore there is no need for an incentive.

I have a Citroen C3 diesel. The tax on that is £30 a year. Because they wanted people, then, to move from petrol to diesel to reduce fuel usage. My grandson has a Toyota Aygo, which pays no tax at all. That is a 70m mpg petrol vehicle. Because they wanted to reduce fuel consumption at that time.

Neither of these vehicles will pay more tax and are all part of the £35bn issue along with Battery EV. They will, eventually, go to the great scrapyard in the sky and stop taking tax £ away from the treasury, but modern vehicles last quite a long time. The C4 is now over 15 years old and goes fine. It just passed the 2 yearly French Control Technique and will be registered in France. The CT is more strict than the MOT because it is for 2 years not one.

When I researched my C4 grand Spacetourer that I have now, I found several C4 Grand Picasso (old name) Diesel, with £20 tax, yet my car, in the same class and lower CO2 and Euro 6, minimal NOx and is £155 tax. So there is ample precedent for vehicles which have exceeded their incentive era to go back to normal taxation. Ergo EV winds up with normal taxation and the £35bn black hole doesn't exist. It is just a tool to force a change we don't want.

Workingman wrote:We said it would happen but they brushed it off.

We certainly did. I believe the phrase is "Saw it coming a mile off".

Workingman wrote:Well the Transport Select Committee, Treasury and Department for Transport are now saying that the £35bn 'black hole' will have to be paid somehow. Their preferred method at the moment is the 'black box' pay per mile system. Technology will be used to monitor our every move - even petrol heads. There are other ways, of course, but they do not give the same amount of 'control' over us. One is for an annual odometer reading when the vehicle has its MOT, to be paid either in full or over the next 12 months. Another is for the odometer reading plus car weight, to even things up. Whatever happens we are all going to take the hit.

The thinking, according to the RAC, is that something will have to be in place by 2028, not 2030 when new car fossil fuel sales are banned.

it was always going to be this way, wasn't it?
We are heading into very authoritarian times, and tracking their citizens every movement will be a joy to some members of the political class.
Secondly they don't want to put an additional tax on domestic electricity just because you can recharge your EV at home.
The odometer charge won't work and they know it; every mileage reading known to man is vulnerable to clocking, even the computerised ones.

The technology for this has been around for years. When I worked for the police we had a command and control system showing us where all the police cars were. Also what speeds they had been doing and where.

i don't think fairness will come into this Suff. Far more likely that the drivers of petrol cars will continue to pay tax on their petrol and pay per mile as well.

Cromwell wrote:.... they don't want to put an additional tax on domestic electricity just because you can recharge your EV at home.

Why not?

There are ways of making it fair.

No grants for anything. Sliding scale of VED on ALL vehicles, no exceptions, based on physical size and weight - ring fenced for road repairs / building. Starting price of £20 up to £35 would bring in the £7bn currently spent, maybe more. Then enforce smart chargers and smart meters for home charging where the unit price of "charging" electricity (fuel duty) reflects that lost on fossil fuels. Domestic use at one price, charging at another, the tech exists.

No tracing or tracking needed and everyone pays their way.

Workingman wrote:No tracing or tracking needed and everyone pays their way.

Indeed.

Or they can just track how many KW/h you use a month and levy a tax bill on it. That is the only thing they need to track. Not where you go, nor how many miles you do. There are ways of driving more for less fuel just as there are with FF vehicles.

It also gets around the charging with your own solar at home. Simply put you wind up being taxed for taking that "fuel" on the roads.

Today you don't pay tax on mileage, they tax the fuel. Because those with big, expensive, fuel guzzling, vehicles, pay more tax for the same miles.

At some point it will occur to them that taxing per mile, not per fuel consumed, will net them less tax from the people who can afford it most. But then they are more after control than taxes. Because if they understood it correctly, less fuel used even for an EV, is less CO2 emitted for the same miles. Which leads to more efficient EV's on the road generally and for the huge power guzzlers to pay more taxes on their fuel. Porsche and Audi take a bow.

There are the outliers though. A £130,000 Tesla Model S Plaid, 200mph, 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, gives similar mpge to their Model 3,which is also one of the most efficient on the market.

Well there are some excellent ideas there.
But one thing that has struck me abut politicians recently is how little they seem to know of the real world outside politics, and how few original ideas they seem to have.
So common sense may come a cropper. We'll see soon enough.

When they do crunch the numbers, I'm betting avarice will win.

Forcing people to drive less will only reduce the tax pot. In the end they will work it out.

Personally I'm a real fan of direct action. Government wants to screw you for vehicle tax, the people sorn 6m vehicles for 3 months and takes the agro to work around it.

It is a triple whammy for the government.

1, they have to actually refund tax on 6m vehicles
2, they get no tax in for vehicles in the 3 month dead zone
3, they have to pay to support 6m vehicles being taxed again all on the same day.

That kind of direct action actually leads to changes in voting trends when people see it work.

Nothing worries politicians more than voting trends.

Direct action is one thing, but not enough of us will buy in to make it work. Look at Insulate Britain. Their basic idea is a good one, and I support that, but no way am I going on one of their protests that disrupt people's normal lives.

We certainly will not be protesting in a way that disrupts our own lives by taking our cars off the road.

The problem is that the issue of making a system that is fair to the majority is a complex one. It is way beyond the PPE, History of Art, and Classical Studies graduates. Unfortunately the Westminster echo chamber is overloaded with those types of "experts", along with legal eagles, and is a virtual desert for independent minded engineers, technologists and those with practical skills - "independent" being the key word.

Insulate Britain is trying to force action by a few people disrupting everyone.

It will never work and they will get no sympathy from the majority.

Direct action by the majority, disrupting the government budget, is certain to work but the majority of people don't want the inconvenience.

So they have to accept what is foisted on them.

Little sympathy there. If you are unwilling to take a small step to stop what you don't like, then you accept what you don't like.

It is a long path with small steps to slavery.