The Telegraph has a piece by a deeply aggrieved Nissan Leaf owner called Andrew Moore. He’s moaning because after having shelled out “to save the planet”, nasty Labour “plans to punish” him and as a result he feels “so let down”:
I switched to electric because I wanted to be environmentally responsible. This latest move feels like a betrayal of the families trying to reduce their carbon footprint.
As far as Mr Moore is concerned, being “environmentally sound” should go hand in hand with a lifetime of being exempt from road tax and fuel excise duty. Anything else is sheer betrayal:
Labour urgently needs cash, and EV drivers are easy targets [what, just like the rest of us? Ed.] I simply cannot see what they hope to achieve with this measure. The pay-per-mile tax is due to be announced by Rachel Reeves on November 26th, but I doubt it will survive contact with the public: it’s wildly unpopular and completely at odds with everything we’ve been told about Labour’s commitment to the environment.
Of course, it rather depends on what he means by “the public”. Most car owners are still driving ICE vehicles and more than a few of them don’t think too kindly of those who can afford EVs being exempt from stumping up like the rest of us. Suddenly, the plot thickens though:
I admit I have a personal stake. I’m Chairman of a local community energy company running three solar farms, and I firmly believe we need to minimise our dependence on fossil fuels and stop polluting the planet.
I bought a Nissan Leaf in 2020, as one of the early wave of EV owners. Back then, my wife Maura and I were running a company – I’m a retired biochemist – and at the time the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was offering good incentives to companies to adopt EVs, with low tax rates and a few thousand off the price.
Having an EV made “perfect sense”. Of course it did, just like the solar farms in his company which presumably benefited from taxpayer-funded subsidies:
For us, it made perfect sense as we mainly drove short distances and could charge the car overnight when electricity was cheaper. With no car tax and no petrol costs, it was economically and environmentally sound.
However, apparently unaware of the environmental cost of manufacturing EV cars and generating electricity on the numerous occasions when the sun is blotted out and the wind doesn’t blow, Mr Moore also seems to be unaware that the whole point of hybrids is not having to be stuck in a layby with a flat battery, because they handily include a petrol tank:
We also have a Kia Sportage plug-in hybrid for longer journeys which requires a degree of forward planning, locating charging points along the route.
He’s convinced it’ll be impossible for the Government to work out how many miles an EV owner has done per year. It seems he has no idea most EVs are connected to the internet through the 4G signal for their various ‘smart’ functions, by using an embedded SIM card. Nissan Leafs have a SIM in their Telematics Control Unit. The Kia Sportage also has one, usually an eSIM. One tweak of the software and change of the law and his every move will be transmitted in a trice to some central pay-per-mile database.
Mr Moore is also disgusted at being betrayed by Sir Sadiq Khan, who callously plans to deny him the chance to drive round London for free as well:
I was also furious when I heard that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is planning to make EV drivers pay the congestion charge next year. Yet another step backwards.
People like me feel we have been lied to. The biggest personal effect is that it has put me off buying a new electric car, so it will undoubtedly hit this market. We had been looking at the new electric Nissan Micra, but now I’m thinking: “Why bother? My old car runs perfectly well.”
That, funnily enough, is exactly what an increasing number of ICE car owners have been thinking too, though they have a better chance of keeping their cars on the road for a lot longer. As for poor Mr Moore, who is now viewing the prospect of his freebie rewards disappearing as fast as Labour’s support, there’s only one way to end:
“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
“I deeply sympathise.”
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.The Walrus and the Carpenter, by Lewis Carroll
The Telegraph’s piece is worth reading in full.
Oh dear how sad never mind
Some gave up their virginity to be seen as friendly.
Yet another addition to the modern prestige position of victimhood.
Why on God’s Green Earth would you think the government wouldn’t both replace a disappearing source of revenue and then increase it? Green = Self-Serving Government. Got it?
Absolutely typical parasite. Wants The State to run everybody’s lives because he just Knows he’ll be one of the people in charge.
The government cannot subsidize everything. Someone has to pay, and he is simply joining the rest of society, which has previously subsidized his company and his lifestyle. Oh yes, he is not the only one who has been lied to, either.
He was not lied to. He fooled himself.
He was lied to, but he accepted the lie without question.
I don’t remember a politician promising that electric cars wouldn’t be subject to some sort of road charging, as opposed to Ed Milliband and renewables saving us as soon as he came to power.
A real but nuanced difference.
A callous betrayal? On the face of it, yes, however, that doesn’t explain what is really behind it.
The country is now run according to international and human rights laws above any domestic legal considerations. And the triumvirate is Kier Starmer, Richard Hermer and Philippe Sands.
One elected, one appointed a lord by the elected one, and one who hangs about in the shadows.
One example the Chagos surrender. A UK territory whose inhabitants were booted out for the Diego Garcia base. Starmer has decided we must give the islands to Mauritius (a Chinese ally) and pay them £35 billion for the privilege of doing so – and the kitty is bare
“There was national outrage this morning at the news that Sir Keir’s Labour has decided to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius – but perhaps Brits shouldn’t be so shocked by Starmer’s move. It transpires that the Prime Minister is friends with Philippe Sands KC, who also happens to be Mauritius’ chief legal adviser – and a longtime campaigner for the country to control the land. How very curious…” – Spectator
Some patriot.
