The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles has updated its guidance page, Electric vehicles: costs, charging and infrastructure, to reflect updated vehicle tax rates. The page was first published on 5 February 2024 and was last updated on 10 April 20251.
The update log records the change in a single line: "Updated vehicle tax rates." The same line appears in the page's update history, dated 10 April 2025, against the original entry of "First published" on 5 February 20241. The guidance is published by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles and covers "Owning and running an electric vehicle in the UK"1.
The page sets out the government's position on the transition to electric vehicles. It states that "the sale of new petrol and diesel cars will be phased out by 2035", an approach it attributes to an announcement by the Prime Minister on 20 September 2023. It describes that approach as proportionate, saying it will support manufacturers and families in making the switch to electric while helping grow the economy1.
On the regulatory framework, the page states:
"The Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate is the world's most ambitious national-level decarbonisation framework of its kind and the largest carbon-saving measure across government."
The specific tax rates themselves are not reproduced in the update notice, and the figures now shown on the page have not been reported in the material available. The page does not set out which vehicle tax rates changed, by how much, or which vehicles they apply to1.
Why it matters for households
Vehicle tax is a fixed annual cost of running a car, and for electric vehicle owners it sits alongside the costs of home charging rather than replacing them. A change to the rates on a government guidance page is the point at which the published cost of ownership is brought into line with what drivers actually pay, which matters to any household weighing the running costs of an electric vehicle against a petrol or diesel equivalent.
For a home's energy independence, the tax position is separate from the electricity position. Tax rates do not affect how much of a household's motoring energy comes from its own supply, whether that is a home chargepoint, a solar array paired with a home battery, or a vehicle-to-home setup that lets a car's battery supply the house. What the rates do affect is the overall cost case for keeping an electric vehicle at all, and therefore whether the charging equipment a household has installed continues to be used as intended.
The distinction between charging at home and charging on public networks remains the larger variable in running costs for most drivers, and it is unaffected by this update.
What happens next
The page records no further scheduled update beyond the 10 April 2025 change. The phase-out date for the sale of new petrol and diesel cars remains stated as 20351. No further detail on the tax rates or on any related timetable has been reported.