Electric vehicles to get green number plates to bypass congestion charges

gavsmit    on 16 June 2020

With a lot of people already breaking the law by driving around with cloned number plates, which makes them totally immune from all forms of automated road policing, isn't putting a green stripe on number plates opening up more opportunity for criminals to con the system (and the rest of us carry the impact of that as usual)?

I wonder how long it will be before I spot an ICE car with a green stripe on its number plate.....

But I suppose they need to keep the incentives coming if they want to get everyone to fork out the huge amount of money that EVs cost. Even with the £3,000 grant on top of the rumoured £6,000 scrappage amount (that you'll only get the full benefit of if you have a tired old banger that's still road-worthy and you've owned it for a minimum amount of time) it's still not enough for me to consider a big enough EV as financially viable, even after considering the lower running costs.

GTC20th    on 22 June 2020

Certainly make it easier to spot the EV numpties with more money than sense. Should be a good laugh.

Chris Veale    on 22 June 2020

What about us existing Battery EV vehicle, owners.... how will we get them? Free upgrade from the government?

Edited by Chris Veale on 22/06/2020 at 20:54

1963andy    on 22 June 2020

02 plated white van used by a courier stopped outside our House the other day displaying the Green flash. Now I know what it means & I see it again I will get Reg number & report it.

Razoo    on 22 June 2020

The green flash will be so easy to forge that the authorities will surely have to employ additional checks (such as number plate recognition) to confirm that a vehicle displaying the green flash really is zero-emission. Consequently, other than virtue-signalling by the 'look at me' brigade, it seems that the green flash will serve very little purpose.

I expect that at the end of this year numberplate manufacturers will make a killing as motorists pay to replace their numberplates and get rid of the redundant EU logo.

Maybe displaying the EU logo after we have left the EU will be declared illegal and some mandarin will decree motorists should be fined for doing so (you can never extort too much money from the beleaguered motorist!).

Perhaps everyone should simply stick a vertical band of green adhesive PVC tape over their EU logo?

Plodding Along    on 22 June 2020

That was EXACTLY my first thought when I read that! Haha!!

Plodding Along    on 22 June 2020

If they want us all to drive EVs, make them run for 500 miles on a simgle charge and make them cheaper than ICE cars. Until then it's 'vroom vroom' for me.

conman    on 23 June 2020

Well done Mr. Johnson £6000 if you buy a EV. Let me think who makes mass produced EV's, Peugeot, Citroen, BMW, VW, Ford, Mercedes, Tesla, Renault and a few minor manufacturers and how many are made in the UK? Basically none so we the British tax payer will be helping to subsidise the foreign motor manufacturers again and basically put the remaining nails into the UK ICE car manufacturers coffin and what a better excuse, is he giving to foreign manufacturers to close down the Vauxhall plant at Ellsemere Port and the Nissan Plant in Sunderland. What he should be saying is any EV vehicle BUILT in the UK gets a £8000 subsidy and any ICE car BUILT in the UK will get a £4000 subsidy ( New ICE vehicle are massively cleaner than older ones). How are we going to pay for that? if we get a no deal Brexit, we revert back to a World Trade Deal where a 10% surcharge on any imported vehicle. That will easily pay for any shortfall plus give us a massive increase in our import taxes. It may even encourage Nissan ,Toyota and Vauxhall to stay and other manufacturers to start investing in our country. Honda only closed its UK factory because the EU gave it a free trade deal. I bet that would not have happened if the Honda factory was on the EU mainland. The governments of our once great country only seem to encourage other countries to grow their manufacturing industries with the help of the British Taxpayer. I believe Tesla came over to the UK to look at setting up a car and battery Mega factory the Government so impressed Tesla, that they decided Germany was the place and most probably with the help of a massive EU grant ( that we paid into). So now instead of the UK , Germany has the high tech jobs for between 4000 and 6000 you can not make this up if you tried.

Edited by conman on 23/06/2020 at 01:19

Whitmarsh1    on 23 June 2020

Surely the green stripe shown is on the RIGHT-hand end of the plate?

I agree with others that such a simple device is much too open to fraud; it would be less so if the letters/numbers were green - but perhaps that would mess up ANPR.

Patrick Malseed    on 23 June 2020

This is nothing more than a vanity stunt by the government. Does anyone actually believe that law enforcement, police, local authorities are actually going to identify EVs by a green strip on a licence plate? They will use ANPR just like they have always done. Having a green strip on my plate is not going to open up all sorts of concessions for me. My registration will do that. I am quite content with having the standard plates on my i3 thank you.

Car Crusader    on 26 June 2020

It looks like anyone running an electric vehicle could be a great target for the criminal cloners if it offers greater incentives. Is the day of the registration plate on cars past it's sell by date as a means of identifying offenders ? There must be a better system surely.