https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66481761
Fuel duty should be increased to fund pothole repairs, the group representing councils in England and Wales has said.
...and pondering that BEVs tend to be 30% heavier than the equivalent ICE and that the heavier vehicles do the damage. Coupled with the fact that 16% of new cars sold last month were BEVs, then it seems to me the ones being charged are less and less responsible for the damage (excluding HGV/PSV which have their own VED regime).
Which made me wonder whether the whole VED thing could have a simple makeover. Get rid of the caveats, the new car supplement, the expensive car supplement, and tax them simply on weight. It would even be trivial to backdate it to 1983
Heavier vehicles use more resources to make, tend to cost more anyway (yes, I know there are exceptions, and cause more wear to the roads. Potentially their weight reduces efficiency (not weight per se as regen will recover much of the additional energy required to accelerate, but more that the heavier cars tend to be large cubes with bigger frontal area and more drag).
It would be simple to administer, no clever tricks to spoof any tests, no PHEVs with 15 mile range to sneak into 'hybrid' category, buy a heavier car, cause more damage, pay more to use the road. You could have a surcharge if the vehicle also had a ICE of some sort, just to please the green lobby, but other than that is appears wuite simple.
Now sure there will things I've overlooked over my morning muesli (don't worry, it is bacon butties for lunch) so come along folks, have a think, see what pros and cons there are with this.
Paul