Practical towing experience using an EV.

 ... No doubt so that the electric can be taxed.

You cynic! 😉😉🤣🤣

Will not the sneaky just use a 13amp socket and take longer, thus avoiding any potential tax? If all electricity is taxed then it penalises those who already have paid VED

Taxation should probably change to a pay per mile tax which would be fair, reduce driven miles and congestion.

I see Lexus are bringing  out a plug in hybrid which can also self charge, the top of the range Hyundai Ioniq is reported to be capable of towing 1600 kg, solo is around 300`neither will be cheap!

"Self charging Hybrid" is marketing snake oil speak for "Ordinary hybrid who's sole fuel is fossil based". There is no such thing as a self charging hybrid or a free lunch. 

All hybrids (and indeed all PHEV and BEV) recover some energy from breaking, which can be stored in a battery, and re-used to help the car at low speeds. This is a "self charging hybrid". The ONLY means if fuelling one is with petrol or diesel. If you run out of ICE juice, you stop and cannot restart.

Plug-in Hybrids have a larger battery that can be charged via external electricity, allowing the car to run on electricity only. Typically these cars have 20 to 40 miles range on electric only, depending on the car and the drive train used. If you run out of fossil fuel, you can recharge via a plug and get another set of electric miles with no use of the fossil element at all. 

Range extender BEV (The BMW I3 REX, and Vauxhall Ampera) have an electric drive train only, with some 50 - 90 miles range, with the option to generate additional range using a fuel driven onboard generator. The engine never drives the wheels directly. 

A full BEV has only an electrical input, no fuel tank, no oil, no engine, zero tail pipe emissions (as it has no tail pipe) so no VED, and will have a range of between 30 and 300+ miles depending on the specific car and model you buy. These cars ALL "Self charge" by recovering energy from breaking .

I think you are spot on about a "per mile tax" or "road charging"  likely to come in for all cars, on top of whatever existing taxation is in place (VED or fuel duty). 

Charging folks tax for electricity used to fuel a car is extremely unlikely. Smart chargers are being made smart to allow for demand based pricing of electricity, not taxation. The idea is that electricity does not have a "fixed" price, but costs more to use when demand is high. This is not a new idea, as Economy 7 tariffs have been around for years. Octopus energy have a set of smart tariffs (Go for low cost 4 hours between 12:30 and 4:30 am) and Agile which follows the 30 minute market rate for electricity. 

The idea is you charge more when demand is high, and less when it is low, allowing users to select the cost of their purchase based on need. I always try to charge over night in my Go 4 hour window as it is 5p per kWh vs 13.5p per kWh during the day.

The agile tariff reflects the real electricity peak rate of 35p per kWh between 4pm and 7pm each day, but can drop to a fraction of 1p or even go negative (be paid to use electricity) over night. 

But with a smart charger that supports Vehicle to Home, I can also choose to use some of the stored energy in my car battery (charged up and paid for over night at low cost) to run my home during the high cost period during the day. 

Looking at my smart meter data for yesterday (Sunday), I can see my home used 22.7kWh of electricity for £2.36, 10.8 (54p) of which was charging my car. My car holds 75kWh of usable electricity in the battery pack, enough to run my entire house for about 6 days. 

If I could move all of my electricity buying to overnight, or whenever the smart meter told me was the cheapest (lowest demand) time, I could store that energy and run my home with it. The UK (and world) would need less energy at peak busy hour, have a flatter (easier to manage) demand curve, and have less stress on any given element as the generation, grid and local distribution would be far far more predictable. 

Realist!!! HMG still arguing over how to replace the billions of VED , VAT and duty when we are FORCED to ditch our ICEs.  It would b interesting to know how many of the EV purchases are being done by companies, using the tax breaks to encourage (or make) their employees drive EV's. 

Mileage tax alone will never cover the gap. Not only are HMG incapable of publishing a viable and costed plan for this pie in the sky target, but whilst doing nothing but talk about it they are in the process of destroying the values of our existing cars and caravans. 

No-one is being forced to ditch their ICE. You can keep it as long as it is viable and you want to. It's simply a ban on new sales. 

Why would mileage tax not cover the gap? Lets say that 80p in the cost of £140 litre of diesel is tax and VAT. If your car does 45 MPG, you get 10 miles per litre. So charge roads at 8p per mile.  Gap closed. 

Realistically though, it will start out smaller than that, more like 1p per mile, and be index linked or more in some way. Drive 10,000 miles a year its £100. Next year its £200 etc. All cars will be subject, so those cars that pay no duty today, will start to make up the gap. 

VAT will still be charged on electricity (5% at home, 20% for business) so there will be a transfer of tax (VAT) on fuel to tax (VAT) on electricity. And if you set road pricing to cover different vehicles differently, (more for a van or truck, less for a motorbike or super mini car), then you also cover the difference in vat collected due to efficiency of the vehicle

I can understand how the value of your car might be damaged, as the desire to have an expensive polluting ICE falls away (though second hand prices are at an all time high right now), How is the value of your caravan being destroyed?

I’ve just got a plug in hybrid that will tow 1500kg ,Combined with the engine it will give 200+ bhp. So ample power
my plan is to use the external 13A socket on the van on site and limit the charge current to 6A or possibly put it to 10A overnight once we’ve finished with the current heavy things for the night like the kettle etc.

I know towing I’ll be using mainly the engine on long runs. But that stops me having to search for charging points en route.

That should give us enough electric for running around during the day.

you do realise there's a charge to do so .... ??

https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/uk-holidays/uk-sites/club-sites/facilities-on-club-sites/electric-vehicle-charging/

I didn’t know that but it was to expected I suppose, otherwise the club would be losing out as demand increases.

I will charge overnight when we’ve stopped using the kettle and other high current things. Then I can charge at 10kw.

And this works fine from my perspective. My only gripe with this model is its very expensive for full BEV cars. There is a limit to how much electricity can actually be consumed by a car, that is imposed by the connection via the 'van. As Proterra says, you really have to watch what is plugged in and how much you are drawing in order to not trip the bollard. I totally get being constrained to charging via the van to keep the site wide load at bay - and thats fine. I just object to the cost.

For PHEV, £2 per charge = 200p. At 20p per kWh = 10kwh, charging at a max of 10A (that all a standard 13A granny lead will pull) = 2.3Kw = 4.3 hours charging to consume the £2 fee with 10kWh. If electricity is 15p per kWh, that number goes up to 5.79 hours and 13kWh of juice. 

My PHEV only uses about 10Kw total, so I am happy that £2 covers costs and helps the club

However for a full BEV £8 charge the same maths works out at 40kWh and 17 hours for 20p/kWh or 53kWh and 23 hours at 2.3Kw charging. Basically you need your car plugged in all day at the maximum possible rate to get close using the payed amount. If you have any intention of using the car while on site it's just not achievable. 

To be clear - I don't object to paying and already offer CL owners payment for electricity used. Its the imbalance between PHEV and BEV that annoys me.