Car tax (again)

[Drago]

Car tax is very pertinent at the moment. The link between emissions and pollution has been removed for cars post 2017, with even electricity cars due to soon be paying a normal rate, and there are questions about how to tax electric cars that have no tailpipe pollution, and how to replace the revenue from fuel duty.

Road pricing has been proposed, but is expensive to implement with the millions of cameras, computers and satellite technology required, and the longer it is left the more it will cost and the less likely it will ever happen.

So I have a plan, at least for the car tax part.

Leccy cars have no tailpipe emissions and currently pay £00.00 car tax. Nevertheless, they create tyre and brake particulate pollution at a higher rate when measured against comparable ICE cars, and the dangers to health of this type of pollution is only recently being investigated properly and it doesn't look good.

So, my proposal: Electric car tax should be set by a formula calculated as...

Vehicles kerb weight in KG ÷ the cars 0-100km time in seconds. This creates a figure which can then be compared against a banded index and the higher the figure the more tax the owner pays. Let's call it thr Drago Quotient.

Both weight, or mass, and performance have a direct bearing on tyre and brake wear, so the more it weighs and the faster it goes and harder it needs to brake the more the owner pays. Set the average band at a level that will allow the exchequer to break even vis-a-vis the loss of fuel duty, and were sorted.

This will encourage owners to buy both lighter cars, and cars that are not of excessively high performance, which will reduce pollution and have a knock-in safety benefit, as well be less damaging to the environment to manufacture.

Problem solved. Remember - a vote for Drago is a vote for common sense!

 

[cyberknight]

Car tax is very pertinent at the moment. The link between emissions and pollution has been removed for cars post 2017, and there are questions about how to tax electric cars that have no tailpipe pollution, and how to replace the revenue from fuel duty.

Road pricing has been proposed, but is expensive to implement with the millions of cameras, computers and satellite technology required, and the longer it is left the more it will cost and the less likely it will ever happen.

So I have a plan, at least for the car tax part.

Leccy cars have no tailpipe emissions and currently pay £00.00 car tax. Nevertheless, they create tyre and brake particulate pollution at a higher rate when measured against comparable ICE cars, and the dangers to health of this type of pollution is only recently being investigated properly and it doesn't look good.

So, my proposal: Electric car tax should be set by a formula calculated as...

Vehicles kerb weight in KG ÷ the cars 0-100km time in seconds. This creates a figure which can then be compared against a banded index and the higher the figure the more tax the owner pays. Let's call it thr Drago Quotient.

Both weight, or mass, and performance have a direct bearing on tyre and brake wear, so the more it weighs and the faster it goes and harder it needs to brake the more the owner pays. Set the average band at a level that will allow the exchequer to break even vis-a-vis the loss of fuel duty, and were sorted.

This will encourage owners to buy both lighter cars, and cars that are not of excessively high performance, which will reduce pollution and have a knock-in safety benefit, as well be less d
damaging to the environment to manufacture.

Problem solved. Remember - a vote for Drago is a vote for common sense!

https://heycar.co.uk/guides/electric-car-tax-rates

 

[Drago]

And...?

 

[raleighnut]

Returning to a flat rate for all motor vehicles, owners of high powered/luxury cars pay more than enough tax on the extra fuel they need to purchase.

 

[a.twiddler]

This reminds me of the way vehicle excise duty was applied to commercial vehicles in about 1934, based on unladen weight and therefore potential wear and tear on road surfaces, bridges , etc. There was a healthy market for steam wagons prior to this (a strangely British phenomenon) which at the state of technology at the time had advantages in performance over internal combustion vehicles for heavy loads. As steam vehicles weighed more unladen due to the need to carry water and coal, and a substantial boiler, the market went for internal combustion engined vehicles which became cheaper to tax. Developments in internal combustion engines were stimulated, and so petrol and diesel trucks proliferated. A drawback of this was that foreign oil imports increased, adding to unseen costs and incrementally affecting the native coal industry.