Aw the poor soul.
So he is annoyed that he thinks that he has been lied to. Well, I am furious that I most certainly have been lied to regarding an imaginary climate crisis and indeed am also furious that squadrillions of taxpayers money has been squandered worldwide on useless polluting “renewables”.
Stupid is as stupid does.
There was never any chance of there not being heavy taxes levied on PEVs as soon as they were mandated. Politicians are always seeking new ways to tax the middle class out of existence.
Here, after realizing that paying rooftop solar users for their excess electricity is hurting their bottom line and hurt the regular customers, the energy providers changed the rules and added some that reduced the amount paid back and added ‘taxes’ that cost them more. Bait and switch. The only escape is to go off grid which in my neck of the woods is possible with the amount of sun we get.
#1: It took a moment looking at the top photo to realize what it is. I’ve never been up close and personal with such a thing.
#2: He has an education (biochemist, retired {not young}), he and wife run company, Chairman of a local … …
Exceptionally naive comes to mind.
#3: I weep not for him.
#1. Every time I see this photo I think it is of an electric razor.
This sobbing putz reminds me of an episode I watched play here in 1992 when Senator Feinstein jammed her Wilderness Act bill through, and many areas of California were being mapped for closure. Some of our local climbing community, mostly local rescue team members who really were old has-been climbers in a “recuse team”, fully supported the Wilderness Act. They were virtuous Sierra Club members that despised the off-road community and thought of themselves as above the unwashed. They were fully engaged in the mapping, and they carefully made sure their favorite climbing areas were “Cherry Stemmed”, so They could continue to drive up and have fun. While I was friends of these fellows, I was appalled and sad that so much access was about to end. But their smugness changed to outrage overnight. All of their careful cherry stems were clipped off in the final regulations. I must say I wasn’t happy about it either, but I took some grim satisfaction from their realization that they weren’t anything but peons to be lied to by their masters.
I imagine they learned nothing from the process.
So I bought a brand new car, subsidised by the government instead of repairing my 10 year old Fiesta
By George, I think he’s got it!
Motor fuel taxes in the UK are 5 times the average US rate (federal + state) amounting to about $2.50 USD / gallon, and then there’s the additional 20% VAT applied to the retail price including duty.
Unlike the US where motor fuel taxes are restricted to transportation uses, in the UK all fuel tax proceeds are simply rolled into the general revenue bucket to pay for whatever Parliament authorizes. So the effect of replacing IC vehicles with electric ones is a much sharper decline in revenue which squeezes the entire budget.
The current estimate of 2025 motor fuel tax duties is £24.4 billion ($30.5 billion USD), and ~£16 billion (~$20 billion USD) for the VAT. That adds up to £40-41 billion ($50-51.3 billion USD).
Just what does Mr. Moore think would happen if all his fellow citizens answered the call to be more environmentally responsible and purchased new EVs? All that lost revenue would have to be made up by taxing something else. Cue the red pill.
Yes Mr. Moore, you have been lied to, and you ignored everyone who tried to warn you.
It is credible to assert EVs reduce tailpipe emissions; it is far less credible to claim massive adoption of EVs in the UK will have any measurable effect on global temperatures. It is completely ludicrous to assert that EVs will cause any less congestion than IC vehicles. The stated purpose of the congestion tax was to (drum roll) reduce congestion! Again, just what does Mr. Moore think will happen to London traffic if everyone trades in their current cars for shiny new EVs?
Answer: Unicorns.
And what have tailpipe emissions to do with global temperatures ?
Absolutely NOTHING. !!
All of Britain should be embarrassed by this guy, what a pitiful display.
Not so. He fails as an individual, showing only his personal stupidity and sense of entitlement. This says nothing about Britons as a whole.
And neither did I, let me rephrase that all of western society should be embarrassed.
Just wait until that battery needs to be replaced, that’ll be fun.
Fifteen years from now; every electric car you see will only be worth its value as scrap, because almost no one will be willing to spend twenty thousand dollars to put a new battery in a fifteen year old car.
“People like me feel we have been lied to.”
He describes himself as a “retired biochemist”. I don’t know how old a biochemist needs to be before he can retire but he obviously isn’t some naive teenager, who might be excused for believing everything the government tells him. He’s old enough to know that governments lie. It’s just what they do. Not all the time, that would make it easy. But often enough that any sane person takes whatever government says with a huge pinch of salt.
An interesting quote from Doug Burgum, the US Secretary of the Interior, in the Free Beacon today. Discussing energy policy in the UK (as a comparison to the US) he stated:
He also described solar energy as being prone to catastrophic failures. They are called sunsets.
What an idiot.
First: For us, it made perfect sense as we mainly drove short distances
This is a contradiction, you need a lot of km before becoming green. But for many kms it is inconvenient. So most likely he’s not driving much kms to become green.
Second: Buying a new car. His car is only 5 years old, nothing says more green than buying a new car after 5 years. I assume it is to replace one car and not the third.
Third: Why does het need 2 cars? If you claim to care about the environment you don’t buy 2 cars.
If they could only tax stupidity.
Good to see ironic articles survive the Green disease.