Luxury Car Tax

[dan223]

what annoys me is that Tesla sales advisors are still saying the base SR plus model in under the threshold for luxury car tax which is misleading.

That is pretty poor if that is the case, I think some people are ordering and not even aware of the luxury car tax, will be a bit of a shock when they get it.

I think a good option for telsa will be to drop the price a little, or at minimum remove something such as autopilot to get the SR under the tax bracket, then allow you to purchase auto piliot for the same price within 30days.

 

[banned-66611]

Does anyone know if you can order the standard range in the UK?
I might call and then unlock the plus features at a later date

No, it probably won't come to the UK at all. Also trying to dodge tax in that way is likely to get the attention of HMRC.

 

[banned-66611]

I think a good option for telsa will be to drop the price a little, or at minimum remove something such as autopilot to get the SR under the tax bracket, then allow you to purchase auto piliot for the same price within 30days.

They can't.

The SR+ barely makes any money for them anyway. The SR loses money. They also need everyone to get getting Autopilot because they are counting on revenue from it later on. They need a high take-up rate so are trying to force it to 100%.

They would also lose money on upgrades. If it was £39999 they would sell far fewer paint upgrades, because it would actually cost paint + £1,600 tax. So the cheapest paint would be £2,600!

Besides the £2000 they charge for AP wouldn't get it under the luxury car tax threshold anyway.

 

[4EVar]

A bunch of people able to afford a Tesla whinging about having to pay some tax. And apparently its Tesla's fault.

No doubt you expect free charging here and there too ...

... and also evade tax by paying your plumber etc. in cash

How do you think they got rich in the first place....?

 

[Singer3000]

Ok I’ve just politely emailed Michael Gove to highlight the folly of giving a £3500 grant upfront of which they then take half back over 5 years. If the cheapest only true mass market EV is treated as a “luxury” good, something’s quite wrong with the policy.

Suggest you all do the same.

 

[WannabeOwner]

How do you think they got rich in the first place....?

Some of them for sure, and I abhor that Amazon / Starbucks etc. can just have a cozy relationship with HMRC and pay peanuts in tax. Lots of Big Corp have morals that have deteriorated to sewer-rat level, sadly. I expect that will come full circle and they'll get a kicking in time.

Richard Barstewards I know worked hard and took financial risk, and others somehow managed to navigate A,B,C,...,Z using a path that no one else had spotted, and joined up the dots better along the way.

I don't have cavalier non-caring main-chancers in that circle, but yeah they do exist

 

[WannabeOwner]

I’ve just politely emailed Michael Gove to highlight the folly of giving a £3500 grant upfront of which they then take half back over 5 years

Good for you, well done.

 

[banned-66611]

If the cheapest only true mass market EV is treated as a “luxury” good, something’s quite wrong with the policy.

There has to be a threshold somewhere. That Tesla are above it is their fault.

Also the only true mass market EV in Europe is the Leaf.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

There has to be a threshold somewhere. That Tesla are above it is their fault.

Also the only true mass market EV in Europe is the Leaf.

The policy is inconsistent.

The subsidy on EVs recognizes that the technology is currently more expensive at purchase and helps to support the purchase.

For consistency, if the PoS subsidy is applied after tax, the luxury tax threshold for EVs should be higher by subsidy/( 1 + <VAT Rate> ).

We have the same type of issue in my state with property tax on cars, where the valuation system doesn't recognize the Federal subsidy. At least that can be seen as a difference between state and federal policy. The UK government handles both in this case, so there's no excuse for the inconsistency.

 

[Singer3000]

There has to be a threshold somewhere. That Tesla are above it is their fault.

Also the only true mass market EV in Europe is the Leaf.

Tesla are engaged in a fierce struggle to produce pure EVs profitably at scale. They’re also being caned by a 10% EU import tariff.

Leafs are nice vehicles for what they are but are not going to drive a mass transition to EVs in the UK market because of their more limited range.

Arguably the annual road tax shouldn’t have a price threshold at all for EVs, if you have a single minded goal of getting diesel and petrol off the roads. Or put another way, it’s ok to give a £3500 grant to a £100k Model X purchaser while charging an annual tax to someone stretching their budget to go electric?

