alt Hacker NewsThe UK has stated that the current mileage check within the annual roadworthiness test will supply this data.
A clear weakness is that mileage readings can be altered. This used to matter on a smaller scale: dodgy second-hand sales, but now more or less anyone could be considered as potentially incentivised to interfere.
The mileage must remain a changeable field since the recording component may need replacement, for example, after accident damage or to correct a fault in the assembly that recording memory is part of.
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I don't know why they don't just tax electricity?
Do it like taxes, have a low rate for the first X kwhs then increase after. Great aunt Mildred gets to heat her home, your neighbour that has a massive house, EVs, jacuzzi etc etc pays more.
EVs are always going to be an outsized user of electricity, and it's unclear to me why someone's jacuzzi should be heated vat free.
Pure mileage is one option but many have voiced other structures such as altering prices based on time/place/road driven, which would require more data than simple odometer readings.
A more central issue is the synergy between fuel consumption and damage to roads. Heavier vehicles do more damage but also burn more gas and so pay more tax, a synergy between cost and revenue. A flat rate based on mileage alone would equate all EVs as the same regardless of some being massively more damaging than others. We would need different rates for difference classes/weights of vehicles.
fuel pump meters can be altered too as well a farm diesel abuses - scofflaws trying to get around paying their fair share will always take some regulatory effort