The Chancellor is set to lose out on billions

[Utumno]

Instead the EV charge point software reports the number of kW delivered to an EV, and the electricity company applies the duty. Or the car could, or both.

Every current “smart” charger does all of this already except link back to HM Treasure, so it seems a small step to simply charge a surcharge on the juice you put in the battery versus the duty paid at the pump.

This would be so easy to defeat and the public source EVSE chargers don't support this either. There are many home brew chargers out there and you could even wrap the thing in bacofoil to stop the cellular connections.

There’s plenty of ways around everything. I still suspect it’s more cost-effective to do this or something like it as a stepping stone toward the driver nightmare that road pricing will represent. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that at some point in the next few years the UK’s EV homologation process mandates charging history uploads from the car’s cellular connection without the user being able to soft block it.

Good luck wrapping your vehicle in Bacofoil.

[Splitty]

Instead the EV charge point software reports the number of kW delivered to an EV, and the electricity company applies the duty. Or the car could, or both.

Every current “smart” charger does all of this already except link back to HM Treasure, so it seems a small step to simply charge a surcharge on the juice you put in the battery versus the duty paid at the pump.

This would be so easy to defeat and the public source EVSE chargers don't support this either. There are many home brew chargers out there and you could even wrap the thing in bacofoil to stop the cellular connections.

There’s plenty of ways around everything. I still suspect it’s more cost-effective to do this or something like it as a stepping stone toward the driver nightmare that road pricing will represent. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that at some point in the next few years the UK’s EV homologation process mandates charging history uploads from the car’s cellular connection without the user being able to soft block it.

Good luck wrapping your vehicle in Bacofoil.

Well, you don't need to wrap your car in bacofoil, just the EV charger, besides, there are so many not spots that you could not possibly base a road tax system on this. And let's not forget solar EV charging, are you going to tax me for using sunlight??. The technology just isn't in place nor will it be and it is not enforceable (bacofoil or even remove SIM card from charger). The only solution is a road charging system which will also be fairer for all types of vehicle (BEV, PHEV, ICE, Bikes etc etc). And regards upload from the car, why would VW, TEsla etc do something special for just the UK????

[Utumno]

Just expressing an opinion. I certainly don’t have a fully costed solution, just that road pricing seems complex and costly to me.

What makes you think these changes would be specific to the UK market? The globe is facing the same challenges.

It’s interesting you assert that road pricing is “fairer”. How so? And fairer than what? And to whom?

[Splitty]

If you use a public resource such as a road you should expect to pay for its upkeep and future development, otherwise we will end up with dirt tracks. Everyone who uses a resource should contribute to its development and upkeep, the more you use it the more you should contribute. Right now cyclists, EV drivers and others don't contribute at all, I drive around 6000 miles per year, why should I pay the same as someone who does 15,000 or 30,000 miles per year or who drives a large heavy van?Some sort of classification like weight and distance travelled might be a fairer system than charging by the amount of CO2 a vehicle spews out.

And why did I think the UK? You said the that chargers log the use except having a link back to "HM Treasury" and you mentioned the "UK’s EV homologation process ". I simply responded to your suggestion that you were proposing a UK solution, the idea that all nations would agree on a common road charging scheme is also a bit difficult to imagine. And Car manufacturers might be persuaded to do something special for the UK, but at a price and it would not include legacy vehicles.

Right now there are plenty of insurance companies that have in car monitoring and it's not a huge leap to see how the same idea might be extended to road use charging, much more difficult to hack than relying on EV chargers and the same system could be used for all vehicles, not just BEV's.

[StuartT]

"Right now there are plenty of insurance companies that have in car monitoring and it's not a huge leap to see how the same idea might be extended to road use charging, much more difficult to hack than relying on EV chargers and the same system could be used for all vehicles, not just BEV's"
I was thinking along those lines as well. The biggest problem I can think of is collecting the revenue. People are used to paying their dues, every time they fill up with fuel; I don't think asking people to set up a monthly direct debit will be well received (unless there's other ways I haven't thought of? Probably...)
It's all above my pay grade and mental capacity, for me to lose too much sleep over it!

[365allthetime]

Road pricing isn't terribly convincing as a solution to me, it seems complex, costly and unreliable.

I'd suggest that the Exchequer will simply mandate that public chargers have a "EV Fuel Duty" slapped on every kW, and that home charging has a similar duty applied per kW by the electricity provider. This is pretty simple to do - the tech is already in the chargers - and people like Octopus are already doing "Intelligent" tariffs that basically do this in reverse. My own cynical take on this is that companies like Ionity are already charging what they think the price including duty will be, and are using this period of "no duty" to fund network expansion (or profit, depending ).

