EV owners to pay Tax.....

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Carlton green
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Joined: 22 Jun 2019, 12:27pm

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Carlton green »

Tangled Metal wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 9:05pm Forgot to say, the greenest car n is the one you don't get! If you get one then IMHO you should pay tax whatever n you want to call that tax doesn't matter. What matters most is to encouraging lower vehicle ownership through various push pull methods. Higher tax on vehicles through to making alternatives work better and a culture change. Pipedream that is.
Quite. though for many people not having a car results in massively hobbling them and that cannot be reasonable or sustainable behaviour - it’s certainly not a vote winner either. I was chatting to a Grandparent earlier today, they would be driving sixty miles today on school runs. At one time a public service bus was available for the school run, but it no longer is. The children go to the next nearest town because our own schools here are poor, there are worse though.

If we want to get people out of their cars then the best way to do so is by making public transport so attractive than no sane person would want to get about in their own car.

Next up is getting people out of big cars (whether electric or fossil fuel) and into ones that provide essential mobility. We need to cap the size, weight and power of cars.

The thought that EV’s are the only way to go hides their downsides; if I buy another car within the next few years then it’ll likely be something small, something second hand and something with a small petrol engine. I might be wrong but I reckon that a modern IC engine car is good for 20 years and 200,000 miles of use and that’s at least two sets of very expensive batteries for an electric vehicle.

Taxing Electric cars makes sense, well it does once you take the hype away and realise that they are luxury items sold to the well off.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Nearholmer
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Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Nearholmer »

This is all going off in the slightly odd direction of viewing tax as a punishment.

Yes, tax can be used in that way, as a dissuader, although that seldom actually works as intended (see fags, booze etc), but its prime purpose is to raise funds to pay for things. The conundrum here is that, if EVs aren't taxed, and the electricity to feed them isnt taxed, two huge income streams, road tax and fuel duty, simply disappear over the coming c20 years with the internal combustion engine. So, what then is to make up that hole in the finances?

Whether the tax falls as an annual road fund licence, mileage duty, some complex congestion-banded duty designed to knock temporal or local peaks out of the usage profile, or by a toll on every third child born on a tuesday, the money has to come from somewhere ........ otherwise we won't be able to afford whatever it pays for now (roads presumably, although I dont think it is strictly hypothecated).

Having no tax on EVs was only ever an "introductory offer", to get people to buy them. The introductory offer is about to end, it seems.
Biospace
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Joined: 24 Jun 2019, 12:23pm

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Biospace »

reohn2 wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 5:03pm
Denis99 wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 4:35pm And of course, everyone knows just how recyclable a blown up ICE engine is.
How often do ICE engines blow up these days if serviced regularly?
They don't - unless serviced incorrectly or run outside their intended use. Manufacturers long ago realised that a poor engine means a poor reputation, they end the life of their products prematurely much more subtly.

geocycle wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 5:23pm an EV in Norway using HEP will cover its carbon costs quicker than one in Germany with more fossil fuels.
True, and there is also the consideration of the existing average ICEv efficiency in a given nation. The USA's notoriously inefficient home-brewed vehicles come to mind - replacing a 6 litre V8 with any EV is going to be a good thing, even with a carbon-heavy grid.

geocycle wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 5:23pm Particulates from tyres and brakes comprise about half the particulate pollution, so it was recently argued that heavier EVs would contribute more from tyres, but a range rover comes in at 2.5 tonnes, more than most EVs (1.8 tonnes for a tesla) and do we really need so many range rovers. Again it depends on how the calculation is made.
The estimate of 50/50 exhaust/non-exhaust PM pollution was made in academic papers written in 2013 when the average exhaust was a lot dirtier than it is today.

A Tesla Model X weights over 2300kg. Their crazy acceleration and poor suspension mean tyres wear even faster than on a RR, which means tyre-wise alone, they are a huge environmental hazard. The 'cheap' Model 3 is only slightly less awful in its tyre consumption.

