Cars should be taxed based on how heavy they are to help customers choose the greenest vehicles, a leading automotive expert has claimed.
Nick Molden, founder of environmental research company Emissions Analytics, has warned the UK is living in an ‘age of autobesity’ and called on new measures to end consumer confusion.
He said the weight of a car multiplied by the distance driven is a better way of working out the environmental impact.
Molden argues this could replace existing tax methods and apply to all car types with simple implementation as the data could be easily obtained.
His proposal would see a driver pay £100 less annually if their vehicle was 150kg lighter than average or if it was driven 620 fewer miles a year than average.
‘We have gone through dozens of different pollutants from vehicles including carbon, noise, infrastructure impact and safety and 83 per cent of them correlate well with mass,’ he said.
‘Mass is a really good shorthand for the total environmental impact of vehicles. This method is not stinging people for extra tax but it allows everyone to make their free choice without the government snooping.
‘It is your decision to [buy a heavy vehicle] or not, no one is banning the technology or saying you can’t go and visit your grandma but you have to pay for the right.’
Drivers should be taxed based on their vehicle’s weight, according to automotive experts
Nick Molden (pictured), founder of environmental research company Emissions Analytics, has warned the UK is living in an ‘age of autobesity’
Molden said the government has to take action because it is losing out on tax revenue with the electrification of cars.
‘This is a very simple initiative which doesn’t require prior legislation – so you are simply basing a tax on two numbers which have a legal basis,’ he added.
‘It fortuitously happens to help with the environmental impact and it is the right policy at the right time.’
He claimed there is a way for people with larger cars to save money under his proposal.
‘If you want that big heavy SUV, the way you can offset it is by being judicious with the journeys you make,’ Molden said.
The average weight of new cars in the European Union increased to 1,518 kg in 2022, a 19 per cent increase from 2001, and this is mostly due to the shift to electric vehicles.
One in four new vehicle sales in Britain are electric and while these cars do not release emissions from an exhaust, they still contribute to air pollution.
Toxic particles are released when tyres, brake pads and roads wear down and this process is accelerated with heavier cars.
Battery electric vehicles are up to 40 per cent heavier than equivalent petrol and diesel cars on average, according to research in Molden and Felix Leach’s book Critical Mass.
The average weight of new cars in the European Union increased to 1,518 kg in 2022, a 19 per cent increase from 2001
A Tesla Cybertruck produces more emissions than the average small 1.2L petrol car, according to Nick Molden
Molden believes this has led to confusion for drivers about the best way to be environmentally friendly and pointed to how an all-electric Tesla Cybertruck produces more emissions than a small 1.2litre petrol car.
‘The whole subject has become terribly complicated. All people can hold on to is “buy electric” but that is not a good decision making system,’ he said.
‘Look at the mass in the brochure and that will tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the environmental impact. You can forecast the amount of tax you’ll pay in the year and work out how much each journey will cost you.
‘Without baffling people with science it gives them a very simple decision making tool and at the moment people are turning off with conflicting messages and it leads to confusion.’
The electric Tesla Model Y weighs around 2,000kg and became Europe’s best selling car last year, ousting the Peugeot 208 which weighs approximately 1,200kg in its petrol version.
Cars which were previously light have become heavier over the last few decades including the Volkswagen Golf which weighed 775kg in 1974 but has since doubled in weight.
Norway introduced a tax on cars weighing more than 500kg in January 2023 and two years ago France implemented a €10 tax on petrol and diesel cars for every kilogram over 1,800kg.
While Cardiff Council discussed whether larger vehicles should have to pay more for their residential parking permits.