Thus the Treasury still gets its Fuel Duty eventually, it's just that the fuel happens to be electrons rather than hydrocarbons and duty will start being charged once the public infrastructure is up to snuff over time, and the technologies joined up to differentiate home electrons for vehicle versus everything else.

(For those then saying "but what about Granny chargers" etc; there will always be duty avoidance )

Surely your suggestion can only work if people use a specific tariff for home charging? We can't have a smart meter as they haven't implemented the WAN network required to enable smart meters to take half hourly readings in our neck of the woods. Which means we pay our standard KWh price for both our house and the car.

Yes, but it doesn’t have to be implemented over the smart meter network (Octopus Intelligent isn’t).

Instead the EV charge point software reports the number of kW delivered to an EV, and the electricity company applies the duty. Or the car could, or both.

Every current “smart” charger does all of this already except link back to HM Treasure, so it seems a small step to simply charge a surcharge on the juice you put in the battery versus the duty paid at the pump.

Of course nobody knows what’ll happen, I’m just throwing this out there!

I just looked on the octopus intelligent and it says you need a smart meter? Unless I’m misreading

[Utumno]

All interesting perspectives, thanks!

[Splitty]

The treasury raised £28 billion from fuel duty in 19/20 and on top of this there was VAT on top of the fuel. Then the road fund license (which we know isn't spent exclusively on roads) adds extra to the pot estimated to be north of £40 billion which represents about 5% of government revenue. So these taxes will need replacing. We as BEV drivers don't pay any of these right now which is a good incentive to get people to go electric, but as the OP pointed out this isn't sustainable. The Institute of fiscal studies (the IFS) suggests:

• The government needs to rethink how it taxes motoring. It should
  start now, before the revenue disappears and expectations of low-tax motoring
  become ingrained. It should lay out how it plans to tax low-emissions driving in the long
  term whilst incentivising the take-up of lower-emissions cars in the short term.

• A system of road pricing where charges vary by time and location is the best way
  to incorporate the costs of congestion into the prices paid by drivers. Such systems
  are technologically feasible and are used in a number of cities worldwide. Failing that –
  or, better, as a stepping stone towards it – the government could introduce a flat-rate
  tax per kilometre driven, which would at least continue to raise revenue and discourage
  driving once alternatively fuelled vehicles replace petrol and diesel ones.

While this isn't government policy, road pricing seems to be the preferred method, how the govt will enable this is still open for debate.

In other news:
In the near future many BEV's will offer two way battery functions, to be charged and to discharge to the grid much like a tesla Powerwall, making a car based system even more complex and therefore no need for Bacofoil....
Also did you clock the fact that Octopus have a Tesla/PV tariff? If you have a powerwall and a solar array, they will only charge you £0.11/Kwh and pay you £0.11/Kwh for any excess solar. They use your powerwall as grid storage like the two way charging feature above.

[Smitten]

Road pricing is used throughout Norway. Zero emission vehicles get a 50% to 100% discount in many places - but not all. You pay monthly by miles driven and vehicle type with the most polluting paying the most and so on. The system is call Autopass and each vehicle has a small electronic toll tag fixed in the windscreen which is picked up by the automated toll stations as you pass them. Also works for most ferries (and many of these are electric as well). To me it seems very fair and I would be happy to pay by use in the UK. Seems like a sensible approach for the UK as well with our crowded road system as you could have time of use tariffs like we do with electricity to spread traffic load for example. Might also help spread the load on the charging network.

www.autopass.no/en/payment/zeroemissionsvehicles

[Splitty]

Road pricing is used throughout Norway. Zero emission vehicles get a 50% to 100% discount in many places - but not all. You pay monthly by miles driven and vehicle type with the most polluting paying the most and so on. The system is call Autopass and each vehicle has a small electronic toll tag fixed in the windscreen which is picked up by the automated toll stations as you pass them. Also works for most ferries (and many of these are electric as well). To me it seems very fair and I would be happy to pay by use in the UK. Seems like a sensible approach for the UK as well with our crowded road system as you could have time of use tariffs like we do with electricity to spread traffic load for example. Might also help spread the load on the charging network.

www.autopass.no/en/payment/zeroemissionsvehicles

Looks like a great option and should work well, like the time of use idea

[G43FAN]

