If you skimmed the headlines after the Budget in November, you’d be forgiven for thinking electric cars are toast.
“Electric Vehicle sales to collapse under pay-per-mile tax.”
“Has the big drive to electric cars run out of energy in the UK?”
“After Budget bombshell of pay-per-mile tax on electric cars, does the Government actually want us to buy EVs?”
Look carefully enough and you might find the odd headline welcoming the £1.3billion boost for EV grants and confirmation that salary sacrifice tax breaks are staying.
But commotion around a new “pay-per-mile” tax, pencilled in for 2028, dominated the agenda and drowned out the good stuff. So let’s cut through some of that noise.
If you’re already driving electric – or thinking about switching – the simple truth is this: EVs are a better buy than petrol or diesel.
At Octopus Electric Vehicles, we speak to hundreds of drivers every day. The message is consistent: once people go electric, over 95 per cent say they won’t return to petrol or diesel.
Why? Because EVs are quieter, smoother, cheaper to run and they’re getting better and better every year.
While Government policy matters, the real story isn’t coming from Westminster. It’s coming from technology. Just look at what happened to your phone over the last decade. Cars are no different.
Since 2015, global battery prices have fallen by 75 per cent, knocking more than £20,000 off the cost of a typical EV battery. That’s a game-changer.
‘If you’re thinking about going electric, now is a better time than ever to do it’
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GETTY/PA
New models are launching all the time. In 2025 alone, we’ve seen everything from the affordable Dacia Spring at £189 a month, right through to long-range premium cars like the BMW iX3 with over 400 miles on a single charge.
More choice. Better range. Lower prices. In fact, the latest data shows that roughly one in four new cars bought in 2025 were electric, according to New Automotive. That’s not a market in decline.
Here’s the bit that often gets ignored.
If you charge at home on a smart tariff, EV drivers can save over 80 per cent on fuel costs compared to petrol. Thanks to EV specialist energy tariffs, some drivers charge for just 6p per kWh. That works out at roughly 2p per mile.
Compare that with petrol cars costing 13-18p per mile at today’s prices.
Fiona Howarth, Founder and Director of Octopus Electric Vehicles
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OCTOPUS ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Even if the much-talked-about 3p-per-mile tax were introduced tomorrow, drivers would still be paying around 5p per mile. That’s miles cheaper than petrol or diesel.
The pay-per-mile tax may have come as a surprise for some drivers, so we have decided to absorb the cost for existing Octopus EV lease customers until the end of their lease.
And let’s not forget: petrol isn’t getting any cheaper. The 5p fuel duty discount ends in September 2026, and from April 2027, fuel duty will start rising with inflation again.
What about those without driveways? This is where the Budget matters. Alongside vehicle incentives, the Government committed new funding to speed up the rollout of public charging, particularly on residential streets and in local communities.
Drivers could save thousands of pounds with an electric vehicle
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OCTOPUS ENERGYPlanning rules are being updated to make pavement charging and on-street solutions easier, so more drivers can plug in near home and benefit from cheaper overnight electricity.
This is infrastructure catching up with how people actually live.
An independent Electric Vehicles UK report earlier this year said it clearly: most EV drivers save money compared to petrol, to the tune of almost £6,000 over the course of a lease.
Those fundamentals haven’t changed. Despite the noise, the numbers still point in one direction.
EVs aren’t a fad. They’re improving faster than petrol cars ever did, they’re cheaper to run, and they’re here to stay.
If you are worried about the scare stories, it’s always a useful exercise to look at headlines from a few years ago and compare them with what’s actually happened. Or better still, talk to a neighbour who’s already made the switch. I bet there are plenty.
“Sheer weight of electric vehicles could sink our bridges”, read a UK national newspaper headline from May 2023.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen any bridges buckling under the weight of electric cars over the last two and a half years.
Ignore the scare stories.
If you’re thinking about going electric, now is a better time than ever to do it.