Is it time for pay as you go road pricing?

As electric car sales rise in the UK, a problem looms for the government. The treasury takes in a substantial amount of money from fuel duty – the tax on petrol and diesel that drivers pay at the pump. Even with recent crowd-pleasing cuts and freezes to fuel duty, it still hauls in £28 billion a year in tax.

However, since they don’t burn petrol or diesel in their cars, electric vehicle drivers don’t contribute anything to this total. The more electric cars there are, the more that source of...