Stevek76 wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 7:51pm Er li ion batteries can be properly recycled
Is this EV batteries? I'd love to read about this.

ANTONISH wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 6:20pm it isn't just the emission of CO2 which is the problem.
Precisely, but this is what the masses had been brainwashed with. And the financial markets love it, since it can be traded. EVs are going to do more harm to the planet than what they will replace, unless the idea that rapid acceleration and huge, heavy vehicles are something to aspire to is turned on its head pdq.


Cars need to grow narrower, lighter and less powerful. The perception of more size and more power being a good thing should be sat on, it's a Neanderthal concept. Speed has always entranced human brains, but originally it was an indicator of efficiency, which is what really excites more intelligent thinking. On quiet roads, speed might have been good fun, today quiet roads are almost non-existant. There are other ways to make a vehicle good fun.
Stevek76
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Joined: 28 Jul 2015, 11:23am

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Stevek76 »

Not sure why car batteries would be any different to any other li ion battery regarding recycling, other than as large pre made packs they can do some reuse in other areas first. Extracting the metals out is not tricky, though it is largely just the metals that are recycled at the moment as far as I'm aware.
Nearholmer wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 10:13pm Yes, tax can be used in that way, as a dissuader, although that seldom actually works as intended (see fags, booze etc), but its prime purpose is to raise funds to pay for things.
Is it? Or is it rather to pull money back out of circulation as inflation control? The government spent £bns during covid just through printing.

Regardless it's, for the most part, very effective as a dissuader in most areas and certainly one of those is regarding transport choices. The effectiveness of measures like Nottingham's workplace parking levy and London's congestion charge and ulez are well documented.
Carlton green wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 9:50pm If we want to get people out of their cars then the best way to do so is by making public transport so attractive than no sane person would want to get about in their own car.
Carrots only are not effective
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9622002200
It's also not practical in the real world. Partly because it's physically impossible to make public transport that attractive while it's stuck behind all the cars, there will have to be sticks whether its in the form of charges or roadspace reallocation. But also because cars have a significant attractiveness factor that means even when public transport is the rational choice it won't be made unless it is really significantly/impossibly better.
I was chatting to a Grandparent earlier today, they would be driving sixty miles today on school runs. At one time a public service bus was available for the school run, but it no longer is. The children go to the next nearest town because our own schools here are poor, there are worse though.
At that same 'one time' the buses existed* people didn't/couldn't elect to go to a school miles away. Transport costs feed into long term as well as short term and the choice to get into a situation of 60 miles of school runs is viable partly because they're not paying anywhere near the full cost of that trip. If they'd been paying a fair price then perhaps they'd have chosen differently. I certainly can't see those choices as reasonable and sustainable behaviour. Not to mention someone driving 60 miles a day isn't exactly hard up.

Also regarding a vote winner, depends where you are. Certainly in urban areas, particularly the central parts, those opposing 'anti-car' measures have rarely done well at elections. Much bark, little bite. This does tend to lead to friction with more suburban parts though.

*Actually they still exist, councils have an obligation to provide transport to children more than 2/3 miles from the nearest suitable school
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
pete75
Posts: 16370
Joined: 24 Jul 2007, 2:37pm

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by pete75 »

Carlton green wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 9:50pm
Tangled Metal wrote: 14 Nov 2022, 9:05pm Forgot to say, the greenest car n is the one you don't get! If you get one then IMHO you should pay tax whatever n you want to call that tax doesn't matter. What matters most is to encouraging lower vehicle ownership through various push pull methods. Higher tax on vehicles through to making alternatives work better and a culture change. Pipedream that is.
Quite. though for many people not having a car results in massively hobbling them and that cannot be reasonable or sustainable behaviour - it’s certainly not a vote winner either. I was chatting to a Grandparent earlier today, they would be driving sixty miles today on school runs. At one time a public service bus was available for the school run, but it no longer is. The children go to the next nearest town because our own schools here are poor, there are worse though.

