The brave new world that the European Union built around the electric car is crumbling. Countries where electrification already accounts for a significant portion of the market are seeing collections of taxes on hydrocarbons fall dangerously low.
Thus, the United Kingdom, for three years outside the European Union, has announced a measure that is neither popular nor favorable to the electric car, but which the government describes as “essential”. It is about the abolition of the tax benefit that exempted all electric cars from circulation tax.
Tax parity
In parallel, the executive anticipates the implementation of a new tax on hydrocarbons (gasoline and diesel) of about 15 cents per litre. With both the measures, it plans to balance its coffers after the aforementioned fuel income shortfall.
The British executive confirmed that electric cars pollute roads more than fuel cars because of their greater weight and higher polluting emissions of microscopic plastic particles derived from their tires and brake pads.
Electric car has been fined
Voices criticizing the measure have not been slow to appear, alleging that it will delay the country’s electrification, advocating for a toll per kilometer traveled for owners of electric cars, which could reduce their use. but cannot penalize their purchase, as is the case with the application of a circulation tax on such and such automobiles.
It should be remembered that the United Kingdom has gone ahead of Europe by banning the sale of fuel cars by 2030, a country in which 50% of new cars are expected to be pure electric by 2025.
Road toll
The idea of ​​the project is that electric cars pay around 12 euro circulation tax in the first year. From then on they will pay between 200 and 1,000 euros per year, as is the case with combustion cars, depending on their power and technical characteristics.
In Spain, the circulation tax on electric cars is subsidized in many cities, for example in Madrid the rebate is 75%.
The rest of Europe is paying close attention to the development of the automotive landscape in the United Kingdom, given the country’s already high rate of electrification.
It is also worth assessing what happened to electric car sales in Norway, as the withdrawal of tax incentives has caused registration of pure electric cars to drop from 82% to 65%, while gasoline cars have returned to the top of the registration list
