Pay Per Mile

[Bper]

 

It seems that Car tax plans for EVs to pay per mile is becoming ever nearer as a number of groups including TFL are now raising this on a regular basis in the media. What do you think and is this a fair system or yet another burden on the motorists to raise more revenue.

[Cyker]

If they abolished all on-going car taxes, i.e. VAT, fuel tax and VED, and priced it reasonably, then I could consider it, but given how untrustworthy the powers that be have proven to be so far I'd rather stick with what we've got - If they force this through, it just opens the door for them to jack it up every time they want new duck house, or use it to track everyone so they know what roads to block up to cause maximum congestion.

At this point I'd rather just have them all shot and use the money we save from not paying their wages, expenses and pet projects to reduce the deficit.

[Bper]

47 minutes ago, Cyker said:

If they abolished all on-going car taxes, i.e. VAT, fuel tax and VED, and priced it reasonably, then I could consider it, but given how untrustworthy the powers that be have proven to be so far I'd rather stick with what we've got - If they force this through, it just opens the door for them to jack it up every time they want new duck house, or use it to track everyone so they know what roads to block up to cause maximum congestion.

At this point I'd rather just have them all shot and use the money we save from not paying their wages, expenses and pet projects to reduce the deficit.

Well I think the points you raise are widely shared and of course opposition will oppose this but depending on the outcome of the court cases on ULEZ this will set the president for a number of other measures which will be coming in due course. 

It is a very effective way to raise revenue for councils and government as will the 15 minute cities. We should all brace ourselves for big change with future motoring costs.

[Roy124]

But how do you implement it?  

The ULEZ in London uses cameras to log and charge non compliant vehicles.  Apparently only 1 in 10 is non compliant.  What is the cost/revenue balance?  As more vehicles become compliant you will arrive at a point where costs are way out of proportion. 

How are EV miles going to be monitored?  

[Bper]

A number of systems have been looked at for driver tracking these would include global positioning satellite- based telematics along with black box, smartphone,and the likely camara ANP.

the cross- party Transport Select Committee warned that unless the UK began to act now on the issue of road pricing, it would stand to loose as annual £28 billion in fuel duty as well as £7 billion in Vehicle Excise Duty, creating a budget black hole which would need to be filled by higher income tax.

The committee has recommended that road charges entirely replace fuel and vehicle excise duties rather than being added to them, and the system should be revenue neutral, it said, with motorists paying the same or less than they do currently.

Taking into account those drivers who need their vehicles more than others, the report has recommended that any legislation in the area considers the impact on “vulnerable groups” (disabled drivers, for example) or those “in the most rural areas”.

The committee called for the system to be “dynamic” meaning that charges could vary depending on the time of day, the area in which people are driving and the type of vehicle being driven with the aim of modifying the future behaviour of drivers.

[Roy124]

I would go for dynamic road pricing being retired so can chose my time of travel. 

I can't see any Government turning off revenue streams from excise duties and road tax.  Running road pricing in parallel gives them 3 switches. 

They get tax from buying new cars, get money from occasional users, get money from drivers. 

Dropping purchase tax, and VAT, would wreck second hand car prices. Stopping road tax would mean cars dropping off the radar.  

[Cyker]

21 hours ago, Roy124 said:

But how do you implement it?  

The ULEZ in London uses cameras to log and charge non compliant vehicles.  Apparently only 1 in 10 is non compliant.  What is the cost/revenue balance?  As more vehicles become compliant you will arrive at a point where costs are way out of proportion. 

How are EV miles going to be monitored?  

This is why I get paranoid that it's a conspiracy of some sort - The government want to fit trackers to all cars (No doubt at our expense, and will likely sell all that data to other companies as an additional revenue stream), with per mile charging as a pretext.

However, that pretext is just as false as the ULEZ pretext being about pollution - There is absolutely no need for a GPS tracker when they could just use MOT mileages, which would be simpler and cheaper to implement. But this approach hasn't been considered at all and they're really gunning for these trackers.

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

9 minutes ago, Cyker said:

when they could just use MOT mileages

Not so workable when one considers MOTs are currently due when the vehicle reaches 3 years of age, and may  be moved to 4. Do you want to be faced with 4 years back tax?

.... and if one changes vehicle every 3 years or so before the MOT is due .......?

[FROSTYBALLS]

Think the only way pay-per-mile would work would be a staggered introduction. Vehicles first registered from a set date would have GPS trackers, with older vehicles continuing on a revamp of the present system.

[Roy124]

6 minutes ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

... and if one changes vehicle every 3 years or so before the MOT is due .......?

Or you stay with the current system with 'wealth' related first year tax, a similar rate for years 2, 3 and 4 followed by per mile at the 5 year MOT. 

Those that 'evade' the wealth tax or don't buy a second new car pay the per mile rate. 

What ever scheme gives the best revenue stream whilst preserving DVLA job schemes will be chosen. 

[Cyker]

28 minutes ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

Not so workable when one considers MOTs are currently due when the vehicle reaches 3 years of age, and may  be moved to 4. Do you want to be faced with 4 years back tax?

.... and if one changes vehicle every 3 years or so before the MOT is due .......?

They already did similar things with with the VED to encourage people to buy newer 'cleaner' cars; This would just be a stronger carrot for that, and would net them a much higher amount of tasty VAT tax for regular car buyers.

Anyway, that is a non-problem - Changing the MOT to apply from year 1 would solve this easily and still be easier and cheaper to implement than forcing draconian trackers onto everyone.