If we want to get people out of their cars then the best way to do so is by making public transport so attractive than no sane person would want to get about in their own car.

Next up is getting people out of big cars (whether electric or fossil fuel) and into ones that provide essential mobility. We need to cap the size, weight and power of cars.

The thought that EV’s are the only way to go hides their downsides; if I buy another car within the next few years then it’ll likely be something small, something second hand and something with a small petrol engine. I might be wrong but I reckon that a modern IC engine car is good for 20 years and 200,000 miles of use and that’s at least two sets of very expensive batteries for an electric vehicle.

Taxing Electric cars makes sense, well it does once you take the hype away and realise that they are luxury items sold to the well off.
That's ridiculous. Time was when schools had a catchment area and children went to the local school. That system should be reintroduced, it would cut down on a lot of congestion and pollution.

Our local town has a reputation for good schools and if parents don't apply early enough the children don't get in. There's the ridiculous situation of kids from a town 12 miles away coming to a school here and local kids who haven't got a place going to a school in the 12 mile away town.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Carlton green
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Joined: 22 Jun 2019, 12:27pm

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Carlton green »

In a way it’s thread drift but regardless of EV or IC engined folk tend to drive a lot more than should be needed. We all know the answer to that is to take away the needs to travel.

One of my kids is bright, the local school was just about to go into special measures so for sixth form that child was chauffeured elsewhere (local car share). Said child achieved excellent A level grades, gained social skills, ended up in a decent Uni and now has a good job. Said child’s life course would have been hobbled by the local school and we should never have been put in the position of seeing our child significantly disadvantaged by a local school - two changes of Head Teacher later and it’s now going in the right direction. Parents are faced with pragmatic choices and sometimes ones that are personally unpalatable and expensive.

Homes should be built near to employment and places of work near to homes, likewise facilities like shops, schools and parks. Constantly the need to travel should be reduced. Personally I’m inclined to think that as a country we need to look much more holistically about the way we live.

With regard to personal transport I think that we need to go back several decades to the 1960’s when 60 mph was very fast, few people had cars, annual mileages were low, and people didn’t expect to travel far. When people travelling a distance got on a coach to do so and when holidays were spent either at home or in a nearby seaside resort - and certainly not abroad. If you need a car then let it be a modern version - but still slow - of a Morris Minor, likewise if you have a motorcycle then let it’s power be constrained to the current 125cc learner limits.
Last edited by Carlton green on 15 Nov 2022, 8:14am, edited 2 times in total.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Nearholmer
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Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Nearholmer »

With regard to personal transport I think that we need to go back several decades to the 1960’s when 60 mph was very fast, few people had cars, annual mileages were low, and people didn’t expect to travel far. When people travelling a distance got on a coach to do so and when holidays were spent either at home or in a nearby seaside resort - and certainly not abroad.
We probably need to do all of those things for sustainability reasons, but there are two huge difficulties:

- over the intervening sixty years the entire country has been physically and mentally re-shaped to operate in an entirely different, very heavily motor vehicle (lorries and vans as well as cars) dependant way; and,

- it’s an incredibly difficult prospect to sell to the population, even if anyone wanted to sell it, and hardly anyone does, because so many vested interests are tied up in how things are …… the usual ‘turning a super-tanker’ analogy doesn’t even get close to expressing how much inertia there is in the system.

Personally, I’m not hugely optimistic that the necessary can or will be done.
Carlton green
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Joined: 22 Jun 2019, 12:27pm

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Carlton green »

Nearholmer wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 8:07am
With regard to personal transport I think that we need to go back several decades to the 1960’s when 60 mph was very fast, few people had cars, annual mileages were low, and people didn’t expect to travel far. When people travelling a distance got on a coach to do so and when holidays were spent either at home or in a nearby seaside resort - and certainly not abroad.
We probably need to do all of those things for sustainability reasons, but there are two huge difficulties:

- over the intervening sixty years the entire country has been physically and mentally re-shaped to operate in an entirely different, very heavily motor vehicle (lorries and vans as well as cars) dependant way; and,

- it’s an incredibly difficult prospect to sell to the population, even if anyone wanted to sell it, and hardly anyone does, because so many vested interests are tied up in how things are …… the usual ‘turning a super-tanker’ analogy doesn’t even get close to expressing how much inertia there is in the system.

