Alistair,
The Government is looking at replacements of RFL and Fuel Duty and VAT. Most likely finish up with a mileage charge which will quickly change the economics of the EV and they begin to carry the tax burden of the ICE. As will all other forms of replacement energy begin to bear more taxes to maintain Treasury receipts. So EV are currently in a very false short term low unit cost base per mile, it wont be long before they bear considerably more of the tax burden and so the whinging will start..
Whilst Governments avoid bad news story lines, and can be populist/short term in their thinking, we really need to clear out the Civil Service as much of this 'blue sky' thinking/planning is beyond their comfort zone, in their basically 'personal risk averse' policy initiative and delivery environment. One of the great 'strategies' of the past to reduce CO2 emissions and reduce our future energy shortfall (in the not so distant past) was to get rid of our dirty energy consuming industries and become a service industry based economy. So now we don't make much ,have to import nearly everything, totally at risk of international supply lines and supply pressures with resultant upward costs. having invested little in a our energy generation and network before the recent push for renewables.
The politicians may leave a lot to be desired but from resource and continuity planning point the Civil Service has screwed up big style........
