Electric car advocate slams new tax made with ‘no warning and no consultation’

An electric car lobby group says a planned new Victorian tax on electric vehicles has been made with “no warning and no consultation”.

On the weekend, the state government announced a plan to tax electric vehicle owners a road usage fee, which is set to come into force in July 2021.

A 2.5 cent per kilometre levy will apply to electric vehicles, while plug-in hybrid vehicles will be slugged with a 2 cent per litre charge.

But CEO Electric Cars Lobby Group, Beyhad Jafari, says it makes no sense for the state government to discourage electric car ownership.

“Looking at this from a whole global perspective what we have is countries all around the world saying ‘At this stage we want to encourage more people to get into electric vehicles and all the benefits they bring’,” he said.

“And there’s Victoria and Australia saying ‘We’ll become the first country in the world not to do that, but to in fact tax people and try to get less people driving them.’

Under the new legislation, some petrol cars will be cheaper to drive than their electric counterparts.

“Any car that uses less than six litres to drive 100 kilometres, so … a number of sort of more efficient cars, they’re all paying less than 2.5 cents per litre fuel excise,” Mr Jafari said.

It’s not yet clear how the tax will be enforced, but electric car owners may need to fill out an annual log book.

“None of these things have been thought through, Mr Jafari said.

“I don’t know how they’re going to get it implemented in time.”

Press PLAY below for more.