Road pricing is used throughout Norway. Zero emission vehicles get a 50% to 100% discount in many places - but not all. You pay monthly by miles driven and vehicle type with the most polluting paying the most and so on. The system is call Autopass and each vehicle has a small electronic toll tag fixed in the windscreen which is picked up by the automated toll stations as you pass them. Also works for most ferries (and many of these are electric as well). To me it seems very fair and I would be happy to pay by use in the UK. Seems like a sensible approach for the UK as well with our crowded road system as you could have time of use tariffs like we do with electricity to spread traffic load for example. Might also help spread the load on the charging network.

www.autopass.no/en/payment/zeroemissionsvehicles

250,000 miles of roads versus 11,000
32 million cars (registered) versus 3 million
67 million population versus 5.4 million

How much was track and Trace? £37 billion over 2 years. I might have to put a bid in for the UK Autopass system if it's happening.

[Splitty]

I'll go with you in with a joint bid...

Seriously though, London (inside north & south circular) already has the capability to turn this on just using number plate recognition. Then there are various toll roads and bridges already in place and of course the Govt has to do something. There are few choices, but road usage charging is the most obvious and the easiest to implement (if costly). New systems like the V2X technology that the VW range has pioneered (and other manufacturers are supporting) could also be an option but would likely take longer to deploy because of standards.

[Malcster]

As soon as some electronic device for road charging is installed.
There will be those who manage to bypass it/modify it etc

Petrol was an easy fix a few pence per litre for tax that way the old dear Down the road pays next to nothing for a trip to the shops once a fortnight
yet the 20k mile a year rep paid his fair share surprised it was never introduced

A similar scheme for ev cars would be the same principle per kw
You can't not pay it

[Smitten]

Road pricing is used throughout Norway. Zero emission vehicles get a 50% to 100% discount in many places - but not all. You pay monthly by miles driven and vehicle type with the most polluting paying the most and so on. The system is call Autopass and each vehicle has a small electronic toll tag fixed in the windscreen which is picked up by the automated toll stations as you pass them. Also works for most ferries (and many of these are electric as well). To me it seems very fair and I would be happy to pay by use in the UK. Seems like a sensible approach for the UK as well with our crowded road system as you could have time of use tariffs like we do with electricity to spread traffic load for example. Might also help spread the load on the charging network.

www.autopass.no/en/payment/zeroemissionsvehicles

250,000 miles of roads versus 11,000
32 million cars (registered) versus 3 million
67 million population versus 5.4 million

How much was track and Trace? £37 billion over 2 years. I might have to put a bid in for the UK Autopass system if it's happening.

Its basically software and computers are very good at repetitive high volume tasks unlike the very expensive human element in Track and Trace

Norway's road system is considerably larger than you suggest at 94,000km in 2009 https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/roa ... -data.html and they only have about 600 toll recording points so not all roads are toll charged only major arterial roads and cities. So less complex than you imagine.

Congestion zone in London uses ANPR system and that works fine - goodness knows what volume of traffic involved is there but millions of vehicles annually. It works. To me is doesn't sound hugely complicated.

At £307 million per mile or nearly £1 billion for 3 miles, HS2 looks like being a contractors dream come true! Maybe get a few bids in there before the gravy train runs out

[Splitty]

As soon as some electronic device for road charging is installed.
There will be those who manage to bypass it/modify it etc

Petrol was an easy fix a few pence per litre for tax that way the old dear Down the road pays next to nothing for a trip to the shops once a fortnight
yet the 20k mile a year rep paid his fair share surprised it was never introduced

A similar scheme for ev cars would be the same principle per kw
You can't not pay it

The problem with this approach is that there is no common or easy method to record EV Kwh used. There is no standard for EV manufacturers to comply with and there are many different EV charge standards with no common API's. EV Charge systems would also be easy to defeat (without being able to be tracked) and why should you pay an EV tax on fuel you produced (using solar/wind)?

There will continue to be a mix of car types on the road, already we have Petrol, Diesel, Propane, PHEV, BEV, Hydrogen etc. So a scheme is needed that treats all vehicle types in the same way and that would be road charging using number plate recognition, card/toll systems like Norway or some form of car tag. Yes you could use false plates, but unless you have James Bonds DB5 you are likely to get caught using false plates.

