Pay by mile - taxing road use?

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There has been a fair bit of recent press speculation that the Govt might be considering a pay by mile tax in the future to cover lost VED & fuel duty as 'we' move towards EVs.

It has been suggested that this might apply to EVs only, on top of the VED being introduced next year. Or it could be levied at different rates according to emissions for both EVs and ICE, removing VED altogether?

I wonder how such a tax could be implemented? How would it work for foreign motorists, or UK vehicles being used abroad? At present visitors from abroad pay UK fuel duty & VAT & UK visitors overseas pay any local fuel taxes.

ANPR cameras...... very expensive to deploy these nationally?

Individual cars logging & reporting miles driven automatically...... civil liberties groups would be upset, also potentially expensive to implement?

I expect there are other ways of doing it.

What do others think? Are the media 'flying a kite' with this story or is it for real?
 
broc said:
There has been a fair bit of recent press speculation that the Govt might be considering a pay by mile tax in the future to cover lost VED & fuel duty as 'we' move towards EVs.

It has been suggested that this might apply to EVs only, on top of the VED being introduced next year. Or it could be levied at different rates according to emissions for both EVs and ICE, removing VED altogether?

I wonder how such a tax could be implemented? How would it work for foreign motorists, or UK vehicles being used abroad? At present visitors from abroad pay UK fuel duty & VAT & UK visitors overseas pay any local fuel taxes.

ANPR cameras...... very expensive to deploy these nationally?

Individual cars logging & reporting miles driven automatically...... civil liberties groups would be upset, also potentially expensive to implement?

I expect there are other ways of doing it.

What do others think? Are the media 'flying a kite' with this story or is it for real?
Click to expand...

Just as I don't see everybody driving around in EV in the future, I also can't see how they would implement this.

As you have already alluded to ANPR cameras would be far to costly and I can see the demand for Lidl circular saws and cloned plates sky rocketing.

Individual car logging? I'd love to see them get that through the ECHR or other various privacy laws, plus it would have to rely on GPS which could be blocked or hacked in 5 minutes.

I have no doubt the government are considering it but as usual these things are thunk up by low grade dim wits in their London bubble. They'll waste billons of our taxes on reports, and whatever other nonsense they can find to waste money on before scrapping it.
 
The only practical method I can think of is that all electric car owners pay a rate of VED that reflects the fuel duty lost.

Any scheme to make things fairer will result in howls of anguish from drivers of electric cars but those should be addressed to the headquarters of the Conservative Party.
 
broc said:
There has been a fair bit of recent press speculation that the Govt might be considering a pay by mile tax in the future to cover lost VED & fuel duty as 'we' move towards EVs.

It has been suggested that this might apply to EVs only, on top of the VED being introduced next year. Or it could be levied at different rates according to emissions for both EVs and ICE, removing VED altogether?

I wonder how such a tax could be implemented? How would it work for foreign motorists, or UK vehicles being used abroad? At present visitors from abroad pay UK fuel duty & VAT & UK visitors overseas pay any local fuel taxes.

ANPR cameras...... very expensive to deploy these nationally?

Individual cars logging & reporting miles driven automatically...... civil liberties groups would be upset, also potentially expensive to implement?

I expect there are other ways of doing it.

What do others think? Are the media 'flying a kite' with this story or is it for real?
Click to expand...

Long term this makes sense, and we have the tech to do it. Of course, retro fitting this to older cars will be a pain and just like clocking, how soon till you can pay a techie to only count it every other mile?

If applied to EVs only this would hit sales, as the cheapness of running them offsets their higher cost. This would not be popular, nor incentivise people in the governments aim to reduce ICE.

ANPR impossible to hit every road realistically, and no idea about foreign vehicles - maybe a one off tax as they enter the country?
 
I think that, as they cannot really disadvantage rural drivers so much compared to urban/suburban drivers, it might only be as an extension of existing congestion charging systems - you pay for use of roads whilst within a zone, rather than a per-mile system. Rather than tracking every vehicle on every piece of road, tracking by entry/exit times is more achievable. Since townies have better public transport available, they have options.
 
lindsay said:
I think that, as they cannot really disadvantage rural drivers so much compared to urban/suburban drivers, it might only be as an extension of existing congestion charging systems - you pay for use of roads whilst within a zone, rather than a per-mile system. Rather than tracking every vehicle on every piece of road, tracking by entry/exit times is more achievable. Since townies have better public transport available, they have options.
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But as we saw with Cambridge, this will not work unless you are looking at London, Manchester type places. Cambridge centre is so small it won't make any money. Widen it out and you stop people visiting slightly out of town stores (you can't go to Homebase on the bus). You also end up charging people to go to hospital and to visit for example. Plus, seeing as public transport will not work for the surrounding villages, that is not a viable option.

Whether you agree or not, government (and I think all parties probably agree on this) is that they want to phase out new ICE sales soon. If they want that they have to incentivise EV until the supplies increase which brings down the initial cost.

The issue thought is have a 2 tier system - EV and ICE. EV are all software led so can easily be updated to use PPM, but what to do about the millions of ICE?
 
We live in interesting times.....lack of clarity over future plans for VED/Fuel duty/VAT/pay per mile/congestion charges are a challenge for motorists , especially when changing vehicles. Hopefully the budget next month might help.

Incentivising new EV sales could prove a challenge; I think that fleet purchases have led the recent take-up of new EV sales. I have seen reports of used EV prices falling rapidly (possibly due to more fleet/PCP contracts ending); this might encourage more private buyers to consider used EVs, but at the same time discourage other private motorists from buying a new EV as the rapid depreciation will hurt their wallets.

The extra VED next year for EV vehicles costing over £40k list price won't help either.
 
I remember reading - somewhere - that road pricing can only be implemented once the proposed pan-european satnav system is live and kicking, and there's absolutely no sign of that happening.

Apparently, the system currently in use is American-owned, it was developed for military use and can be accurate within millimetres. The Americans initially allowed it to be used for saving life at sea, restricting its accuracy to around 10 m, which is fine if rescuers are looking for a sinking ship or even a liferaft, and the use then spread to car satnavs, where again the inaccuracy doesn't matter, but it wouldn't be anywhere good enough for road pricing use.

Also, the Americans could switch it off if they wanted to . . .
 
Registered cars report their mileage once a year at the time of the MOT. This would probably deal with the bulk of the cars on the road, but would be a challenge for car ownership transfers in year. Possibly charge for mileage monthly, based on the previous year's usage, instead of a once a year payment. Fraught with problems.

ANPR has to be a non starter, other than to pick up vehicles that are not registered for MOT. There are over 250,000 miles of roads in the UK, and no way of covering them all with ANPR.
 
It's pie in the sky. It's the usual vague threat then some other unpleasant blanket scheme will be proposed instead that's less trouble to implement. But the 'phew it's not road pricing' makes it less awful.

As most of the in car satnavs I've used get confused on parallel roads and ones going over or under another it's not going to work with current GPS at all.

I'd have said the toll tag style system is the only one that makes any sense at all. Still open to issues but if you made it so the toll tags automatically paid for all congestion charging, ULEZ and parking in council car parks it might actually be something people would want to put in the car.

There's also the other issue of Shadow toll roads that private companies earn money off. Our roads aren't even our roads! They're already taking chunks of VED.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkZKVl8iCqc
 
The car I drive for work is fitted with a tracking device that measures how long each trip is using gps, but it's not that accurate. I do average 4000 miles a month and the reading can be different to the odometer by over 100 miles. Could be the odometer that's out of course but any system would need to be pretty foolproof or the government would be tied up in knots with legal challenges.
 
Tolls will only work where it is possible to have areas or roads covered by toll-reading devices. This is probably impossible, given the amount of roads in this country. Covering only some areas and roads would just lead to rat-running.
 
My 3 year old Toyota hybrid tracks every journey it makes & even has the audacity of telling the driver how well (or otherwise) they have been driving for economy. The Toyota app provides detailed maps of each journey, indicating when it is using the ICE engine vs EV power.

My diesel motorhome has a retrofitted 'smart' immobiliser that also tracks & reports movement via an app.

Technically it sounds as if a solution could be found, but deployment would take a great deal longer than the 'smart meter' programme that is still being rolled out more than 5 years past its target date and has cost taxpayers over £13billion so far.

Given the potential cost & complexity of introducing a country wide 'pay by mile' solution, not to mention the time it would take I suspect as @srichards suggests earlier in this discussion this could be the Govt flying a kite to soften us up for a much simpler raid on VED & fuel duty.
 
Steep said:
The car I drive for work is fitted with a tracking device that measures how long each trip is using gps, but it's not that accurate. I do average 4000 miles a month and the reading can be different to the odometer by over 100 miles. Could be the odometer that's out of course but any system would need to be pretty foolproof or the government would be tied up in knots with legal challenges.
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It COULD be that GPS measures "flat" miles (2 dimensional) but the odometer counts all the ups and downs too. I know that speedos are allowed to be up to 10% optimistic (but have no leeway to report a slower than actual speed) so presumably odometers have a similar inaccuracy.
 
