UK’s New EV Road Tax: Another Kick in the Battery?

So, in classic government fashion, a leaked OBR report has confirmed that from April 2028 electric car owners will be charged 3p per mile, and plug-in hybrids 1.5p. Those rates will creep up with inflation, naturally, because why wouldn’t they?

Apparently this works out at “about half” what petrol drivers pay in fuel duty, which is generous until you realise EVs were supposed to be the cheaper, cleaner alternative that would magically save the planet and our wallets. An EV driver doing 8,500 miles a year will be paying roughly £255 – and that’s before the annual inflation nibble.

The OBR reckons this new charge could pull in over a billion quid by 2029, but even they admit the numbers are fuzzy because it all depends on how many of us can actually afford to buy an EV in the first place. Spoiler: not many. In fact, they expect the tax to put people off buying them, potentially knocking 440,000 sales off the forecast. Manufacturers will either have to drop prices or sell fewer petrol and diesel cars to stay on target. Good luck with that.

And here’s the thing no one in Westminster seems keen to shout about: petrol and diesel engines themselves aren’t necessarily the villain – it’s the fuel that’s the problem. Fix the fuel and suddenly we’re not scrapping millions of perfectly good cars or forcing people into expensive tech they don’t want or can’t charge. But no, let’s slap a new tax on EVs instead.

Industry voices like InstaVolt and the AA are already saying the same: this could slow the EV transition, hits rural and low-income drivers hardest, and generally feels like another fork in the road where drivers pick up the bill… again.

Importantly, they haven’t officially said how they’ll monitor miles, which is why it’s causing confusion. But MOT-mileage-plus-connected-car-data is the most realistic combo

In short: new tax, more cost, more confusion, and still no sign of a sensible long-term plan. Standard.