[G43FAN]

Road pricing is used throughout Norway. Zero emission vehicles get a 50% to 100% discount in many places - but not all. You pay monthly by miles driven and vehicle type with the most polluting paying the most and so on. The system is call Autopass and each vehicle has a small electronic toll tag fixed in the windscreen which is picked up by the automated toll stations as you pass them. Also works for most ferries (and many of these are electric as well). To me it seems very fair and I would be happy to pay by use in the UK. Seems like a sensible approach for the UK as well with our crowded road system as you could have time of use tariffs like we do with electricity to spread traffic load for example. Might also help spread the load on the charging network.

www.autopass.no/en/payment/zeroemissionsvehicles

250,000 miles of roads versus 11,000
32 million cars (registered) versus 3 million
67 million population versus 5.4 million

How much was track and Trace? £37 billion over 2 years. I might have to put a bid in for the UK Autopass system if it's happening.

Its basically software and computers are very good at repetitive high volume tasks unlike the very expensive human element in Track and Trace

Norway's road system is considerably larger than you suggest at 94,000km in 2009 https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/roa ... -data.html and they only have about 600 toll recording points so not all roads are toll charged only major arterial roads and cities. So less complex than you imagine.

Congestion zone in London uses ANPR system and that works fine - goodness knows what volume of traffic involved is there but millions of vehicles annually. It works. To me is doesn't sound hugely complicated.

At £307 million per mile or nearly £1 billion for 3 miles, HS2 looks like being a contractors dream come true! Maybe get a few bids in there before the gravy train runs out

Didn't realise they were paying people to use Track and trace, I wonder where my cheque ended up?

Norway has 10,713 kms of 'National' roads and 332 Toll stations https://www.autopass.no/en/about-autopa ... f-autopass
The total road network you are quoting includes almost 50% unmettled roads on which their is no charge. The Autopass system generates revenue to pay for future road projects and upkeep of existing roads, this conversation is around the UK using a similar system to replace the lost revenue on Fuel?
Norway also has higher fuel costs and in general the cost of living is massively higher.

My numbers for roads was misleading to a degree, but the point remains.

[Andreas]

Italy and France have had toll roads for ages, so its clearly possible. But when Germany tried this in the last decade, it ended up being a car crash (haha) that cost the German taxpayer an arm and a leg. The UK already has experience with this, so it's a question of scaling. I think it's inevitable.

All the best

Andreas

[Smitten]

250,000 miles of roads versus 11,000
32 million cars (registered) versus 3 million
67 million population versus 5.4 million

How much was track and Trace? £37 billion over 2 years. I might have to put a bid in for the UK Autopass system if it's happening.

Its basically software and computers are very good at repetitive high volume tasks unlike the very expensive human element in Track and Trace

Norway's road system is considerably larger than you suggest at 94,000km in 2009 https://tradingeconomics.com/norway/roa ... -data.html and they only have about 600 toll recording points so not all roads are toll charged only major arterial roads and cities. So less complex than you imagine.

Congestion zone in London uses ANPR system and that works fine - goodness knows what volume of traffic involved is there but millions of vehicles annually. It works. To me is doesn't sound hugely complicated.

At £307 million per mile or nearly £1 billion for 3 miles, HS2 looks like being a contractors dream come true! Maybe get a few bids in there before the gravy train runs out

Didn't realise they were paying people to use Track and trace, I wonder where my cheque ended up?

Norway has 10,713 kms of 'National' roads and 332 Toll stations https://www.autopass.no/en/about-autopa ... f-autopass
The total road network you are quoting includes almost 50% unmettled roads on which their is no charge. The Autopass system generates revenue to pay for future road projects and upkeep of existing roads, this conversation is around the UK using a similar system to replace the lost revenue on Fuel?
Norway also has higher fuel costs and in general the cost of living is massively higher.

My numbers for roads was misleading to a degree, but the point remains.

My point on track and trace concerned all those highly paid consultants sticking extra zero's on their invoices. Price Waterhouse Coopers and others have made fabulous amounts out of us poor tax payers.

Actually I don't think fuel in Norway is more expensive but you are right, the cost of living is generally much more expensive as are salaries and housing costs. They have had a toll system for many years to pay for roads. A huge cost in Norway is tunneling through mountains and under fjords of course, a problem we don't really have.

However we eill need something to replace road tax. Taxation on fuel is also going to rapidly become an issue as EVs become more common. I can't see taxing electricity being a way forward as it is already very expensive compared to gas. So a pay per use road system seems logical way of replacing government income and controlling use of vehicles at the same time. I think it is probably coming and success of the congestion charge in London proves a technological solution can work.