Thread: Nissan Leaf
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Old 14 Jul 2017, 16:16 (Ref:3751218)   #10
grantp
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grantp should be qualifying in the top 3 on the gridgrantp should be qualifying in the top 3 on the gridgrantp should be qualifying in the top 3 on the grid
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Originally Posted by Akrapovic View Post
So people complain that cars aren't paying enough road tax and that won't be enough to pay for the roads. Ok, fair point. There also seems to be an inherent bias against any tech that could be seen as green. But lets just go with it for now.

Someone comes along with an idea that is based on distance traveled rather than emissions. This would tax people who use the road system more, and it wouldn't give a tax break to these evil electric Nissan leaf drivers....and people are complaining? Isn't this what you wanted? A revenue stream to pay for upkeep of the road network, and not subsidising green energy at the detriment of traditional ICE owners?
At the most basic level it's not even close to being a new idea and, based on the BBC write up, it's not even a clever approach to collecting cash - just another imposition on a third party - the insurance company who, presumably, will find ways to "cover their costs". Since when have Insurance companies undertaken an annual audit of mileage?

If that is the best a graduate from one of the UK's better universities can come up with we are in trouble. However I note that Lord King and his wife had a similar idea. That perhaps tells us more about past policies than we might ever have known.

Moreover if it worth £250k there is something very skewed about the perceived values of original thought.

Maybe there were so few entries that Next felt obliged to cough up anyway no matter the paucity of originality.

The EU have been going full on for Road charging and several countries have implemented their own systems (note "systems" not a single standard) for commercial traffic in the EU.

However, despite a lot of trials in the past decade news about it as a Europe wide charge across all vehicles seems to be lacking these days. Maybe they are simply waiting for the autonomous electric revolution and will build the concept into the inevitable tracking systems involved.

Whichever way tax is collected - as the history of "Road Tax" illustrates - the roads will always be the last thing that the money collected will be spent on and even if they were to start out with their favourite "ring fenced" meme you just know that at some point the contractors will find a way to suck up the available funds via a team of civil servants employed to make sure it is distributed, somehow, by the end of each year.

That's why I would never trust a scheme like the one proposed to either work or be fair to the users even assuming that there was likely to be a real will to make it even handed. If such a scheme would work the obvious approach has always been based on fuel usage - but of course that is now a bit tricky with plug in cars being encouraged and no clear way to grab the tax if people are able to charge from 13 amp plugs ...

Far better that they come clean and simply mandate a change to electric vehicles, rented from the state, and bundle the cost of road maintenance (which will be in the State's interest to curtail damage, though they may not care) into the rental charge.

Human drivers will be incompatible with autonomous vehicles anyway to the problem of integrating ICE or older electric models can simple by bypassed by disallowing them.

Where do I claim my £250k?
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