The main issue is fuel duty tax will reduce as EV and more importantly PHEV use increases this is already forcing fuel prices down due to over production in the world. As this continues it will be pointless collecting tax on a low priced product also companies will stop producing fuel as there is no profit in it and prices may then rise. By that time the demand will be so low in the world economy the distribution networks will collapse. Government will need to collect taxes in other ways. Pay per mile is a tech nightmare but let's just see what happens.
 
It seems to be pretty much impossible to find the numbers for world wide usage of wheeled vehicles by power type.

That said, this chart claims a world figure of 3% for electric but I suspect that's unlikely to be correct, because there are many places where vehicle usage figures will be unobtainable...

ourworldindata.org

Share of cars currently in use that are electric

Electric cars include fully battery-electric and plug-in hybrids.
ourworldindata.org ourworldindata.org

My guess, for what little it's worth, is that diesel and petrol power well over 99% of wheeled vehicles and will continue to do so for the forseeable future.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
It seems to be pretty much impossible to find the numbers for world wide usage of wheeled vehicles by power type.

That said, this chart claims a world figure of 3% for electric but I suspect that's unlikely to be correct, because there are many places where vehicle usage figures will be unobtainable...

ourworldindata.org

Share of cars currently in use that are electric

Electric cars include fully battery-electric and plug-in hybrids.
ourworldindata.org ourworldindata.org

My guess, for what little it's worth, is that diesel and petrol power well over 99% of wheeled vehicles and will continue to do so for the forseeable future.
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Here you go just the UK but you can see the trend
Note these are new car registrations
Petrol in drastic decline
Diesel in drastic decline
All EV / PHEV / Mild Hybrd growing

Just take diesel alone in 10 years time it will be a niche market
fuel stations will just stop selling it


1726657765546.png
 
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Whilst the above shows a lot of PHEV and Hybrid use its important to take in to consideration these vehicles use a lot less fuel and do quite impressive MPG so that alone will result in a large reduction in fuel sales over time. My friend Joe has a Toyota Petrol Hybrid doing 68mpg all day long, he had a BMW diesel before that and was lucky to see 48mpg?

The EU figures are quite surprising in 2018 petrol/diesel vehicles about 92% of all sales and in 2022 this is at about 55% and that data is 2 years old.

The UK numbers are pretty much the same in 2018 petrol/diesel about 95% and in 2023 that number is about 48%
but the lines are blurred with Hybrid fuel vehicles

But it all points to a drastic reduction in the need of volume of petrol and diesel
 
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Mr Bump said:
Here you go just the UK but you can see the trend
Note these are new car registrations
Petrol in drastic decline
Diesel in drastic decline
All EV / PHEV / Mild Hybrd growing

Just take diesel alone in 10 years time it will be a niche market
fuel stations will just stop selling it


View attachment 434118
Click to expand...
My local Tesco often has signs up saying no diesel available, not sure why they seem to have issues - but a reason not to buy one (seeing as the naysayers talk about not getting EV as they will never be able to find a charger)
 
Mr Bump said:
Whilst the above shows a lot of PHEV and Hybrid use its important to take in to consideration these vehicles use a lot less fuel and do quite impressive MPG so that alone will result in a large reduction in fuel sales over time. My friend Joe has a Toyota Petrol Hybrid doing 68mpg all day long, he had a BMW diesel before that and was lucky to see 48mpg?

The EU figures are quite surprising in 2018 petrol/diesel vehicles about 92% of all sales and in 2022 this is at about 55% and that data is 2 years old.

The UK numbers are pretty much the same in 2018 petrol/diesel about 95% and in 2023 that number is about 48%
but the lines are blurred with Hybrid fuel vehicles

But it all points to a drastic reduction in the need of volume of petrol and diesel
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Somebody posted ages ago that people like me are stealing from the taxpayer / government by using EV - does that mean Hybrid / PHEV users are also doing this? As well as those doing 56mph on a motorway rather than 70?
 
cambsno said:
My local Tesco often has signs up saying no diesel available, not sure why they seem to have issues - but a reason not to buy one (seeing as the naysayers talk about not getting EV as they will never be able to find a charger)
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Never, ever had problems getting diesel anywhere. If a garage does happen to be out then the next one will have plenty.
 
The Sainsbury's we usually use to fill up at had no Super Unleaded for well over a year. No way will I put normal into anything I plan to keep!
 
ecoleman said:
We can have such trivial facts get in the way of their silly agendas.
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Agreed.

