Are you considering buying an electric car?
A long-rumoured roads pricing scheme is being considered by the UK government to help fill the tax shortfall caused by the gradual switch to electric cars, The Times is reporting.

The paper claimsthat chancellor Rishi Sunak has received a Treasury paper for a nationwide road pricing scheme. He is said to be "very interested" in the idea , which would be required to help balance out the expected loss of up to £40 billion of tax revenue from fuel duty and vehicle excise duty.

The report comes as the government is this week expected to announce that theproposed ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel carswill be brought forward to 2030. That's substantially sooner than the current 2040 proposal, but new hybrids will be able to use combustion engines until 2035.

Although the scheme is said to be not "imminent" by a government source speaking to The Times, it is described as an "increasingly pressing" issue for the Treasury. It has outlined potential options for road pricing in an analysis report, but it seems no decision has been made.

In October 2019, the cross-party House of Commons Transport Select Committeepledged that it would start "a national debate"over the introduction of potential pay-per-mile road pricing schemes. A Labour government first considered road pricing 13 years ago, but plans were dropped over fears of a public backlash.

A prime example of how a national road pricing scheme could operate is seen on the M6 toll road in the West Midlands. To access the road, cars must pay a daily £6.70 fee for weekdays, AD: Bluetooth obd2. with a £12 fee for HGVs. Congestion charging in central London has already been expanded, with a second charge added in 2019 to further penalise the most polluting cars.

Commenting on the report, RAC head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said "While not paying car tax is clearly an incentive to go fully electric at the moment, we will very soon need a system that can levy tax on both conventionally fuelled and battery electric vehicles fairly. If this isn't addressed, we risk finding ourselves in a situation where petrol and diesel drivers continue to pay all the tax for using the roads which is unsustainable."
 Bound to happen, all that Road Tax, how were they going to replace it?
He needs to pay for HS2 somehow and justify that waste of money (Covid showed very few people actually need to save 15 mins on travelling from Leeds to London for a meeting, yet still they force HS2). By making driving very expensive regardless of fuel type, more people will use HS2 and therefore it will be shown a success!!
He needs to pay for HS2 somehow and justify that waste of money
I can imagine them making new cars carry the tech to record mileage.....although would this be an International move?...... but it would be a hard sell to get the millions of people with existing vehicles to install at their own expense to then incur extra fiscal burden.
Then there is the data privacy issue.....no government dept. has proved themselves trustworthy with personal data.....good luck with that one.
Then the issue of is this road sensor logged or via satellite. What happens when cars pass under trees, through deep valleys and tunnels.

I guess the price of a litre of petrol will then drop to around 35p per litre?????
at what point would that happen - otherwise you would be paying twice?
The logical thing would be to continue with the current system for IC vehicles and bring in road charging for new electric vehicles that don't pay tax on fuel.
It would take 5+ years to get the system running and would it really be worth retro fitting to all IC engined cars.
How far back would they go, would classics be exempt?
While it makes sense that people using the road more should pay more towards its maintenance, as has been mentioned above this is a ridiculous solution. Should people who are more sick pay more towards the NHS?
- How are they going to track this while not violating people's privacy and human rights? I absolutely object to having an insurance black box in my car and this is unacceptable to me for the same reasons. This will b...

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