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BVRLA Chief Executive Toby Poston comments: The proposed Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED) for electric vehicles is, quite simply, the wrong tax at the wrong time.
Let’s start with the design. At its heart, eVED would inconvenience a driver once a year and expect them to have a comprehensive understanding of their future mileage. It assumes that every motorist can accurately predict how much they will drive over the coming 12 months and adjust their tax position accordingly. Unrealistic for private drivers; wholly impractical for businesses.
Mileage patterns change. Contracts evolve. Vehicles are reallocated. Life happens. Designing a tax mechanism that hinges on annual guesswork is inefficient by default. It opens the door to human error, inconsistency and, inevitably, fraud.
For anyone managing more than one vehicle, it quickly becomes an administrative nightmare. For fleet operators – the very organisations leading the charge on EV adoption – that burden is multiplied across every vehicle on their books. In many cases, we are talking about fleets in the hundreds or thousands. Each vehicle becomes another calculation, another data point to track, another compliance risk to manage.
Based purely on its mechanism for monitoring and collection, eVED stands out as one of the least efficient options available to policymakers. It adds friction where we should be streamlining. It creates complexity where simplicity would succeed.
This is not smart tax design. It is the wrong tax.
Then there is the timing.
The transition to electric vehicles remains fragile. We have made enormous progress, but it rests on a delicate balance of customer confidence, business planning and sustained industry investment. That confidence is hard won and easily surrendered.
For most of those who have switched to EVs so far, the financial case has been decisive. Total cost of ownership – particularly in fleets – has consistently outweighed other considerations. Equally, for those yet to adopt, cost is often cited as a big barrier.
Introducing an additional charge that applies in isolation to EV drivers risks undermining the financial case. It sends a confusing signal to consumers and businesses alike and creates further instability in the volatile used EV market. On one hand, government policy rightly sets ambitious decarbonisation targets. On the other, it introduces measures that make the journey more complicated and more expensive for new and used motorists.
Fleet operators are the engine room of EV adoption. They de-risk new technology, feed the used market and are normalising electric motoring for millions of drivers. Burdening them with additional administrative complexity and cost at this stage risks slowing the very progress policymakers are seeking to accelerate.
This is why we are clear: it is the wrong time.
The BVRLA is making this case directly to decision-makers as part of the open consultation. We are setting out the operational realities, the inefficiencies and the broader societal implications of eVED; our voice is strongest when it is amplified by yours.
MPs have a big say in what policies are progressed and how they should look. Unfortunately, too few currently understand the needs of our sector and how transport policy impacts businesses rather than individuals.
That is where we need your support. The more MPs who understand the practical consequences for fleets, for businesses and for drivers, the greater the chance that this policy is reconsidered. Hearing about the challenges from a business and employer in their constituency carries weight.
We have created a simple online tool to help you make your MP aware of the issues eVED introduces. I would urge you to use it. Just as importantly, encourage your customers and partners to do the same.
You can also participate in the consultation directly if you wish to share your views with government.
This is a pivotal moment. A tax that is poorly designed and poorly timed risks doing lasting damage to the transition we are all working so hard to deliver. Together, we must make the case for a smarter, fairer approach.
