Leading
automotive expert says cars should be taxed on weight to end consumer
confusion over how to pick the greenest models
How will UK road tax change in the coming years?
This is a topic raised on the V8 Website back in May
2024 following the Spring Budget when the Chancellor made some road
tax changes - a modest increase in the standard annual road tax rate
to £190 and the introduction of road tax on electric cars from
April 2025. But with the increasing number of electric vehicles in
the UK and the planned end of the sale of fossil fuelled cars in the
2030s, the underlying need to maintain a good flow of road tax revenue
to cover a wide range of road use and maintenance costs will mean
the Chancellor will have to consider a major overhaul of the motoring
taxation system.
The article considers some of the key issues and options, not least
the higher wear rates on the road surfacing and structure from heavier
vehicles and also the higher levels of particulates from rubber tyre
and road surface wear damaging air quality near roads in urban and
suburban areas. You can see the NEWS item and article released in
May 2024:
NEWS & Article
See charts alongside in an A4P PDF. Link
Auto-besity will be a topic we will hear more of in 2024.
Posted: 241231 |
Auto-besity

Frontal area of a Range Rover is 56% greater than that
of a Golf GTi

Range Rover (2.56 tons) is 82% heavier than a Golf GTi
(1.60 tons) - that's nearly a ton (or 1230 kg) heavier. Even
cars that were once comparatively light have become much heavier
over the decades. The VW Golf, which was the No 1 car in Europe
before the Peugeot 208, weighed about 775kg in its original
1974 incarnation. By the 2020s it had almost doubled in weight.

Large 4x4s are a very tight fit in standard parking spaces
in car parks.
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A leading automotive expert says "cars should be taxed
on weight to end consumer confusion over how to pick the greenest
models". Nick Molden of Emissions Analytics, which played
a key role in identifying excessively polluting cars after the
Volkswagen emissions scandal, said we are living in an age
of auto-besity. Cars are getting bigger and heavier.
For example the electric Tesla Model Y, which weighs around
2,000kg (2.20 tons), became the best selling car in Europe last
year. The top spot was formerly held by the Peugeot 208, a small
car weighing around 1,200kg (1.32 tons) for the petrol version
- that's indicates a Tesla is 67% heavier!
These issues are highlighted in an article in The Times today.
Link
Nick Molden of Emissions Analytics says our exhaustive
research has revealed that one easy metric car weight
gives a surprisingly good estimate of overall pollution,
including greenhouse gases, air toxics, noise, safety and infrastructure
impacts. Consumers can therefore use this to choose their next
car, without being baffled by data from biased sources.
He adds "the weight of a car multiplied by the distance
it is driven could offer a measure of its total environmental
impact". He has argued that his proposed system could replace
existing taxation, apply to all types of car and was easy to
implement because weight is already publicly available
data and distance is recorded by existing processes such
as MOTs. Under his proposed system, a driver would pay £100
less annually if their car was 150kg lighter than average or
if they drove 620 fewer miles (1,000km) per year than average.
Last year Norway introduced a tax on cars weighing more than
500kg and France two years ago started charging a €10 (£8)
tax on petrol and diesel cars for every kilogram over 1,800kg.
Cardiff council recently held a consultation proposing larger
vehicles, including SUVs, pay more for resident parking permits.
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Parking
is also a problem with larger vehicles
A Range Rover is 3.2" longer than the standard parking
bay and barely 7" under the standard bay width - that leaves
only 3.54" of space on each side to open the doors to get
out and squeeze in! Some multistorey car parks are being checked
to ensure the structures can cope with the significantly higher
weight of high concentrations of heavy 4x4s, SUVs and large
electric vehicles. |
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