Today's UK Budget Wants You To Buy An Electric Car
The UK Budget has brought good news for people buying plug-in cars, as well as investment in charging technologies and self-driving cars.
It’s not such good news for diesels, though, although you’d have to have been living in a cave not to have seen diesel road tax rates bumped up.
A £100 million extension to the plug-in car grant scheme means people will continue to get thousands of pounds off the price of a new plug-in car. Full-electric and plug-in hybrids will all qualify.
Another £100 million will go towards the charging infrastructure in the UK, funding the installation of charging points, while £40 million has been earmarked for research and development, apparently specifically including charging.
Chancellor Philip Hammond stated that he wants to put Britain at the pointy end of the global push towards new technologies, of which automated cars are collectively one facet.
Diesel’s days are clearly numbered, too, with most oil-burners currently on the road facing a higher road tax banding from the next tax year. A single-band rise will add about £20 to a typical annual bill.
Early reports say that it will certainly include everything up to and including Euro 5, with the various stages of Euro 6 causing some confusion at this stage as to whether they’ll be included or not.
Lorries and vans will be unaffected, which might seem bizarre since they pollute more per vehicle than cars, but it seems to be an attempt to keep inflation down. If delivery firms’ costs go up, the consumer suffers. Plus, there are not yet any viable alternatives to diesel for vans and lorries.
The silver lining is that fuel duty has been frozen again, so instead of paying what would have been about £1.50 per litre by now we’re still below £1.20. The continued halt makes this the longest fuel duty freeze for 40 years, although why there was ever an escalator built into it in the first place we have no idea.
Comments
So while I’m trying to save up for a BMW 530i E39, my tax money is being put towards an environmentalists Nissan Leaf.
I would have thought the government would need all the tax money it could get for the Brexit bill, but what did I expect from the UK Government?
The brexit fund is 3 billion. Investment in electricity car charging infrastructure is 400 million. Money available for electric car grants is a paltry 100 million and I can guarantee it won’t be used.
I can understand the anger towards aiding in paying for other’s EV’s. I fail to see how building infrastructure for EV’s is an issue though.
Maybe but let’s face it £100m in governmental budgets is pocket change. It’s a token gesture at best. They know people won’t go for them en masse until the infrastructure is in place and they would be pretty screwed if they did frankly because the national grid doesn’t have the capacity to support it.
“This is a great idea, we need to get rid of these polluting cars!”
And then there is a flood of power shortages and everyone blames the government.
Maybe we build more Nuclear plants. Just an idea. Or renewable ones
How about we put that money towards the renewable power that we need for electric cars to be truly zero-emissions?
laughs in Quebec dams master race
Well, I send my condolences to all car guys in Oxford (if there are any).
“if there are any” LMFAO yup, but I bet you there are plenty of bicycle enthusiasts in Oxford.
Matt Kimberley save yourself “he or she”, you can just use “they”.
L A N G U A G E E V O L U T I O N
Pansexual genderfluid queers: NOT TRIGGERED
I love when government works to force you to purchase things you don’t want.
With a £20 rise in road tax? You sir are easily swayed!
This is why we need communism
How about no?
You may disagree but im just putting it out there.
NEVER
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