The 3p per mile EV charge explained: what it is, what it'll cost you, and why it doesn't change the big picture

eVED stands for electric Vehicle Excise Duty. It was announced at the Autumn Budget 2025 and is a mileage-based charge that will apply to battery electric vehicles (BEVs) from April 2028, alongside the standard annual road tax (VED) that EV drivers have been paying since April 2025.

The rate is 3 pence per mile for fully electric cars, and 1.5 pence per mile for plug-in hybrids (who already pay some fuel duty on the petrol they use). The rates will rise each year in line with CPI inflation from 2029-30 onwards.

The reason the government is introducing it is straightforward: fuel duty raises around £24 billion a year for the Treasury. As more drivers switch to electric, that pot shrinks. By 2030, roughly 1 in 5 car drivers would pay no fuel duty equivalent at all. Which isn't fair to those who are still filling up at the pump. eVED is designed to ensure everyone contributes something towards the roads we all use.

Importantly, eVED is set at roughly half the equivalent fuel duty rate per mile. A deliberate move to keep a meaningful financial incentive to go electric.

April 2028. Not now. You've got nearly two years before this applies, and any electric car lease you start today will likely run through much or all of that window under the current, lower-cost system.

You won't need a tracker fitted to your car, and there's no new tax system to sign up to. The government's plan is to keep it simple: when you renew your road tax (VED) through the DVLA, you'll estimate your mileage for the coming year and pay the eVED charge at the same time. Either monthly, every six months, or annually.

At the end of the year, you submit your actual odometer reading (similar to what you already do for insurance) and any difference is reconciled. MOT records will be used to cross-check declarations.

Add 3p per mile eVED to the roughly 2p per mile it costs to charge an EV at home on an off-peak tariff, and you're looking at around 5p per mile all-in. A typical petrol car costs around 15p per mile in fuel alone, so even with this new charge, EVs are still around two thirds cheaper per mile to run.

The picture shifts if you rely heavily on public rapid chargers, where costs can be significantly higher. That's an important nuance, but it's a charging infrastructure conversation, not a reason to park your EV in the drive and take the petrol car instead.

Using the petrol car to avoid a 3p per mile charge when petrol costs you around 15p per mile makes no financial sense. You'd be spending more, not less.

Yes, significantly. Fuel duty currently stands at 52.95p per litre. On a typical petrol car doing around 40 miles per gallon, that works out to roughly 6p in duty per mile, before you've even factored in the cost of the fuel itself.

eVED at 3p per mile is about half the duty equivalent, which is exactly what the government said it intended: a fair contribution, but one that still keeps EVs materially cheaper to run.

Because any new tax feels like a big deal, especially if you've just bought an electric car partly because you were told it would be cheaper to run. That's a completely understandable reaction.

What's worth remembering is that this isn't a surprise raid on EV drivers, it's a transition that the government has been signalling for years. Fuel duty has always been the mechanism through which drivers contribute to road maintenance. The question was never whether EV drivers would eventually pay something similar, but how and when. eVED is the answer to that question.

It also comes alongside some genuinely positive news: a new Electric Car Grant offering up to £3,750 off the purchase price of eligible new EVs, and £200m of additional investment in the public charging network. The government is pushing the go-electric message at the same time as closing a long-term tax gap — and that's the right approach, even if the timing divides opinion in the industry.

eVED is a real charge, it's coming in April 2028, and it will add a few hundred pounds a year to the cost of running an EV for most drivers. That's worth knowing and planning for.

But it doesn't change the fundamental maths of electric driving. EVs are still cheaper per mile than petrol. They still cost less to service and maintain. And from a pure fuel-cost perspective, switching to electric and paying eVED is still significantly better for your wallet than staying at the pump.

If you're on the fence about going electric, don't let this be the reason you stay in your petrol car. Run the numbers for your actual mileage using the table above, and then compare them to what you're spending on fuel right now.