With the road tax ceiling breaking £400, will people begin to consider more environmentally friendly cars?

Answer 1

I doubt it will have any impact whatsoever. At best it might cause a barely-noticeable depreciation in the second hand costs of the highest bracket vehicles. If you're going to spend £40,000 on a 4x4 (or more perhaps), the £400 a year in tax is not significant compared to your initial outlay, fuel costs, insurance, servicing and tyres etc. If you've got that kind of money to spend, what difference does £400 make? Just another way of raking in a few more quid in tax under the guise of being green.

Answer 2

I don't think £400 is going to make people buying a £30,000 car reconsider - if you can afford so spend that much on a car, you can afford to spend a little bit more on road tax.

The difference will be a few years down the road, when the car is worth a lot less, and the second or third owner struggles to pay the tax. It will lead to:

1. A lot of untaxed premium cars on the roads
2. A much lower residual value for premium cars
3. A strange situation where the value of a used premium car first registered in early March 2006 (before the Band G start date of 23rd March 2006) will be worth a few hundred pounds more than an identical car first registered at the end of March 2006.

Where it will have an effect is on sales of cars that have higher emissions than expected for their segment and purchase price (e.g. Chevrolet Tacuma 2.0 auto).

Answer 3

In the time of queen Victoria only the ultra rich could afford to travel the world via steam ships. During the early 20th century the motorcar allowed the population to travel around the country at relative low cost.
This government has increased the road tax to the current levels as an "Environmental" measure.
Has there been a down turn in the sales of 4x4's? No!! Farmers need 4x4's and will pay whatever they have to as they have no choice. The knob heads who use 4x4's around town have more money than sense and as such £4000 per year will still make no difference.
Yet another pointless stealth tax.

Answer 4

Definitely NO!
£8 per week is a very small amount if you can afford to buy and run a big car.
In fact, the sum paid my be seen by some as a status symbol!
There may be some on the margin who change but I think some, like me, may think that it is environmentally friendly to run one BIG car rather than two small ones. And take a taxi to the pub!
Many problems solved (or partially solved) with this approach.

Having read the other answers I am somewhat amazed at the number who agree with me.

Tax the fuel and cancel the road tax! This would be fairer.

Answer 5

Stinking politicians have only two solutions for anything, make it illegal or tax it. They play on class envy but really hurt the poor. The tax will make it harder for many people to own a car. What they should do is give tax credits for cars getting more mpg or using alternative fuels..

One type of car that could do this, without being wildly expensive, is a plug-in electric car with an on-board generator so it could travel just like a regular car. To keep its pollution low and have easy multi-fuel capability, use a steam engine to run the generator. Since the car would run on electricity from the grid for most of the time and would use the steam engine to run the generator only when the batteries were low, it would get tremendous fuel mileage. Steam engines pollute less and can be made very energy efficient. A steam-powered generator overcomes the drawbacks of an all-electric car and the electric power overcomes the drawbacks of a steam car. E-mail [e-mail] and ask about the steam-electric hybrid idea.

Answer 6

People who can afford to will continue paying road tax no matter how much it costs. I have a 12 year old 2.5litre BMW which I bought ten years ago to tow a caravan, our only means of having a few days away now and then. As a pensioner I cant afford to change my car even if I wanted to. As always, it`s the less well off that suffers. Why not tax cars according to usage at the petrol pumps?
After all it can hardly be called road tax any longer as very little of the money is spent on roads.
It`s another rip off under the "climate change" scam

Answer 7

People would consider more environmentally friendly cars if they weren't so expensive. I have looked at environmentally friendly cars and found the less environmentally friendly option is a great deal cheaper even if you take the road tax into consideration. There should be a grant available for environmentally friendly cars like there is for installing solar panels and environmentally friendly options in the home.

Answer 8

At that end of the market no amount of increases will modify behaviour. If someone is willing to spend an extra ₤20,000 on a status symbol then the cost of the tax disc is meaningless.

It's carrot and stick theory. My tax disc fee has fallen from ₤80 to ₤50, and then to ₤35 pounds per year as it is a lower emission car. This is where real gains can be made If more middle income drivers can be tempted do switch like I did.

I know that there are sub 100g co2 cars available now. How about they are given a lower VAT rating [5 percent] to reduce the new prices and get more of them on the road.

Answer 9

All this tax does is give the richer more choices than the poorer, it does not help the environment one bit, all that it does is line the governments pocket with extra cash. Lets face it climate change happens even if there were no humans on the planet, humans are just a catalyst in an event that would happen anyway and the government uses this as an excuse to get more money from people

Answer 10

Not a hope! My partner's had working 4x4 for years and would never go back to having a car unless it was 4x4. Every small car hes owner he has had an accident of some sort in, yet not 1 in has numerous 4x4. We are not rich but cars are a pleasure to us and we will continue to work hard 4 them. Needless to say does anyone feel for people who live in farming areas (like us) who need these motors for the terain and as my other half has done for a while now their businesses, I know that there is exceptions for farmers but should you really have to own the farm inorder to work there??
Its a rip off, we also own a classic car tax free at present but the government wants to stop that also, again doing away with people pleasure, heritage, and enjoyment. They forget that these cars cost a fortune to maintain and run and have paid the dues for a huge amount of there motoring life. This country will kill our economy (what remains) by being so god dam gready, punishing the poor to subsidise the rich!!!