The internet provides only a partial view of the facts because, with something like the current discussion, only limited figures are available on the subject. It's not unreasonable to assume that a very large proportion of vehicles around the world are unregistered and therefore uncounted.

In the UK alone, the Department for Transport estimated roughly half a million untaxed vehicles (1.3%) were on the roads...

www.gov.uk

Vehicle excise duty evasion statistics: 2023

www.gov.uk www.gov.uk
 
...and that's what annoys me, that with mobile ANPR the police can identify instantly vehicles with no tax MoT or insurance, yet in many areas they simply don't bother. It's not the lost revenue that bothers me so much, it's the fact that most such vehicles are unroadworthy in some way, often being driven by unlicensed or banned drivers, or used for other criminal purposes. It's a problem so easy to fix, requiring not much effort, but presumably limited resources prevent it happening. Grrr.
 
ecoleman said:
We can't have such trivial facts get in the way of their silly agendas.
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What silly agenda?? Technology and innovation.

Am sure there were many that knocked the car, saying why move on from a horse!

Is EV the car for the next 50 years, quite possibly not - will it go the way of the laser disc, probably not but at some point fuel will run out so finding other ways to run cars is a good thing.
 
vintageman said:
Only considering cars is half a picture!

HGVs,Tractors etc will be diesel for a longer period
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Agreed.

The idea that electification is the only possible replacement is incorrect. Hydrogen is one relatively well understood alternative. There are a number of different ways to make synthetic fuels from a variety of feed stocks. This article provides a (relatively) brief introduction...

en.wikipedia.org

Synthetic fuel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
cambsno said:
What silly agenda?? Technology and innovation.
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The Net Zero Agenda. Nothing wrong with technology or innovation but right now we do not have the technology in place to support everybody driving EV's

cambsno said:
Am sure there were many that knocked the car, saying why move on from a horse!
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I'm sure there was but nowhere in history does it state that people were forced to buy cars or that horses would no longer be sold. People bought cars because they worked and was a better alternative to a horse. I also suspect it took many many years before everybody transitioned to cars.

cambsno said:
Is EV the car for the next 50 years, quite possibly not - will it go the way of the laser disc, probably not but at some point fuel will run out so finding other ways to run cars is a good thing.
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I agree and a lot of work is being done around synthetic fuels which I fully support. What I don't agree with is governments forcing EV's down people throats. If EV's were really that great the government wouldn't have to bribe people to buy them. Remember, they told us Diesel was the way to go just a few short years ago.

What really p***es me off is that some people really do think they are going to save the planet by driving one and somehow that makes them better. They're not better, they're just ignorant. If you want to drive a Betamax that's fine, just do it quietly.
 
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ecoleman said:
The Net Zero Agenda. Nothing wrong with technology or innovation but right now we do not have the technology in place to support everybody driving EV's


I'm sure there was but nowhere in history does it state that people were forced to buy cars or that horses would no longer be sold. People bought cars because they worked and was a better alternative to a horse. I also suspect it took many many years before everybody transitioned to cars.


I agree and a lot of work is being done around synthetic fuels which I fully support. What I don't agree with is governments forcing EV's down people throats. If EV's were really that great the government wouldn't have to bribe people to buy them. Remember, they told us Diesel was the way to go just a few short years ago.

What really p***es me off is that some people really do think they are going to save the planet by driving one and somehow that makes them better. They're not better, they're just ignorant. If you want to drive a Betamax that's fine, just do it quietly.
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Not everyone will jump to EV overnight (or any other kind of fuel for that matter) - but as an EV user we DO have the infrastructure in place for it not to be an issue for a lot of people. The same will be with other fuels, manufacturing and demand will be low at the start.

Governments are not bribing people, like with any new tech, costs are higher at the start. It will be the same with synthetic or hydrogen, you won't get a 20k runaround when these are launched. It will be similar to EV and to make it affordable they will need to offer breaks.

I don't know anyone that has an EV that is doing it to save the planet. It is questionable how greener they are with the battery side, but what is a fact is that there is less air pollution locally with them and that I drive one for performance and fun (and tech).
 
Steep said:
The car I drive for work is fitted with a tracking device that measures how long each trip is using gps, but it's not that accurate. I do average 4000 miles a month and the reading can be different to the odometer by over 100 miles. Could be the odometer that's out of course but any system would need to be pretty foolproof or the government would be tied up in knots with legal challenges.
Click to expand...
Could be the difference in rolling circumference between new and old tyres. New tyres with 8mm of tread can have a rolling circumference of about 2-3% larger than those of old tyres nearing the 2mm recommended change depth. Your car odometer and speedometer rely on the number of wheel revolutions (older cars used a cable driven from the gearbox).
 
cambsno said:
Not everyone will jump to EV overnight (or any other kind of fuel for that matter) - but as an EV user we DO have the infrastructure in place for it not to be an issue for a lot of people. The same will be with other fuels, manufacturing and demand will be low at the start.
Click to expand...

