TOT Electric cars will be cheaper to run

How?

Bill

They'll put a pink dye in the cheaper domestic electricity - and you'd better not get caught with any of it in your car!

By requiring separate metering to charge your car. How else?

A smart meter doesn?t know what electricity is used for, just how much and when.

Tim

Still not going to stop folk plugging in to a standard 13amp socket.

Tim

It really isn't rocket science. Where there's the will there will be a way.

Nor will it stop people bypassing the meter altogether

Since the price of liquid fuels bears no relationship to the material cost, anybody in control can dial that spreadsheet to any condition they want. And, at any time.

If you want to know what the price of liquid fuels is really like, look at the prices the people in Venezuela used to pay.

Here, we have a Carbon Tax, and a promise that liquid fuels and natural gas, will only get more expensive with time.

Paul

And there's also often a way to avoid the tax.

As discussed before, you can't easily enforce a tax on EV charging unless the /car/ enforces it - e.g. the car refuses to accept charge from a source that doesn't pass a security handshake as "tax certified" or the car itself reports what it has received. Good luck persuading makers to play ball unless there is international agreement on the need and the technical standards.

And that still leaves the problem (noted by the IFS et al) of getting the public to accept a higher price for electriivty for cars than for luxuries such as patio heaters and hot tubs.

It will be sold on convenience. The alternative will always be public transport. It is aimed at those who can afford it. After paying £x,000 + insurance + other costs, electricity charges will be a relatively small consideration, as indeed we are told tax on fuel is now. And how else will roads be paid for, or health, or education.

Patio Heaters and hot tubs don't use roads.

It doesn't work if the meter is bypassed illegally either.

It doesn't work if the meter is bypassed illegally either.

It doesn't work if the meter is bypassed illegally either.

I thought your imagination would fail you.

Perhaps in a country many thousands of miles from the UK you've never probably heard of a house having more than one meter.

Where there's a will to fiddle there'll be a way to fiddle. Gadgets will appear. The market always provides.

Bill

In this part of the world, New Zealand, non petrol powered vehicles pay road user tax. This pays for the upkeep of the state highways. Some of it is also used to subdise the other roads.

The two amounts are near enough to equal.

But that is clearly illegal and dangerous. Plugging into a 13 amp socket isn?t.

Tim

Could be, could be, could be, but not at present. None of these would stop folk using the humble granny lead in a 13 amp socket.

Tim

I suspect that by then geocharging the user will be the way things are done. IE all cars have a gps, and can be tracked and you get a car tax on how much you use it and how far you go in it, Some roads where you can go will no doubt be more costly than others. Brian

Don't assume that the price of electricity, for any use, is going to stay as low as it is now. Going green does NOT mean cheap energy. Possibly we will go back to the domestic tariffs of a lower price for the first x units and a higher price per unit for the rest - easily achieved with the use of smart meters.

In the UK we also pay an annual road fund tax, an insurance tax and a fuel tax (60p/litre plus 20% on the total) which pays for roads, the NHS and whatever else the government spends money on. The taxes are not ring fenced for roads. Increasingly in cities there is also a congestion tax. Currently "green" vehicles pay a lot less road tax and are exempt from extra taxes on fuel (electricity from the grid) in an effort to persuade people to go green and take-up the use of electric vehicles. There are also tax advantages in buying EVs, especially for businesses.

If by 2035/2050 the most people are driving electric cars then much of what the UK driving population pays in the way of motoring taxes will disappear if the level of taxation on EV vehicles stays at the current level. The green lobby seems to think taxation on EVs will remain the same for the next 35 to 50 years, common sense suggests otherwise.

My guess the equivalent tax revenue will be from increased road fund tax on EVs and perhaps road pricing.