The vast majority of new car buyers in Britain will be forced to pay higher road tax from the 1st April this year onwards.
According to research from consumer site Honest John, the new tax rules will add more than £500 to the long-term costs of some of the UK’s most popular and eco-friendly cars.
Conversely, the same tax changes will actually mean that some of the least efficient and least environmentally-friendly vehicles will be taxed significantly less.
For example, a Ford Fiesta with the 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine will now cost £540 more to tax over four years, while the Ford Mustang with its 5.0-litre V8 will cost £245 less over the same period.
The road tax shakeup has been introduced to better account for the number of eco-friendly cars that buyers have purchased in past years, with three quarters of new cars now emitting under 130g/km of CO2.
Under the current rules, vehicles that emit less than 99g/km of CO2 are exempt from road tax, but from the start of April only cars which are completely emissions-free will be exempt.
Any vehicle with a list price of over £40,000 will also be subject to an extra £310 per year for a total of five years, but the new tax rules only apply to cars registered after April 1st 2017.
As a result, any car registered prior to that date will still be subject to the current tax rules, and the new VED rules have already seen an increase in demand for pre-registered vehicles this year.
