The Department for Transport recently ended a £1,500 subsidy towards the price of new, lower-priced electric cars one year earlier than planned. To their credit, there are better ways to promote electric-car use – for instance by encouraging the installation of public charging stations.
As it is, the spread of rapid-charging stations in the UK is bizarrely uneven. Some parts of the country are well served, but there are unexpected black spots. Oddly, trendy places where people talk endlessly about sustainability – such as Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton – are hopeless for rapid charging points, while less fanciful places like Thurrock, Milton Keynes and Newport are awash with them. If you find yourself in Oxford or Cambridge and want to rapid-charge your electric car, you need to head out of town to a Lidl or McDonald’s (Golden Arches 1, Dreaming Spires 0). There is always a whiff of hypocrisy around environmentalism: Brighton, with its Green MP, has one of the worst recycling rates in Britain.
Buying a brand-new car is a significant act of unintended altruism – an invisible redistribution of wealth
But, returning to the topic of new-car subsidies, it occurs to me that, leaving aside environmental concerns, perhaps all new cars should come with a subsidy or VAT reduction. The same applies to laptops and mobile phones. Let me explain why.
In many ways, buying a brand-new car is a generous deed. Not as generous as giving all the money to charity maybe, but it still counts as a significant act of unintended altruism – an invisible redistribution of wealth. That’s because the car market has some unusual properties.
Most people in Britain never buy a new car in their lives. But those who do disproportionately fund improvements in automotive quality and technology.
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