So .. the real cost to the economy

[Mike and his Macan]

I have a feeling electric will not be as cheap as we think.

[ScotMac]

Lets not forget the other jobs too. Engine manufacture, vehicle manufacture, oil refineries etc............

[Frenchy]

No worries, gouvernements will find the way to tax EV ... Today EV are expensive to buy but less taxed and cheaper to run. In 15 yrs, it will be the opposite, so I feel that it s the right time to go for it before everybody has one...

[GMAN75]

No worries, gouvernements will find the way to tax EV ... Today EV are expensive to buy but less taxed and cheaper to run. In 15 yrs, it will be the opposite, so I feel that it s the right time to go for it before everybody has one...

It has been proven time and time again that governments are more than willing to apply a tax retrospectively. Please don't ever think that by simply being an early adopter of something will excuse you from tax down the line! It won't.

[johnd]

It has been proven time and time again that governments are more than willing to apply a tax retrospectively. Please don't ever think that by simply being an early adopter of something will excuse you from tax down the line! It won't.

Just not sure what that means in the context of EVs. Pretty sure that if you score a government grant to help buy an EV or charger that they're not subsequently going to ask for that back. And tax bands for vehicle licencing, BIK etc change all the time anyway. Absolutely agree that there's no reason to believe that these won't go up in future (though it will depend on how quickly road-pricing is introduced), but there's nothing new to see there.

It may be tricky for the government to tax electricity used for EVs differently from any other electric supply. Certainly for home charging it would be difficult to distinguish EV charging from general electric use, short of licencing home chargers which hmm seems pretty unlikely IMO.

[gasgas1]

surly the real issue is how long will the batteries last and how much to replace?

[johnd]

surly the real issue is how long will the batteries last and how much to replace?

Is that really an issue? Most EV makers seem to be offering a warranty that eg a minimum of 80% of capacity is retained at 8 years (eg 100K miles for a typical owner) and - as far as there's solid evidence as yet - battery performance seems to be comfortably exceeding that. Maybe in a 15-20 year life an EV might benefit from one new battery pack, but the cost, especially in a few years' time, is probably not going to be too different to that of a comparable new ICE engine and gearbox.

And it's likely that the used battery pack will find a new home in a less demanding application and so will have some residual value.

[Frenchy]

No worries, gouvernements will find the way to tax EV ... Today EV are expensive to buy but less taxed and cheaper to run. In 15 yrs, it will be the opposite, so I feel that it s the right time to go for it before everybody has one...

It has been proven time and time again that governments are more than willing to apply a tax retrospectively. Please don't ever think that by simply being an early adopter of something will excuse you from tax down the line! It won't.

just saying if you are waiting for everybody has an EV then you will be taxed more, today when you have an EV, you get discount on many things (Congestion Charge, Resident Permit, Charger install and charging network subscription and so on, and so on) obviously this is maybe less relevant for people who do not live in C London or in big cities... All of this will disappear as soon as the "niche" is gone.
in French we say : tout ce qui est pris n'est plus à prendre - all that is taken is no longer to take (google).

[Deleted User 1874]

surly the real issue is how long will the batteries last and how much to replace?

It's already pretty clear that will be a non-issue.

[GMAN75]

It has been proven time and time again that governments are more than willing to apply a tax retrospectively. Please don't ever think that by simply being an early adopter of something will excuse you from tax down the line! It won't.

Just not sure what that means in the context of EVs. Pretty sure that if you score a government grant to help buy an EV or charger that they're not subsequently going to ask for that back. And tax bands for vehicle licencing, BIK etc change all the time anyway. Absolutely agree that there's no reason to believe that these won't go up in future (though it will depend on how quickly road-pricing is introduced), but there's nothing new to see there.

It may be tricky for the government to tax electricity used for EVs differently from any other electric supply. Certainly for home charging it would be difficult to distinguish EV charging from general electric use, short of licencing home chargers which hmm seems pretty unlikely IMO.

Retrospective taxation is just that...it is taxation or other charges levied on the consumer (in this case the motorist) where policy changes. You only need to look at the diesel road tax charges and parking surcharges applied to diesel drivers. I can just imagine a case where new EV tech supercedes old and spurious issue concerning environmental sustainability or some other such rubbish will apply to old EVs as opposed to new. Don't ever underestimate a government's sheer greed for tax. It will get it.