Of course we know now that the profligate use of coal and oil for power had its long term effects not foreseen at the time.

Still, as road users, like turkeys voting for Christmas, when it comes to proposing vehicle tax changes, we should be careful what we wish for!

 

[numbnuts]

It should be on the amount of miles you do each year

 

[Drago]

Returning to a flat rate for all motor vehicles, owners of high powered/luxury cars pay more than enough tax on the extra fuel they need to purchase.

Soon there will be very little fuel sold that can be taxed, and the forthcoming regime does nothing to discourage people from buying unnecessarily heavy or high performance vehicles that cause the highest levels or particulate pollution.

The Drago Quotient (tm) provides incentive for the typical buyer to do just that (the filthy rich can always afford to do what they want without a care for the financial consequences anyway) and has the ability to be pegged at a level that maintains the necessary amount of revenue for the government.

So, direct links to pollution, incentive for buyers to choose sensibly, and the chancellor still gets his pound of flesh. I must surely be in line for a Nobel Prize for that, or at least a knighthood.

 

[Drago]

It should be on the amount of miles you do each year

As aforementioned buddy, there are problems with the cost of implementing road pricing.

 

[raleighnut]

Soon there will be very little fuel sold that can be taxed, and the forthcoming regime does nothing to discourage people from buying unnecessarily heavy or high performance vehicles that cause the highest levels or particulate pollution.

The Drago Quotient (tm) provides incentive for the typical buyer to do just that (the filthy rich can always afford to do what they want without a care for the financial consequences anyway) and has the ability to be pegged at a level that maintains the level or refenue for the government.

So, direct links to pollution, incentive for buyers to choose sensibly, and the chancellor still gets his pound of flesh. I must surely be in line for a Nobel Prize for that, or at least a knighthood.

You still pay tax on the electricity you use to charge a vehicle

 

[Drago]

You do indeed, but a) for car charging purposes it's a miniscule amount comoared to fuel duty, and b) there is no widespread means by which it can be identified that a vehicle is being charged so it is not realistically possible to raise the amount of tax for home car charging alone.

 

[Alex321]

It should be on the amount of miles you do each year

Like @Drago said in the opening post:
"Road pricing has been proposed, but is expensive to implement with the millions of cameras, computers and satellite technology required, and the longer it is left the more it will cost and the less likely it will ever happen."

 

[a.twiddler]

Returning to a flat rate for all motor vehicles, owners of high powered/luxury cars pay more than enough tax on the extra fuel they need to purchase.

But relatively speaking, if you can afford to run a high powered/luxury car then the cost of fuel for such people is insignificant, whereas the rest of us still have to put up with the emissions and the effects on climate change. It's probable that in the coming decades any internal combustion vehicle will become a luxury vehicle as successive governments pump up internal combustion vehicle tax and fossil fuel tax as an incentive to make drivers use more environmentally friendly transport. In fact, the concept of private transport itself might become a thing that you will talk to your grandchildren about in wonder unless something better than an electric vehicle using scarce resources and precious metals for its batteries can be developed. Electric vehicles themselves might be seen as a stop gap measure as they are likely to price themselves out of the reach of ordinary people, despite the supposed economies of scale as they become more common.

 

[lazybloke]

I understand the relationship between kerb weight and the wear and tear to road surfaces is not linear, so the @Drago quotient needs tweaking accordingly, to encourage lightweight cars that dont exacerbate the pothole issue.

My BEng is electrical/electronic so i'll defer to others on the exact equation.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Vehicles kerb weight in KG ÷ the cars 0-100km time in seconds. This creates a figure which can then be compared against a banded index and the higher the figure the more tax the owner pays. Let's call it thr Drago Quotient.

Factor in the vehicle’s volume as well to discourage the proliferation of massive wankpanzers in urban environments, and encourage the production of cars that are no bigger than they really need to be.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

I thought the whole point of driving an EV was not to touch the brakes apart from when you're pushing/tailgating the car in front down the motorway?