Typical doomsday title. The actual article says peak times to be "between 4pm and 6pm". No one charges their EV during that time.
It's not electric cars that need to worry, all EV have built-in charge timers. It is all households without battery, meaning everyone who uses electricity. There is already tariff that offers this type of pricing to reward overnight battery (EV or house battery) charging at extremely cheap 6p/kWh and penalise peak time usage at 30p/kWh.
https://www.greenenergyuk.com/Tide
That money can come from rapid charging (different to home charging) and big battery pollution tax. For example, in 2040:
- Charles the commuter drives 20 miles a day, bought a 20kWh car. He charges at home and with a modest battery, pays £50 a year in road & pollution tax and no charging tax.
- Tim the travelling salesman drives 400 miles a day, bought a 100kWh car. He rapid charge once a day, pays £300 a year in road & pollution tax and £20 rapid charge to recover 200 miles, £8 of which is tax (calc: 60kWh energy for a very inefficient 3.33miles/kWh car using expensive 30p/kWh energy = £12)
- Tom the other travelling salesman drives 300 miles a day, bought a 120kWh car. He doesn't need to rapid charge, but pays £350 a year in road & pollution tax.
- Owen the old guy occasionally drives 100 miles a day, got a 60mpg car (even though 40kWh EV at £60 pa tax is perfect for him). He will have to pay £400 a year in road & pollution tax, and £30 in fuel to recover 200 miles due to ever increasing fossil fuel prices. (at current rate, £2 per litre is highly conservative estimate in 2040)
The treasury receives similar amounts in total, but differently from different people. You drive more or buy unnecessarily big battery you pay more. Simples
But every EV owner wins if they charge at home. There's simply no way to tax home charging, because you can always charge by not using the metered EV charger and dangle a cable out of your window.
For Charles, he can buy a £8000 Nissan Leaf 24kWh right now, and cut his commute from £2 a day to 60p, zero road tax on the car and zero congestion or T-charge. Right now for Charles is similar to when BoE base interest rate was at 0.25%, if you are able to take advantage of savings (from remortgage or buying EV), it's foolish not to!