Electric cars.

But will the weight of a car in the future be another source of revenue?
Oxford are looking at imposing parking charges based on the size/weight of the vehicle, similar to the new laws that are coming in to force for parking in Paris to non-residents.

London should copy Oxford and Paris and charge SUVs more to park, it's only fair.

Paris votes to triple parking charges for some SUVs

From the 1st of September car parking will triple in price for vehicles over 1.6 ton that are petrol and diesel including hybrids and EV's over 2 ton in Paris, they are using safety to pedestrians as one the main reasons. Like you said, will these ULEZ areas be a source of other revenue in the future, charge you per mile, low/peak times but also for the size and weight of the vehicle, it certainly looks like it.

When the UK allowed HGV's to have a gross weight limit of 44 tons it was based on that they are less likely to damage the roads due to the axle weight distribution being less than smaller trucks. So based on that consultation, why are they only looking to increase the gross weight limit on eHGV trucks up to 5 axles. By increasing the gross weight limit, they have to increase the axle weight limits which according to their report from the consultation, wear and tare of the roads is mainly caused by axle weights than gross weight of a vehicle.

 

I agree, the modern SUV will tend to be lighter compared to an equivalent SUV manufactured in the 1990's. It's the volume of large cars that are on the road nowadays that councils now see as another source of revenue.

I don't know if this has been going on for a while, but boroughs in the capital are charging parking fee's by emissions. The new parking permits for Islington start at £150 up to £800 per year depending on the emissions of the vehicle.

I was reading an article by the RAC, they were saying for parking in short stay area's than are run by Islington council, you had to download an app and again you would be charged by the emissions. They said parking at waterloo station could cost between something like £6 to £13.80 per hour.
I think the seeds have been sown and in the future we will be charged more depending on what VED bracket the car is in, BEV included, my opinion.

 

If they want cars off the road, public transport needs to be sorted out first. It may be OK if you live in Central London or other major cities, but it's extremely unreliable around here and we're only 3 miles from our city centre. Live further out and you'll be very luck to have one bus per hour.

 

I don't think anyone is trying to get cars off the road. That would make no sense. The car industry and the energy/fuel industries are huge in the UK. A big generator of tax revenue. It makes no sense to kill either off.

What were starting to see is an inevitable to reaction to the problems caused by more and more people taking more and more vehicles into ever more crowded spaces. It's unsustainable, and if we want to keep our freedom to drive pretty much wherever and whenever we want, we need to do so responsibly, otherwise of course we're going to have restrictions imposed upon us.

When I was a kid, the local car parks were free. There was no pay and display or anything like that. There would have been no point because even on the busiest days they were only half full. Now every piece of flat ground has a car on it, and of course we now have to pay to park. Of course there's revenue generated from that, but I think part of the reason for introducing parking fees was to make people think twice about bringing the car, because those mostly empty car parks were now always full, and unless someone discouragements was introduced, they'd become useless as people would drive here only to find there was nowhere to park when they got here.

What we're seeing in some of the cities now with congestion charging was also inevitable. Those roads were dying, because they were just too full. Again, a byproduct is it's a good revenue stream but I think the original motive was to make people ask themselves, do they really need to take the car into the city.

Those that cry of the war against the motorist are, in my opinion,a big part of the problem. They certainly don't represent me as a motorist. If people parked responsibly, walked to the corner shop instead of taking the car, walked their kids to school, used the bus or the metro to get around the city centres, and generally did whatever is in their personal means to limit their car use to those journeys where the car is the only viable option, then there would be no problem to address.

 

I think it's the convenience more than anything that keeps people in their cars, even if public transport was better.

I'd rather sit in a traffic jam in my warm car on a cold wet day rather than walking half a mile to a bus stop and stand in the rain.
Public transport is so inconvenient, it would take me all morning just to go into town to visit the building society for example, even with all the traffic jams I can usually do it in an hour.

 

Never see a bus or any sort of public transport here

 

When I was a young man, before I passed my driving test, I got a job in the middle of nowhere in Hampshire. The bus from the town I rented a house in took me to within two miles, then I had to walk the rest. Not such a problem for young me, being in my early 20s at the time, but not ideal when wearing formal office attire.

There was a village just about half a mile from the site, so I made some enquiries to see if it had a bus service connecting it to the town I lived in. It did, on Wednesday

 

we would have to walk a little over 5 miles to get to a bus stop and then it's only a few buses aday but the bad thing is you could cacht a bus to get somewhere but there isn't a bus to get you back to the same bus stop or you could get one to the nearish town and then have a 13 miles walk home so tis a bad service here

 

I agree, if the plan was to get cars off the road, then why are they making stretches of the A1 into 3 lanes in the North East, plus work has started on the A66, so the full section from Scotch Corner to Penrith will be dual carriageway.

In future, the car will be like the council tax band, depending what band the car is, will result in what extra you pay, not just VED. If these local authorities are going to charge more for entering a ULEZ plus parking depending on the C02 emissions, then why are BEV owners facing the same increases.

Large BEV's with a high range produce more C02 emissions to manufacture, so eventually a BEV driver will be taxed the same as a non BEV driver, for me it's just another indirect tax on the public. The element of buying a BEV will save you financially in the long run has literally disappeared.