Personally, I’m not hugely optimistic that the necessary can or will be done.
Completely agree, but one has to have something to aim for or towards.

The younger generation, and us older folk too, are often more open to green ideas … but maybe that’s the view from within my circle or bubble. I think it a matter of social education. It’s also a matter of national security in that being structurally dependent on transport fuels and devices from overseas renders you rather vulnerable. Gas and electi bills will be high this year and does anyone remember how the roads emptied when the refineries went on strike?

About forty years ago we still had trolley buses. No foreign fossil fuel there and the buses were UK made like the electricity that powered them. Rail electrification is well established and again the electricity powering it can be green and can be UK made. Such infrastructure isn’t universal but it still makes us more resilient and it also reminds us of what is possible.
Last edited by Carlton green on 15 Nov 2022, 8:41am, edited 1 time in total.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
pwa
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Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by pwa »

Carlton green wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 7:57am
...Homes should be built near to employment and places of work near to homes, likewise facilities like shops, schools and parks. Constantly the need to travel should be reduced. Personally I’m inclined to think that as a country we need to look much more holistically about the way we live. ...
My wife and I have always tried to have jobs close to home. But in practice, that is not as simple as it sounds. Firstly, most people live as part of a household that want to stay together, but it can be that not all members of the household can get or keep a job in their profession that is close to home. Some will have jobs that involve going to one site on Monday, and another site on Tuesday. Some will have had a job close by at one point, but have had their employer relocate to a new premises a bit further away. Some will have a job at a hospital in an area of a city where they cannot afford to have a nice home. And all this happens while the children are established in schools and you don't want to disrupt their lives by relocating every couple of years. The days when everyone could bank on having a job for life at one big employer at the mill at the end of the street are gone.
Last edited by pwa on 15 Nov 2022, 8:40am, edited 1 time in total.
Nearholmer
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Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Nearholmer »

My observation, again only based on those around me, is that youngsters are good on all this, and the ones the world is reliant upon, but that they then get snared into the “current model” once they get to the “house, job and children” stage …… the natural desire to have a family and bring children up in as much comfort and advantage as possible acts as a sort of temporary blinder.

Those whose children have grown and left then seem to fall into two quite distinct camps:

- green and frugal, or is it frugal and green, either for practical reasons of lack of money or for intellectual reasons, or a bit of each; and,

- pretty much couldn’t give a monkeys, because I’ve worked all my life for some luxuries, and I’ll be dead soon anyway, so it isn’t my problem.

(there are some “middle ground” older people, but it surprises me how many fall into the second group, with no regard to the lives their descendants are inheriting.
pwa
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Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by pwa »

Nearholmer wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 8:39am My observation, again only based on those around me, is that youngsters are good on all this, and the ones the world is reliant upon, but that they then get snared into the “current model” once they get to the “house, job and children” stage …… the natural desire to have a family and bring children up in as much comfort and advantage as possible acts as a sort of temporary blinder.

Those whose children have grown and left then seem to fall into two quite distinct camps:

- green and frugal, or is it frugal and green, either for practical reasons of lack of money or for intellectual reasons, or a bit of each; and,

- pretty much couldn’t give a monkeys, because I’ve worked all my life for some luxuries, and I’ll be dead soon anyway, so it isn’t my problem.

