UK Ends Subsidies for Electric Cars
gov.uk
gov.uk
Of course some of that could be driven by the fact that it currently costs about 1/10th the price to fuel up an electric car vs. a petrol car (at least in London).
Can you provide some data for that claim. Are we talking cost per mile travelled eg like for like?
With today's price it would be 16p/mi for petrol. Their optimal May electricity price gives 1.88p/mi.
https://www.whichev.net/2022/05/13/is-it-cheaper-to-drive-an...
Very roughly, UK prices are ~£0.2/kwh electrity and ~£2/litre of petrol. Per mile I make that £0.2 for petrol vs £0.045 for electric. Although you could probably get to the 1/10th figure if you always charged on the super-off-peak EV tarrifs.
In previous times they used to offer a tariff called economy 7 which worked in conjunction with so-called storage heaters. They would charge during off-peak times and provide heat during more active hours. (disclaimer, I've never lived in a property on such a scheme but definitely saw a few in my student days)
At $5/gal and 20mpg, you'll pay $7.50 for 30 miles.
I imagine a government would want to prioritize the highest impact action.
I would have thought an e-bike would actually have more use in Devon, than in a relatively flat city like London.
Not to forget the advantages of ten times less road maintenance, ten times more throughput, ten times less parking requirements, more social contact, ten times less energy consumption than an electric car, and on and on.
The main thing I've noticed here in slightly hilly Leuven, Belgium, is that so many more people I would never have seen on a human powered bike will actually use ebikes.
If you're a believer in government steering citizens to make the right decision, stimulating ebike use certainly makes sense. If in doubt, you might want to think about the war going on with one of our main energy suppliers.
Ending subsidies seems counterproductive.
For public charging the rate is several times more than 5p/kWh, equalising the numbers somewhat.
though note that thats retail charging, home charging is half that (about £0.25p per 4 miles)
Electric cars are cheap enough now anyway that the subsidies don't really make sense, they've done their job establishing a market but keeping the subsidy in place now is just a distortion pushing nominal prices up.
The current Vehicle Excise Duty is based on the amount of pollutants emitted by the vehicle - https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/... - so electric vehicles still receive tax demands (albeit for zero).
Electricity to refuel cars is subject to VAT (at 5%).
Buying an historical car is very cost effective - easy to fix yourself, no tax, etc
I think we should get out of the habit of buying new stuff every few years. There’s something pretty amazing about driving a car that is decades old.
Once the risks of dementia get close, I'll join you in the world of thin A-pillars, but I wouldn't call that good general advice!
In all other regards you are correct though, there is VAT to be paid on electricity, and electric vehicles must be registered for tax even though they don't have to pay.
It's an error to assume that people call taxes by what they pay for, the common name of a tax is what makes you liable for it. Income tax is paid when you earn income, insurance tax is paid when you take out an insurance policy, road tax is charged if you want to take your vehicle on the roads.
'plenty of vehicles' is also just bicycles and carts AFAIK, any other vehicle requires registration and tax (even if the rate is £0). In any case, it doesn't matter that not all road users pay road tax, we still call income tax as such even though not all earners pay it!
As an aside, I don't own a car and in fact prefer to cycle; I simply object to a factually incorrect and nonsensical prescriptivist campaign against how normal people speak.
This seems to be the biggest issue around EV's right now. Everyone has goals set for EV adoption but I think the Achilles heel of all of this will be charging infra.
As long as it doesn't take the form the broadband companies had.
not really, it's actually quite in line with other European countries, both per capita, and as a % of GDP:
Next, using analysis based on per capita, % of GDP, etc — hides the truth, UK’s subsidies by total amount spent are significant to the industry.
actually it’s the opposite to “hiding the truth”.
my link shows UK’s subsidising oil and gas is actually quite in line with the rest of Europe.
total sums are quite irrelevant and they hide the truth. that is why all of these papers show gdp % and per capita, not total sums. i think the reason is quite obvious.
From the perspective of managing climate change, per capita analysis makes it easier to hide overall significance of the subsidies; aka 10k pop with 1k in subsidies on a per capita basis would be equivalent to 100k pop with 10k in subsidies; killing the 10k in subsidies of the 100k pop country would have 10x the impact on the industry.
This is not about being fair to countries, it’s about having as much impact as fast as possible.
Completely batshit. If the treasury wants to give poor people £5B it can just do that, but by instead reducing taxes on petrol (foregoing revenue of £5B) you're not giving that money to poor people but to whoever buys fuel and whoever they're buying it from. Sure enough of course said ex-colleague has a big inefficient car, and so this would suit them fine and they can pretend it's because they're concerned about "ordinary families".
I've got a car on PCP which is due to finish, I'll be taking out a loan to finance the rest of it, normally I would look at upgrading, but I love my diesel and they no longer offer the engine for my model. So going for an electric vehicle is too expensive for me, I've got a baby, moved house, last thing I want to be doing is spending more on a car. I'm sure they are are many people out there who feel the same, now is not the time to get a new car.
I'd love an electric car, but it's just out of reach and lower down my priorities
Just a thought.
Some German auto dealers are skirting the law by buying EVs, getting the money from the two incentives while keeping the car sitting for some time, then selling it abroad for a bit less than it costs to buy it there.
I can't see how the UK can have 30%+ EV cars by 2030 at the current rate of development.
Plug-in grant for cars to end as focus moves to improving electric vehicle charging