How will road tax will be phased in for EVs next year?

[samoht]

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/...

Facts:

Currently zero-emission cars pay a £0 rate for annual road tax.
From 1st April 2025 this will change to the "standard rate".
For cars registered from 1st April 2017 (so most EVs) this will be £180/year. (Older EVs will go to the £20 rate).

Question:

If I SORN and re-tax my EV in March 2025, will I get another 12 months for £0?
Or will the charge be pro-rata for each month starting in April 2025, so if you tax an EV in May this year you'd pay £180/12 for the month of April 2025? This would be like how the expensive car supplement rolls off on a pro-rata basis past the sixth anniversary of registration, but in reverse.

If it's the former, I can see the DVLA website being rather busy next March with SORNs and re-taxings, I hope their servers are up to it

[Downward]

Yeah good point My tax is up December 31st 2024.
So I tax for 6th months, Sorn in march 2025 for a day and then just tax it for a year for £0 ?

Is that correct ?

[Caddyshack]

I remember hearing Tesla adverts quoting zero road tax forever and thought that was a bold claim to make. I think it was written in adverts as well.

[cliffords]

As they are not paying the high duty on fuel , I would think they will really slam into this soon . Especially looking at the purchase price and how that works on ICE cars.

[eldar]

cliffords said:

As they are not paying the high duty on fuel , I would think they will really slam into this soon . Especially looking at the purchase price and how that works on ICE cars.

Road pricing. Coming soon to London soon, allegedly, the Guinea pigs. Blame the mayor, not central government.


Mayor denies it, so obviously true....

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/pay-per-m...

[Phateuk]

Surely they just tax the electricity coming from the car charger to match equivalent fuel tax..?

Everyone has been used to "filling up" for £60-£100 or so, making electric fill up £40 or something from home is surely the easiest way to recoup tax loses from fuel pump. It would be foolish to think the £5 fill of cheap rate and £0 road tax would continue now Evs have become more commonly adopted

Edited by Phateuk on Wednesday 7th February 23:07

[TheDeuce]

Phateuk said:

Surely they just tax the electricity coming from the car charger to match equivalent fuel tax..?

Everyone has been used to "filling up" for £60-£100 or so, making electric fill up £40 or something from home is surely the easiest way to recoup tax loses from fuel pump. It would be foolish to think the £5 fill of cheap rate and £0 road tax would continue now Evs have become more commonly adopted

Edited by Phateuk on Wednesday 7th February 23:07

Tricky.. the discounted electricity costs for EV charging are driving sales of EV, and helping to achieve energy independence which is pretty much the UK's primary goal right now. If people weren't motivated to buy EV's and also motivated to bother using dynamic tariffs designed to optimise clean energy usage, the government would instead have to pay for it's own billions £ worth of grid attached batteries.

The situation isn't quite as simple as 'there was X tax on fuel so at some point the same X tax must be applied to electricity for EV's. In the end the tax income will surely be secured somehow, but I wouldn't bet on it being tax on electricity.

I think road tax is far more likely, as that brings about the potential for all sorts of other things that the government might find useful. Conversely, discouraging people from buying EV's takes away things the government want to happen. It's not as simple as out with the old tax in with the new, there are myriad other factors in the equation.

As for road tax, sure EV's should pay it and they soon will. Next up, cyclists...

[Hill92]

Bit academic at the moment. Outcome of the general election could change plans by next April.

[TheDeuce]

Hill92 said:

Bit academic at the moment. Outcome of the general election could change plans by next April.

That's true!

I wonder how many different prime ministers the winning party will burn through during their time too... many opportunities for further confusion and policy changes will occur..

[samoht]

Hill92 said:

Bit academic at the moment. Outcome of the general election could change plans by next April.

Yeah, I did think that after posting this thread, Labour could easily choose to do something different.
The downturn in EV sales is also prompting calls to continue with incentives, eg
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-cars/v...

[eldar]

TheDeuce said:

Phateuk said:

Surely they just tax the electricity coming from the car charger to match equivalent fuel tax..?

Everyone has been used to "filling up" for £60-£100 or so, making electric fill up £40 or something from home is surely the easiest way to recoup tax loses from fuel pump. It would be foolish to think the £5 fill of cheap rate and £0 road tax would continue now Evs have become more commonly adopted

Edited by Phateuk on Wednesday 7th February 23:07

Tricky.. the discounted electricity costs for EV charging are driving sales of EV, and helping to achieve energy independence which is pretty much the UK's primary goal right now. If people weren't motivated to buy EV's and also motivated to bother using dynamic tariffs designed to optimise clean energy usage, the government would instead have to pay for it's own billions £ worth of grid attached batteries.