Face it - There is just no justification for forcing GPS trackers on everyone; It's just a cynical ploy by them to sell your data to Google and the like. The upkeep cost on the system to log all of this data, plus the privacy issues would be unimaginably terrible and yet more waste of tax payer money that could be used for doing positive things for our society instead of pushing us closer towards 1984.

The proposed make-the-MOT-start-from-year-4 idiocy also goes in the face of all their claims that safety is their priority - I personally think there should be no exemption for having a new car; If safety really is paramount, it should apply from the get go. But it isn't; How much money they can screw out of us is what is paramount and I'm sick of it.

If they actually used that money to visibly benefit society I'd be less opposed, but so far all they've done is cut back services and funding more and more - Where the hell is all the money going??

It's like they want a socialist system for the tax side but a conservative system for the spending side - This is unjustifiably unfair, you can't have it both ways.

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

1 minute ago, Cyker said:

Changing the MOT to apply from year 1 would solve this easily and still be easier and cheaper to implement than forcing draconian trackers onto everyone.

Which would also add to motorist costs - an additional £110 at current rates and the price will be more by the time pay-per-mile comes in. Plus Government will have to expand the current MOT network to cope with the additional work, and who will pay for that - indirectly the motorist, so more cost.

[Cyker]

Far less than what we'd pay to install and maintain a nation-wide GPS tracker network, and probably upgrades to the mobile phone system to cope with the extra telemetry traffic, and given the track record of such grandious systems (See the NHS and Post Office systems for example...) I suspect it would also cost us far more in wrongly-issued fines and penalties...

It's just a bad idea that does not benefit us at all, only them.

 

[Bper]

Insurance costs in theory should also drop as this would then operate on a pay per mile basis. This does happen already but not on this scale so those that drive less will pay less.

Reality may of course be different but it is also being tabled.

[Cyker]

Well this is part of the problem - Such data should not be given to private companies, but you bet they'll sell it to anyone willing to pay for it.

 

[Bper]

27 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Well this is part of the problem - Such data should not be given to private companies, but you bet they'll sell it to anyone willing to pay for it.

 

Isn't this how the conspiracy theory leading to the belief that the London congestion charge would become a reality one day.😅

[Cyker]

Aaaaaaa!   

[Roy124]

Insurance, drive less pay less is fine between, say, 5,000 mile driver and a 15,000 mile driver.  However the 1,000 mile a year, out of regular practise, might be deemed a higher risk. 

[FROSTYBALLS]

Going back to having an MOT in years 1 and 2, there were approx 1,900,000 new cars and vans purchased in the UK in 2022 - these figures are down compared to pre-Covid.

If MOTs were introduced when these vehicles reached 1 and 2 years of age, the MOT system would need to accommodate an extra 3,800,000 tests for those two years - more by the time pay-per-mile were introduced with the probable increase in new vehicle sales and increases in the cost of the MOT.

A total cost to vehicle owners of £208,230,000 at today's prices.

Some of this would result increased delivery costs for other items such as food, etc.

[Bper]

48 minutes ago, Roy124 said:

Insurance, drive less pay less is fine between, say, 5,000 mile driver and a 15,000 mile driver.  However the 1,000 mile a year, out of regular practise, might be deemed a higher risk. 

My general understanding of this would be that pay per mile driving would discourage many drivers that use their cars for unnecessary short journeys and would account for less cars on the road and for insurance less chance of an accident. The other side may encourage people to use the transport system for longer journeys and again less cars less chance of an accident.

Obviously longer journeys would require a transport system that is both affordable and reliable.

Insurance companies will be encouraged to lower prices as the system starts to role out.

However the down side is they will have to look to fill the gap in revenue and look at other ways to increase premiums by Perhaps raising home and building insurance, travel insurance, buisness, and general cover of all insurable items

Whatever they decide to do no doubt discussions have already taken place and a number of options will be considered.

[Cyker]

So 100 million a year spread across 2 million cars - This isn't that much in the grand scheme of things; For instance it's far less than what e.g. AdBlue has added to the total annual running costs of diesel vehicles.

Can you run similar figures for how much extra installing all these GPS systems in 2 million cars would cost us plus the planning, commissioning, and staffing and maintenance of the various new systems that would be requires to support the GPS-based system?

I suspect it would be in the billions, and that's just for the support systems; If past performance is anything to go by, the number of incorrectly issued fines and/or overcharging generated by the system would likely exceed your *total* projected extra MOT cost in the first year alone!

 

[Derek.w]

I presume you have a choice so you can just pay a yearly fixed fee.

[Bper]

6 minutes ago, Cyker said:

So 100 million a year spread across 2 million cars - This isn't that much in the grand scheme of things; For instance it's far less than what e.g. AdBlue has added to the total annual running costs of diesel vehicles.

Can you run similar figures for how much extra installing all these GPS systems in 2 million cars would cost us plus the planning, commissioning, and staffing and maintenance of the various new systems that would be requires to support the GPS-based system?

 

Cyker,

The answer to your question is very simple it is us that will pay for the whole shabbang. that's why its so important that this information and where this is heading gets out there.

It raises so many questions and the snippets that are released are done so to test the reaction of the public to understand how to role this out to acheive as little or no opposition as possible so they can get away with yet another milking from the preverbial cash cow us the motorist's. 

The more people are aware of this the more issues it raises as you can see in these few posts already and the number of concerns and frustrations which are brought up.

[Bper]

6 minutes ago, Derek.w said:

I presume you have a choice so you can just pay a yearly fixed fee.

No Derek, I do not think this will be an option unless of course you are able to give a annual milage that you will be using and then depending on what you have declared it may well increase your insurance and leave you with a higher per mile cost. 

[Derek.w]

Americans are going down a fixed fee for or at least some are wanting to go that way for EV and we usually copy them.