You're right they won't but the government still wants to ban the sale of ICE vehicles and are fining manufacturers for not selling enough EV's. That's wrong. Already we see that manufacturers are holding back the sale of ICE cars to avoid fines and the price of used vehicles is going up.

Sorry but we do not have the infrastructure in place to deal with all of us driving around in EV's it may do for now (although I still question that) and whilst a "lot" of people can charge at home a "lot" can't.

cambsno said:
Governments are not bribing people, like with any new tech, costs are higher at the start. It will be the same with synthetic or hydrogen, you won't get a 20k runaround when these are launched. It will be similar to EV and to make it affordable they will need to offer breaks.
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Really, Cheap to charge they told us, no VED they told us. They lied!
Here's £5000 towards a new one and tax breaks for business use. F&%k that. If you want to buy an EV they pay for it yourself. Once again, if they are that great then people will pay for them. I didn't see the government dishing out grants for £1200 smart phones that we didn't need and yet just 15 years later we all have them.


cambsno said:
I don't know anyone that has an EV that is doing it to save the planet.
Click to expand...

There's one in this thread.

cambsno said:
It is questionable how greener they are with the battery side, but what is a fact is that there is less air pollution locally with them
Click to expand...

But pollution there be, somewhere else maybe but still there.
 
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ecoleman said:
If you want to buy an EV they pay for it yourself. Once again, if they are that great then people will pay for them. I didn't see the government dishing out grants for £1200 smart phones that we didn't need and yet just 15 years later we all have them.
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Exactly this.

I suggest that, as an emergency measure, in the light of the country's problems, everyone who received the previous government's bribe should receive a letter. This should tell them that their next VED will be the then current rate plus the amount of the bribe and an estimated amount of fuel duty, unpaid through charging off their home supply.

Such a contribution, to putting the economy back on track, should make the chest of any self respecting, ecologically sound citizen's chest swell with pride, as they perform the transfer.
 
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ecoleman said:
You're right they won't but the government still wants to ban the sale of ICE vehicles and are fining manufacturers for not selling enough EV's. That's wrong. Already we see that manufacturers are holding back the sale of ICE cars to avoid fines and the price of used vehicles is going up.

Sorry but we do not have the infrastructure in place to deal with all of us driving around in EV's it may do for now (although I still question that) and whilst a "lot" of people can charge at home a "lot" can't.



Really, Cheap to charge they told us, no VED they told us. They lied!
Here's £5000 towards a new one and tax breaks for business use. F&%k that. If you want to buy an EV they pay for it yourself. Once again, if they are that great then people will pay for them. I didn't see the government dishing out grants for £1200 smart phones that we didn't need and yet just 15 years later we all have them.




There's one in this thread.



But pollution there be, somewhere else maybe but still there.
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But thats not how people work.

We could develop a 'water car', fill it with your garden hose. Early tech would mean this is still too much for most to buy. If there are no breaks it will mean most can't afford, supply will not massively increase so cost remains high. Now a water car would be great for all, but help will be needed to get it embedded. The same way governments bribe people to get solar panels, apprenticeships etc
 
cambsno said:
But thats not how people work.

We could develop a 'water car', fill it with your garden hose. Early tech would mean this is still too much for most to buy. If there are no breaks it will mean most can't afford, supply will not massively increase so cost remains high. Now a water car would be great for all, but help will be needed to get it embedded. The same way governments bribe people to get solar panels, apprenticeships etc
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Most people can't afford an EV even with grants. Soon they won't be able to afford a used diesel either.
 
ecoleman said:
Most people can't afford an EV even with grants. Soon they won't be able to afford a used diesel either.
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Yeah, that's the problem with mass personal transport allowed by cheap fossil fuel. Eventually it has to end, and the weaning off it is painful.
 
ecoleman said:
Most people can't afford an EV even with grants. Soon they won't be able to afford a used diesel either.
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Suggest you check out Cinch as an example - used EV from 8k.

Had a Quick Look at Motorpoint and Cinch - 2021 Electric Corsa is 10.5k. Fuel Corsa of similar mileage from 2019 is 10k.

Granted, thats a small survey and not checked out the specific differences but as near as damn it the same price.

Sure, if your budget is 2k then its not a lot of use but 8k is not an unreasonable budget for many people
 
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