(there are some “middle ground” older people, but it surprises me how many fall into the second group, with no regard to the lives their descendants are inheriting.
Frugal and green because you can't afford anything else! I like that :lol:
Carlton green
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Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Carlton green »

pwa wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 8:38am
Carlton green wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 7:57am
...Homes should be built near to employment and places of work near to homes, likewise facilities like shops, schools and parks. Constantly the need to travel should be reduced. Personally I’m inclined to think that as a country we need to look much more holistically about the way we live. ...
My wife and I have always tried to have jobs close to home. But in practice, that is not as simple as it sounds. Firstly, most people live as part of a household that want to stay together, but it can be that not all members of the household can get or keep a job in their profession that is close to home. Some will have jobs that involve going to one site on Monday, and another site on Tuesday. Some will have had a job close by at one point, but have had their employer relocate to a new premises a bit further away. Some will have a job at a hospital in an area of a city where they cannot afford to have a nice home. And all this happens while the children are established in schools and you don't want to disrupt their lives by relocating every couple of years. The days when everyone could bank on having a job for life at one big employer at the mill at the end of the street are gone.
Completely agree, and I’ve been there and got the tea shirt. I see the next generation down from me with exactly those problems too.

Part of the issue is over centralIsation and part of the issue is the specialist nature of employment. If people couldn’t travel as far then employers would have to be more willing to retrain the staff that they could get and to let others work remotely. There are no easy answers but there are workable answers that could be part of a practical mix.

Anyway we drift off of topic so perhaps a return to it is in order.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Stevek76
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Joined: 28 Jul 2015, 11:23am

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Stevek76 »

Nearholmer wrote: 15 Nov 2022, 8:07am Personally, I’m not hugely optimistic that the necessary can or will be done.
I'd be inclined to agree with that because opinion, particularly in substantial subsections of labour which is key while we're stuck with FPTP, tends to be similar to Carlton's. An acknowledgement that the problem exists and something should be done about it but a reluctance to actually do anything that might actually be effective. A fantasy belief in carrot only solutions that are neither possible nor theoretically effective even if they could be implemented.

The simple nub of this is that car ownership and driving is far too cheap and a classic 'tragedy of the commons' has resulted. The solutions to this can be either market oriented (charge more), regulation oriented (restrict/apportion usage) or some mix of both, but either way you slice it, the utility (in the economic sense) of driving has to come down.
it’s an incredibly difficult prospect to sell to the population, even if anyone wanted to sell it, and hardly anyone does, because so many vested interests are tied up in how things are
I think you're overstating this, though it depends on locality, opponents measures rebalancing transport away from cars typically manage to evoke a far larger presence across the news, social media and in politicians' minds than they have in reality. We saw this in local results in several cities, not just London where inaction or opposition to such measures are punished and bold action is rewarded.

Obviously the dreary car dependent suburban sprawl that exists in places (e.g. most of the south east outside the M25) is a thornier issue to unpick.
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
Tangled Metal
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Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by Tangled Metal »

There's a used to be decent train route to Manchester from Barrow. All along the line there's effectively commuters going either way plus people heading out to Manchester Airport or coming back from their.

We're nearer the Barrow end but still only an hour to Manchester and you can get £9 return tickets at close to commuting times too. Know your workforce flow and you can end up with public transport that works. Then you just need reliable train operators, lessons to be learnt there Northern!

BTW lots of high school kids use it to get to school. Some go to Lancaster then out to Kirkby Lonsdale by bus to go to school. Quite a journey! The train is a good school transport option whether to Lancaster or more into Cumbria.

My point being there's probably a few such regional routes that work well enough to leave your car behind or even get rid in favour of a hire car when you have no choice. EVs are still not better than a good public transportation even if the latter is rarer and rarer in the UK these days
thirdcrank
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Joined: 9 Jan 2007, 2:44pm

Re: EV owners to pay Tax.....

Post by thirdcrank »

Is this a case study of the dark arts of spin?

What looks like an unattributed policy is floated buried in a broader Daily Mail article and it's already being discussed as though it were gospel. We're getting Trip to Bangor (And all for under a pound you know) with possibly turnpikes to come.

I fancy with things like this, the politicians behind it look for the responses: the level of ire provoked compared with level of indifference or approval. Beyond that, if it is coming, then those who will lose out are already softened up
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