I can’t help but feel the year on year increases are a way of trying to force people into buying a new car or EV, even though its more sustainable to keep an existing car on the road.
3 Likes
I think this years “Tax an EV just like an ICE car” has probably reduced EV uptake short term.
The 3.9% annual increase they have introduced just feels higher when you are already paying £300+
Mind you, I don’t care about sustainability, either. And nothing is going to brainwash me otherwise.
2 Likes
I don’t either, i’m just saying its the usual government BS of trying to make out they are doing a good thing to get older cars off the road and encourage people into shiny new ones.
2 Likes
True.
Mind you, the biggest fault in the current system is that they don’t do £5K non-means tested, tax payer funded grants available for first time, new car MX-5 owners. That would enable more people to enjoy the MX-5, improve mental health, not only of those buying them, but pedestrians seeing more of them, and hence reduce strain on ‘our’ NHS. Why incentives for first time new ND owners weren’t introduced is beyond me. I’m mean talk abut not getting priorities right.
4 Likes
Ah, your demand is before the usual increases on April Big Budget day; well planned.
My 25AE VED is in September.
YES! Excellent plan with just one problem…zero chance of it being implemented!
For me, the only right way of assessing who pays what is for it to be based on weight. Since the heaviest vehicle do most damage to the roads, the likes of electric Range Rovers should pay considerably more than a motorcycle or MX-5 and yet that is not the case.
It would be far simpler for motorists to understand, for the government to police and would encourage manufacturers to produce lighter vehicles which is in the best interests of the whole world.
7 Likes
Am I right in guessing those of you who don’t care about sustainability don’t have children and don’t expect to live into the 2050s?
2 Likes
Am I right in guessing those who apparently do ‘care’ about sustainability, and the future and 2050s etc etc, ‘care’ so much they drive around in an MX-5, when there are far, far, far more ‘caring’ options? Indeed, some ‘care’ so much they have tunes on theirs too.
1 Like
Or maybe price everyone off the road/out of car ownership in the drive towards 15 minute cities and the restriction of movement of the great unwashed?..
Forcing car owners to get rid of their dirty ICE vehicles for “zero emission” (no such thing) vehicles which are currently priced, in most normal citizens cases, beyond their incomes - that will drive car ownership down.
Already their will be a generation coming along that will not know how to drive a car with a manual gearbox. Add to that, the future scarcity of cheap used cars on the market for new drivers to buy as their first car, huge increases in VED for older ICE cars, increasing cost of fuel for ICE vehicles, huge prices for insurance for young drivers - just a few of the hurdles that future drivers will have to weigh up against affording other ‘luxuries’ or essentials when they set out in the world on their own.
Their choice will end up as get a bicycle/electric scooter to get around your local area or rely on public transport to go further afield…
1 Like
Now where did i leave my time machine? i’m off back to the 70s 
3 Likes
Hydrogen perhaps?
Remember to get transported by an appropriate green method of transport though 
4 Likes
Re introduce VED for all vehicles, including the London/ Brighton old crocs, if they use the roads they should pay.
Yes @ND12 I understand that I’m something of a hypocrite in owning an MX5. I tried to give them up, but I couldn’t. Climate change and its impact concerns me a lot, for everyone who uses our planet. MX5 is currently our third car. Both the others are electric. The MX5 gets driven the least distance and I offset the carbon at twice the actual level (through buying and repairing solar lights to replace kerosene lamps in Africa).
None of us are perfect or do as much as we could to reduce our impact. I know people can pick holes in what I do and don’t do (although I prefer it when they do it with facts rather than ‘I think it so it must be true’ arguments). It just makes me terribly sad to read people saying they don’t care about sustainability. Particularly those with whom I share a passion.
3 Likes
None of us are Green driving mx5 but i do leave our cars from time to time walk get buses etc i car share too but still love driving my mk1 and except road tax as not a lover of electric cars Hybrid is ok , will become more difficult as years go on running petrol and diesel cars they will eventually be filtered out for the good of the planet 
but till then i will drive Top down as my carbon footprint not as big as others 
Hi,
No, I don’t pick holes in what people do; people are totally free to do what they want imo (legally of course).
I’m just not the sort of person who steps on a high horse, but don’t ride the horse.
If climate change concerned me (which it don’t) , I wouldn’t drive an MX5. Indeed, if someone was really concerned by it, they probably wouldn’t either. Cherry picking, thinking ‘I do A’, so it isn’t so bad if I do ‘B’ isn’t really me.
This is like saying if climate change concerned you, you wouldn’t drive an EV, you’d walk. Where do you draw the line?
You do what you want