The situation isn't quite as simple as 'there was X tax on fuel so at some point the same X tax must be applied to electricity for EV's. In the end the tax income will surely be secured somehow, but I wouldn't bet on it being tax on electricity.

I think road tax is far more likely, as that brings about the potential for all sorts of other things that the government might find useful. Conversely, discouraging people from buying EV's takes away things the government want to happen. It's not as simple as out with the old tax in with the new, there are myriad other factors in the equation.

As for road tax, sure EV's should pay it and they soon will. Next up, cyclists...

The tax is a bit weird now. Charge your car at home, vat 5%. Charge at a public charger, 20%.

Difficult to balance revenue without penalising people for helping the environment.

[TheDeuce]

eldar said:

TheDeuce said:

Phateuk said:

Surely they just tax the electricity coming from the car charger to match equivalent fuel tax..?

Everyone has been used to "filling up" for £60-£100 or so, making electric fill up £40 or something from home is surely the easiest way to recoup tax loses from fuel pump. It would be foolish to think the £5 fill of cheap rate and £0 road tax would continue now Evs have become more commonly adopted

Edited by Phateuk on Wednesday 7th February 23:07

Tricky.. the discounted electricity costs for EV charging are driving sales of EV, and helping to achieve energy independence which is pretty much the UK's primary goal right now. If people weren't motivated to buy EV's and also motivated to bother using dynamic tariffs designed to optimise clean energy usage, the government would instead have to pay for it's own billions £ worth of grid attached batteries.

The situation isn't quite as simple as 'there was X tax on fuel so at some point the same X tax must be applied to electricity for EV's. In the end the tax income will surely be secured somehow, but I wouldn't bet on it being tax on electricity.

I think road tax is far more likely, as that brings about the potential for all sorts of other things that the government might find useful. Conversely, discouraging people from buying EV's takes away things the government want to happen. It's not as simple as out with the old tax in with the new, there are myriad other factors in the equation.

As for road tax, sure EV's should pay it and they soon will. Next up, cyclists...

The tax is a bit weird now. Charge your car at home, vat 5%. Charge at a public charger, 20%.

Difficult to balance revenue without penalising people for helping the environment.

Quite. but it's more than just the environment, it's about energy independence and security for the UK. Every new EV on the road and plugged in ready to charge helps us use more of our domestic renewable generation and rely less on outside supply. That's important, it effects everything from who might attack us, who we can attack and get away with it, the price of fish, how much money we can make from selling peak rate power overseas and endless other things. And... the environment, I guess

Anyway, plenty of reasons that the government makes and saves money via further incentivised vehicle electrification, and achieves certain goals, even if it never sees the same rate of tax on 'fuel' as back in the good ol days. Things change.

[Diderot]

eldar said:

TheDeuce said:

Phateuk said:

Surely they just tax the electricity coming from the car charger to match equivalent fuel tax..?

Everyone has been used to "filling up" for £60-£100 or so, making electric fill up £40 or something from home is surely the easiest way to recoup tax loses from fuel pump. It would be foolish to think the £5 fill of cheap rate and £0 road tax would continue now Evs have become more commonly adopted

Edited by Phateuk on Wednesday 7th February 23:07

Tricky.. the discounted electricity costs for EV charging are driving sales of EV, and helping to achieve energy independence which is pretty much the UK's primary goal right now. If people weren't motivated to buy EV's and also motivated to bother using dynamic tariffs designed to optimise clean energy usage, the government would instead have to pay for it's own billions £ worth of grid attached batteries.

The situation isn't quite as simple as 'there was X tax on fuel so at some point the same X tax must be applied to electricity for EV's. In the end the tax income will surely be secured somehow, but I wouldn't bet on it being tax on electricity.

I think road tax is far more likely, as that brings about the potential for all sorts of other things that the government might find useful. Conversely, discouraging people from buying EV's takes away things the government want to happen. It's not as simple as out with the old tax in with the new, there are myriad other factors in the equation.

As for road tax, sure EV's should pay it and they soon will. Next up, cyclists...

