Congestion charge exemption for EV's being removed

[zayn]

What a shocker

End of 2025 no more exemption for EV's

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/02/sadiq-...

Edited by zayn on Tuesday 2nd July 22:00

[Ankh87]

Yep and they are wanting to interduce a fair road use charge.
Absolutely insane that they are removing this charge as it were meant for people to drive EVs.

[samoht]

Not news - see this article from 2022
https://www.carwow.co.uk/guides/running/do-electri...

carwow said:

Electric cars will be eligible for the cleaner vehicle discount until the 25th of December 2025. After this date, the discount will be scrapped and electric vehicle owners will have to pay the Congestion Charge.

And of course, there's still another year and a half of free London motoring left for EVs.

In my view the CC exemption was always going to be a temporary transitional benefit to incentivise adoption in an especially polluted area. If it were permanent, that would effectively amount to a phasing out of the CC itself as all vehicles went electric, which would seem unlikely given (a) London road demand exceeds available space and (b) TFL depend on the revenue.

The only question in my view is when the appropriate date would be to withdraw it, but the end of 2025 doesn't seem unreasonable for this one to me.

[Dingu]

zayn said:

What a shocker ??

End of 2025 no more exemption for EV's

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/02/sadiq-...

The clue is in the name.

[KingGary]

Thank goodness, now we can put the whole EV thing behind us!

[Nomme de Plum]

KingGary said:

Thank goodness, now we can put the whole EV thing behind us!

Don’t hold your breath. That path has already been made.

China has gone from just under 8M in 2021 to over 13M in 2022 and were exporting circa 1M EVs but that’s also increasing at a similar rate.

If you are I. Fear of the EV think you can buy a nice new ICE right up until 2035 if there are any available at that time. You can run an older model for as long as you wish.

[samoht]

Although a number of EV inducements have been or will be withdrawn, the principal benefit of paying 80% less for fuel remains, and is unlikely to go anywhere. Thus as secondhand EV prices fall with age, they'll inevitably be the cheapest form of motoring.

[Nomme de Plum]

samoht said:

Although a number of EV inducements have been or will be withdrawn, the principal benefit of paying 80% less for fuel remains, and is unlikely to go anywhere. Thus as secondhand EV prices fall with age, they'll inevitably be the cheapest form of motoring.

About 7.5 million cars change hands every year and about 2 million of those are new. Assuming we currently have about 1.25M EVs it will take until 2030 (circa 15.5M EVs) before we have a sizeable used EV market including plenty of sheds.

[TheDeuce]

Dingu said:

zayn said:

What a shocker ??

End of 2025 no more exemption for EV's

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/02/sadiq-...

The clue is in the name.

Yea.. it's the congestion charge - it's to relieve congestion, it has nothing to do with what a car runs on and everything to do with encouraging people to cut down personal transport use and use the bus etc. I don't think there was any logic to excluding EV's form the congestion charge in the first place - although of course I can see that it helped make EV trendy in London pretty quickly.. That bit made sense.

ULEZ exemption makes sense and EV's will always meet ULEZ requirements no matter how far they're tightened. Unless they start to include tyre particulate as 'emissions', but that would capture every vehicle and tbh they might just as well introduce more congestion zones if that's the intent! Or road charging, which I'm sure will happen at some point. Road charging, whilst understandably unpopular, is ultimately the fairest system as the rates can be tuned to each vehicle and each road and each driver will only pay for the mileage they actually do.

[Terminator X]

Nomme de Plum said:

KingGary said:

Thank goodness, now we can put the whole EV thing behind us!

Don’t hold your breath. That path has already been made.

China has gone from just under 8M in 2021 to over 13M in 2022 and were exporting circa 1M EVs but that’s also increasing at a similar rate.

If you are I. Fear of the EV think you can buy a nice new ICE right up until 2035 if there are any available at that time. You can run an older model for as long as you wish.

1.3bn population though so fk all really.

TX.

[ChocolateFrog]

KingGary said:

Thank goodness, now we can put the whole EV thing behind us!

Good luck with that

[Terminator X]

samoht said:

Although a number of EV inducements have been or will be withdrawn, the principal benefit of paying 80% less for fuel remains, and is unlikely to go anywhere. Thus as secondhand EV prices fall with age, they'll inevitably be the cheapest form of motoring.

Don't mention the catastrophic depreciation though in the 10s of £thousands. Dealers not even trading them in

TX.

[Discombobulate]

Interesting to see what the next Govt does. Whatever the actual policies implemented, I suspect they are only going to accelerate the switch to EV, and further discourage / tax the use of ICE.

[KingGary]

ChocolateFrog said:

KingGary said:

Thank goodness, now we can put the whole EV thing behind us!

Good luck with that

Not so sure. EVs are still nowhere in terms of adoption, and who’s going to pay to maintain or build new charging points in the Capital with reduced demand? If EVs end up not being commercially viable, manufacturers will stop making them. Simple.

[TheDeuce]

KingGary said:

ChocolateFrog said:

KingGary said:

Thank goodness, now we can put the whole EV thing behind us!

Good luck with that

Not so sure. EVs are still nowhere in terms of adoption, and who’s going to pay to maintain or build new charging points in the Capital with reduced demand? If EVs end up not being commercially viable, manufacturers will stop making them. Simple.

The same people that are paying for them and finding them to be commercially viable in the other 99% of the country that never had a congestion zone..?

EV's don't need to be and imo should not be exempt from the congestion zone. They cause as much congestion as any other car. I bet most EV drivers feel the same in terms of logic, even if it has been nice to have a free lunch for a while.

[Discombobulate]

TheDeuce said:

The same people that are paying for them and finding them to be commercially viable in the other 99% of the country that never had a congestion zone..?

EV's don't need to be and imo should not be exempt from the congestion zone. They cause as much congestion as any other car. I bet most EV drivers feel the same in terms of logic, even if it has been nice to have a free lunch for a while.

Quite happy to pay, but, like you, pleased with the free lunch while it lasted. As for the future, who knows? But the outlook for EVs in cities looks far brighter than it does for ICE.

[KingGary]

Discombobulate said:

Quite happy to pay, but, like you, pleased with the free lunch while it lasted. As for the future, who knows? But the outlook for EVs in cities looks far brighter than it does for ICE.

Not according to the mayor of London.

[zayn]

KingGary said:

Not according to the mayor of London.

4 more years

[TheDeuce]

KingGary said:

Discombobulate said:

Quite happy to pay, but, like you, pleased with the free lunch while it lasted. As for the future, who knows? But the outlook for EVs in cities looks far brighter than it does for ICE.

Not according to the mayor of London.

I'm sure all mayors of London says lots of things they don't mean for political gain, and also sometimes believe things that are just plain wrong.

Luckily, the globally reaching inter-governmental agreements and targets set in place won't be affected one chuff by what a handful of delf serving politicians chose to think or say.

All that's going to happen in London, and the UK in general, is that year on year more and more cars on the roads will be EV. The rate of uptake right now and whatever small bumps in the road are encountered won't change that.

[James6112]

KingGary said:

Discombobulate said:

Quite happy to pay, but, like you, pleased with the free lunch while it lasted. As for the future, who knows? But the outlook for EVs in cities looks far brighter than it does for ICE.

Not according to the mayor of London.

Wrong.
Congestion charge - takes up the same space, fair enough. Free for the next 18 months.
Ulez - EV will be at the bottom of the list, newer ICE cars will roll into Ulez
So- EV has a better outlook in cities, financially & pumping out less/negligible pollution at the point of use. So a benefit to residents.
A bright future.