 

[banned-66611]

The subsidy on EVs recognizes that the technology is currently more expensive at purchase and helps to support the purchase.

Seems reasonable that there should be less subsidy on a car costing £100,000. People who can afford that probably don't care much about £3,500 anyway.

The idea with the grant was to make EVs actually affordable. £39k isn't affordable to most people.

 

[banned-66611]

Leafs are nice vehicles for what they are but are not going to drive a mass transition to EVs in the UK market because of their more limited range.

Latest model is comparable to the Model 3 for range.

Arguably the annual road tax shouldn’t have a price threshold at all for EVs, if you have a single minded goal of getting diesel and petrol off the roads. Or put another way, it’s ok to give a £3500 grant to a £100k Model X purchaser while charging an annual tax to someone stretching their budget to go electric?

That's a decent argument. Given that they still get the £3,500 discount though... And on a £100k car the only way to really incentivise people spending that much money would be to slap massive taxes on fossil cars in the same bracket.

Actually there did used to be much higher road tax for cars in that bracket, mainly because they are so inefficient. But the government mostly scrapped all that.

 

[WannabeOwner]

The idea with the grant was to make EVs actually affordable.

Or to facilitate them being made up to the point where they were cheap enough that they could compete against existing products level-playing field.

On that basis plenty more subsidy is needed yet, in particular if you are in a hurry to make ti happen, and also if you start looking at things like the cost of cleaning up pollution from ICE cars.

But this is political .. chances that Action is ideal Solution for the Problem is a bit thin ...

 

[mswlogo]

Correct all model 3 need to pay luxury road tax unfortunately, bad move by tesla should have split autopilot and premium interior and add the options later after delivery for autopilot

Let Elon know. They just did something like that for Canada so that they could receive an EV tax incentive. I think they even crippled the range in software and let folks buy more range back later.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Seems reasonable that there should be less subsidy on a car costing £100,000. People who can afford that probably don't care much about £3,500 anyway.

The idea with the grant was to make EVs actually affordable. £39k isn't affordable to most people.

The subsidy is available for _all_ EVs, and it's a PoS subsidy independent of income. It's inconsistent to have a PoS subsidy and then fail to recognize the subsidy in wealth-based taxation.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Latest model is comparable to the Model 3 for range

Government Figures, or Real World?

ABRP seems pretty accurate "real world", so I compared SR+ and 40kW Leaf (dunno if that is the latest you were referring to though? Sorry, not familiar with the available models)

104 mile journey, charged to 100, motorway (and motorway speed)

SR+ arrived at 48% (I tried the SR and that was 43%, but I'm not sure that is realistic)
Leaf arrived at 7%

They just did something like that for Canada so that they could receive an EV tax incentive

As I understand it in Canada to qualify you have to have a "base" model in the RANGE which is below the threshold. So they have put up for sale a nobody-wants-it-model; but then all "Fully Loaded" versions of that model are then eligible for the Grant.

basically "You did this deliberately to exclude us" and "Here's our deliberate workaround"

 

[WannabeOwner]

iPace arrived at 41%
Kona 64kW 51%

 

[Dangerous Fish]

Tesla have done very well to get to the price they have now for a state of the art product.

The 10% Import Duty, 20% VAT and luxury car tax are not Tesla's responsibility but hopefully they will find ways where they can to get their base prices in under the thresholds and help more people to buy their products.

There are quite a few bitter reservation holders around who think Tesla should sell them a car for the price they can afford. That's not going to help anyone in the long term and it would hold back EV R&D. We need Tesla to be profitable so they can continue to innovate.

 

[banned-66611]

Or to facilitate them being made up to the point where they were cheap enough that they could compete against existing products level-playing field.

In that case it's pointless on a £100k car. It won't make it more or less competitive with other £100k cars.

 

[banned-66611]

The 10% Import Duty, 20% VAT and luxury car tax are not Tesla's responsibility but hopefully they will find ways where they can to get their base prices in under the thresholds and help more people to buy their products.

They used to dodge the import duty by assembling the cars in the EU from kits. Looks like they have abandoned that for the Model 3 and just shoved the 10% duty on to the consumer.

Tesla is all about the upsell at the moment. The M3 isn't profitable enough.