The tax is a bit weird now. Charge your car at home, vat 5%. Charge at a public charger, 20%.

Difficult to balance revenue without penalising people for helping the environment.

Especially since VED was based on emissions.

[sixor8]

As I understand it, you can't SORN a car and then re-tax it again the next day. I remember being warned on-screen that it would have to be 5 days perhaps? The servers already can't cope with database updates very well, you can only do change of keeper online between 0700 and 1900.

It'll have to be declared SORN on, I'd suggest 5 days before the end of Feb, or Jan if you think there may be a mad rush to gain a free month. Or during a few days when you know you won't need to use it. Perhaps when all you new (or newish) EV owners are on their winter break in the Caribbean?

I fully expect this to be viable, nice thinking. When you buy VED for non-free cars, it doesn't change during the time it is valid, only after SORN or or renewal.

ETA: Of course, I'd forgotten it's £0 at present, so pick a few days in March at any time you can keep it off the road, declare SORN and then re-tax again from March 1st at £0.

Edited by sixor8 on Thursday 8th February 07:18

[CrgT16]

It would interesting to see what they come up with

Charging per mile makes sense but how to implement it?

The government will have to make up the loss on fuel duty and that’s a big thing. Perhaps they will come up with a green tax for every household to make up for the loss?

Who knows they are capable of anything…

[Downward]

Phateuk said:

Surely they just tax the electricity coming from the car charger to match equivalent fuel tax..?

Everyone has been used to "filling up" for £60-£100 or so, making electric fill up £40 or something from home is surely the easiest way to recoup tax loses from fuel pump. It would be foolish to think the £5 fill of cheap rate and £0 road tax would continue now Evs have become more commonly adopted

Edited by Phateuk on Wednesday 7th February 23:07

If you use public chargers you’re paying 20% VAT. And when some are 85p per KW which on modern EV’s is 3 miles an increase in Electric cars is going to be profitable to someone.
If Petrol is £1.40 a litre and gets you 8 to 10 miles for example Electric is going to be twice the cost.

[alock]

I would tax all (electric and ICE) vehicles based on size & weight. Cars are getting too big and heavy.

Define a target "sensible" car size. Something a bit like a Golf/Focus:
Length = 450cm
Width = 180cm
Height = 150cm
Weight = 1400kg

Annual tax is £10/cm over on any dimension and £1/kg over the weight target.

Examples

Mini E
Length = 384cm = £0
Width = 172cm = £0
Height = 143cm = £0
Weight = 1365kg = £0
Total = £0

Taycan
Length = 496cm = £460
Width = 196cm = £160
Height = 138cm = £0
Weight = 2300kg = £900
Total = £1520

[James6112]

eldar said:

cliffords said:

As they are not paying the high duty on fuel , I would think they will really slam into this soon . Especially looking at the purchase price and how that works on ICE cars.

Road pricing. Coming soon to London soon, allegedly, the Guinea pigs. Blame the mayor, not central government.


Mayor denies it, so obviously true....

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/pay-per-m...

Sounds fair enough
It should replace Car Tax.
The more you drive, the more you pay.

[TheDeuce]

James6112 said:

eldar said:

cliffords said:

As they are not paying the high duty on fuel , I would think they will really slam into this soon . Especially looking at the purchase price and how that works on ICE cars.

Road pricing. Coming soon to London soon, allegedly, the Guinea pigs. Blame the mayor, not central government.


Mayor denies it, so obviously true....

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/pay-per-m...

Sounds fair enough
It should replace Car Tax.
The more you drive, the more you pay.

No one's really against that aspect of it - it's entirely fair in principle.

It's 'the man' knowing where you're going all the time..

And how fast. That's the killer for PH'ers!

[Diderot]

alock said:

I would tax all (electric and ICE) vehicles based on size & weight. Cars are getting too big and heavy.

Define a target "sensible" car size. Something a bit like a Golf/Focus:
Length = 450cm
Width = 180cm
Height = 150cm
Weight = 1400kg

Annual tax is £10/cm over on any dimension and £1/kg over the weight target.

Examples

Mini E
Length = 384cm = £0
Width = 172cm = £0
Height = 143cm = £0
Weight = 1365kg = £0
Total = £0

Taycan
Length = 496cm = £460
Width = 196cm = £160
Height = 138cm = £0
Weight = 2300kg = £900
Total = £1520

Don’t run for office whatever you do.