Question of the week: Will I have to pay EV pay per mile as well as regular VED on my hybrid?
Fri, 05 Dec 2025
Dear Honest John,
"I own a Mercedes-Benz CLA 250e hybrid and currently £180 VED, rising to £195 in January 2026 when it becomes due.
Firstly, can you tell me if, from 1 April 2028, I will not only pay the going rate of VED but also the 1.5p/mile announced by the Chancellor?
Secondly, how are they going decide what percentage of my annual mileage is completed on battery power or will it just be raised against my full annual mileage?
- MY
Dear MY,
Electric Vehicle Excise Duty, or eVED, will be introduced in April 2028 alongside the current VED system, so you will pay both eVED and the applicable VED rate at the time. Full details of the scheme are yet to be announced, but what has been stated is that hybrids will pay 1.5p per mile compared to 3p per mile for EVs.
Calculating how many miles are covered on electric as opposed to petrol power would require data from the vehicle to be gathered, which could only be implemented using black-box technology, something which the government has insisted will not happen.
It is more likely that the 1.5p per mile charge will be levied against total annual mileage, which would effectively mean hybrid drivers will pay more for miles travelled on petrol power than electric. This assumes that PHEV drivers cover half their miles using EV power and half using petrol.
Real-world data from Europe shows that PHEV drivers use EV power around 45% to 49% of the time. Whether that rings true for UK drivers remains to be seen, but for owners of early plug-in hybrids where the range, which was not that good to begin with and will likely have dropped over time, we doubt that's the case.
The announcement of eVED has, unsurprisingly, proved unpopular with electric and hybrid vehicle owners, but a change in the collection of VED was inevitable to balance the loss of fuel duty with the increasing number of alternatively-fuelled vehicles on the roads.
However, exactly how EV pay-per-mile will be implemented is still not clear. From what we have read, the idea is that EV and PHEV owners will have their mileage verified at an MoT station, or similar, every year.
But what happens to company car drivers? Or hire cars? And what if you spend months of the year abroad driving on non UK roads? And will you be able to pay in advance? Or by monthly direct debit? At the moment there are more questions than clear answers...
