How long until we see €2 a litre and will it push more to EV's faster?

I imagine most €500 cars are pretty grim regardless of power train.

Exactly. My 3.6 petrol is bought & paid for, and my 2.2 diesel nearly so. At which point then unless you're giving me an EV for free, my fleet will still be cheaper to run (TCO-wise).

...well that's an interesting point. If you think about it, running an older ICE (until you no longer practically can), is the perfect expression of: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

By rights, motor tax on old cars should reflect that too. Having people paying 600-700 on older ICE worth less than 2k, but having people paying €120 on a car costing €140,000 is patently wrong.

There's no reason they couldn't have a cap / rebate system in place for large users so once a haulage company incurs say €1,000 of fuel-based motortax on a vehicle in a year, they are rebated everything from then on based on quarterly returns

Fuel-based motortax makes perfect sense... no evasion, no tax offices, no paper discs, no yellow plates "waiting on the logbook" ... if you buy fuel at a pump, your motortax is covered

Yes, administered similar to this. I believe that scheme rebates hauliers up to €0.07 / litre for road diesel purchased so if say 20 cent a litre was added to every litre of diesel and petrol at the pumps to replace motortax and any heavy user could recoup the difference after they've contributed say €500 for individuals or €1,000 for business users

There was approx 4.5 billion litres of road diesel and petrol sold in country last year so 20 cents per litre would contribute just shy of a billion euros towards motortax, which is much higher than the current kitty if I'm not wrong. Anyways.. only a thought

I don't see many or any v8's on a daily, weekly.. or yearly basis.

Anyway, the government don't really care about going green, it's all about protecting the tax take.

And it's the tax take that makes the country run.

Yeah, the early EV adopters will reap the initial benifits of low tax, but just like 2008 diesel buyers had rediculosly low motor tax... that came to an end.

In a few yrs , your cheap to run EV will be subject to higher taxes, based on weight/power etc

Enjoy the cheap motoring in your €50k EV while you can.

I'm not bashing EVs.. I'm just saying that the tax has to come from somewhere, and, cars/fags/booze are the auld reliables.

Cast your mind back to E85, that didn't last long.

HVO will probably get a tax break in the next few years, continue to tax diesel, then when that (hvo) becomes popular because it's an obvious alternative... tax the living sh it outta that.

Rinse& repeat

*PS.. there's also a market for washing green hvo, so that will keep a certain party happy

I buy almost 100L diesel a week on avg. That 20¢ increase is €20pw , €1k pa.

Hasn't the total motor tax take declined massively since 2008? They will definitely come up with some new system all right.

But I think it's the tax from fuel that'll be the big loss rather than motor tax.

Will be interesting to see what happens.

If you want to enjoy some cheap motoring there are EVs available on done deal from 3.5k no need to pay 50k for a legacy auto compliance car.

Calling it now... when we're all in autonomous electric cars in 2030 (!!) you'll pay motortax based on how fast you want your car to drive ... so us peasants will pay €1,000 / year to be limited to a top speed of 60kmph where the big spenders will fork out €5,000 / year for the benefit of being able to travel along at up to 120kmph. It'll be subscription based, linked to your vehicle, so you'll have the option of buying a "fast pass" for a horrendous amount of money to allow you to travel at higher speeds for 2 hours, 12 hours or 24 hours... wife going into labour and 60kmph won't cut it? That'll be €1,000 😋🙈

Not very much, plenty of options for a lot less than 50k though

Not my car.

Massive mileage though. That will still impact other mechanical bits and the interior.

Plus it's an ugly looking thing (IMO)

Yeah @tom1ie - range something like that. And you would get the Leaf instead of the ICE banger as it is far cheaper total cost of ownership. And better for the planet.

But obviously if it is your only car and you regularly need to drive 700km, then this is completely unsuitable

Mat's a nice guy, but he's not really the sharpest tool in the shed.