When electric cars become mainstream and fossil fuels are consigned to history – where will government lost revenues come from?

Road tax is currently based on fuel emissions with a huge chunk of government income taken from fuel tax. This will potentially mean a £27 – £28 billion hole in the chancellors budget – so, how will it be plugged?

Will it be from charging for road use per journey, tolls, per mile, a battery tax (more likely) or heavy taxing of each vehicle – or possibly a higher tax on electricity. That’s a point – where is all our extra energy going to come from – how will we generate all that extra power? And the infrastructure, charging points – petrol stations… sorry, I digress.

Our chancellor yesterday (26/07/17) said that the replacement of these revenues is 20, 30 – 40 years away (or in so many words). These comments led me to think it was being pushed onto the back-burner! Isn’t it now that we should be preparing for our future from all aspects – government revenue included?

Please, let’s plan now rather than leave it for successive governments. The future is now. Plan ahead! After all, its taken far too long to get to this stage – and now its time to embrace the new technology and decide how to replace the revenue losses expected with the reduction in use of hydro-carbons.

Today and not tomorrow!