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

Answer 1

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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.

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Asker's Comment:

Good answer, food for thought indeed!

Answer 2

No, not even the increase in road tax will make me give up my 4x4....! I will not be bullied into submission.
What about those people who drive small environmentally friendly cars and then spend their holidays jetting off here, there and everywhere. Their carbon footprint becomes much worse than mine could ever be as I dont fly!

Answer 3

No, there will just be more tax dodgers instead

Answer 4

Not round here they won't. If someone can afford a 4X4 they will not give a stuff about environmentally friendly cars.

And the road tax of £400 has nothing to do with the environment it's just another ploy to gather in more taxes from the motorist.

Answer 5

Cars and environmentally friendly dont go in the same category.

The governent just knows that they can increase the price just like petrol does.

Its a monopoly.

Answer 6

£400 for road tax, it is ridiculous, I live in Switzerland and I don't pay that , in my county we are lucky it is only around £110 for the year in other counties it goes up to around £250 for a 2Lt car , England must be the most ripped off country in Europe

Answer 7

no it just makes it more a status symbol to own a bigger engined car

Answer 8

I would love to own a Prius but it's simply too expensive to be economically sound.

In the US, it's about £11k ($22k) and the owners get massive tax incentives to go green.

Here in the UK, it's £22k and the only incentive is little or no road tax. I cannot justify spending £11k to save maybe £1000 on road tax and maybe another £5000 on petrol over ten years.

Answer 9

Sorry no . I have been working in a bentley rolls royce . aston martin garage.All the people who own these cars are wealthy and would not care if road tax was £1000 year and fuel £10 gallon!!

Answer 10

Call me Dave Cameron has an 'electric' Lexus to escape London's congestion charge.
Unfortunately it only does 27 mpg.
Underhand or what?
RoyS

Answer 11

I have a Skoda Superb 130 bhp diesel--nice car but I am considering downsizing .

Answer 12

No, if they actually developed a eco friendly engine that was good and wasn't priced out of the average persons pocket maybe!
I drive a 4x4, and have done for years, I am sorry if people do not like it, I do like it ! It is my choice!and if road tax hits £400 a year that is still only £1.09 a day, less than smokers spend on their smokes!
Sort out the diesel trains/buses/vans/wagons and the aeroplanes as well!

Answer 13

No it is like the smoking ban, if people chose to have big cars, smoke, or whatever, they can, and will!!!
My mates deisel van has much less road tax than my 4x4 and chucks out s**t loads more emmisions so how come 4x4 drivers are got at?
Some of the top of the range performance cars are just as bad!

Answer 14

i dont think so most people like the cars theyve got.i wont be considering it.

Answer 15

NO!

If you can afford to drive, fuel & insure a new £60k large engined 4x4 vehicles £400 is nothing!

Sheesh! Simple economics!

Answer 16

I doubt this will make any difference, as the people who buy these expensive cars can easily afford a few pounds a year extra for the tax.

A larger impact will be at the lower end, where cheaper cars are concerned, here the choice of models is greater and if one model is £10 a year cheaper on road tax, that could be the deciding factor in the purchase.

I bought a model based on its CO2 figure to lower my tax bill as a company car. This route of taxation will have real impact.

Answer 17

I doubt it.

I cancelled my AA subscription to compensate, because the last time I broke down was 12 years ago.

Answer 18

if somebody is driving a 58grand range rover 400 quid is small fry for road tax

Answer 19

trouble is,if you want something, you you will pay for it,so £400 wont put people off getting 4x4s,plus if you can afford a 4x4,£400 is nothing,its not just 4x4s,some sports cars,mpv's with 2.5-3.0 petrol engines that do 150mph(why),when you can save on tax & fuel,with a 1.9-2.2 diesel

Answer 20

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 21

I will not be giving up my 4.2 litre supercharged Jaguar for an extra £4 a week in 'stealth' tax.

I work in an office where I can see trains and busses with nobody on them going past all day. Nothing is done about the pollution that they cause. China, India and the good old USA don't seem to care so why should I ?

The human race is sinking to lower and lower depths due to scroungers, drug takers and scroats in general, so is the world worth saving ? I don't believe it is.

Answer 22

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 23

Very unlikely, I'm afraid.

Answer 24

No.

Answer 25

No

With people buying vehicles at £40,000 plus which depreciate by 5k to 10k a year in its first couple of years £400 is peanuts.

Answer 26

Price will not change anything to it.
Those "Environmental Friendly Cars" are just too ugly for sensible people to buy them.
If you had to chose between the most beautiful sexy, but ill mannered woman against the most ugly but with a big good heart...which one would you chose??

Answer 27

no, people that buy big engined cars aren't going to worry about paying £400 per year equivalent to £8 per week when the car cost 30k++ and petrol costs £4 a gallon. £400 is a drop in the ocean.... and why do us motorists keep putting up with these tax hikes. Isn't it fact that cars actually contribute very little percentage of CO emissions anyway but it is just the government looking to raise revenue so they jump on the green band wagon. Don't see MP's in smart cars/toyota prius.

Answer 28

No.
I buy the car to perform a job. If its £400 into the exchequer then I save £400 in other ways ... tax avoidance.
If the manufacturer makes a 'green' 4x4 I do not expect the benefit will see the tax being reduced to £35. Tax levied is greed rather than a carbon issue. Make green 4x4's.
Anyway car polution is insignicant compared to cow farts and power stations. Each week China increases its carbon output of new power stations by more than the UK total car emissions.

Answer 29

This isnt about helping the planet its about penalising the poor people

Answer 30

Of course not. With depreciation costing 25 million motorists around £50 billion year , then the £6 billion for Road Fund Tax is of little consequence when deciding which vehicle to buy.

Answer 31

I wont, I've just paid £300 for my annual road tax, I love my car. I refuse to use public transport, the last time I did the train was old and smelly even the introduction of Congestion Charging on the pretext of up grading all public transport wouldn't get me to use a bus.