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The UK Government has responded to the consultation about the proposed Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED), a new distance-based tax set to take effect in April 2028. It will charge 3p per mile for fully electric cars and 1.5p per mile for plug-in hybrids, which is roughly half the effective rate of fuel duty. This is intended to offset the long-term decline in fuel duty revenues as motorists transition away from petrol and diesel. The consultation received over 5,000 submissions.
Warren Philips, Founder of LucidDestiny Consulting, Campaign Lead at FAIRCHARGE, and Co-Founder & Former Chair of EVA England, comments about the Government’s eVED consultation response.
It’s been a few days since the government published its response to the eVED consultation. I put in detailed evidence on fairness throughout the FairCharge response so let’s see how it went.
The good news first. Government has dropped the proposed mandatory mileage checks for cars under three years old, which is what I asked for. Fleets and leasing businesses have also done rather well, with bulk estimation, bulk payment, API access, and the ability to manage mileage centrally instead of chasing individual drivers for numbers. Sensible changes. Credit where it is due.
There is also some movement that counts, cautiously, as progress. Government has committed to developing opt in telematics on a mileage only, no location basis, which is the privacy position I argued for. It has accepted the principle of reconciling eVED at disposal too. Neither will be ready for the April 2028 launch, both come with a promise of “further detail by the end of the year”, a phrase that is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this document.
Then there is the part that has me scratching my head.
eVED still launches in April 2028, not 2030, despite the evidence everyone submitted on the risk to EV uptake. PHEV drivers can still be charged fuel duty and eVED on the same mile, an achievement in double taxation nobody asked for. There is no payment in arrears, no guaranteed refund turnaround, and no exemption for mileage driven abroad. Rural, disabled and high mileage drivers get nothing new, just a reminder that the old VED exemptions still exist, which is a bit like being told your school uniform still fits now that you have grown up and started a job.
So here is my question. If the administrative asks from business could be worked through and largely resolved in one consultation cycle, why do the fairness asks from ordinary drivers keep landing in the “further update by the end of the year” pile. It is not that one group won and another lost. It is that one set of problems apparently had an easier path to a solution, and I think government owes drivers an explanation for why the other set cannot move at the same pace.
I will keep making that case. I am watching for the promised detail on refunds and telematics, and I will keep asking why consumer facing fairness always seems to need one more consultation before it gets the same treatment as commercial simplification.
Fairness has to work for everyone, not just the parts of the system with the loudest lobbying voice. Keep the people at the centre of the design and, more often than not, you end up solving it for business too. That’s the thing that the government needs to be better at showing next time we see a consultation response.
Warren Philips https://www.linkedin.com/in/warrenphilips
Read the full Government response to the consultation about the proposed Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED) here:
