Does it make sense to tax electric-car drivers by the mile?

A study reported on in the Telegraph today raises an interesting question: if rising use of electric cars threatens to overwhelm an ageing and increasingly inadequate energy infrastructure, why shouldn’t drivers with plug-in vehicles pay a fee to help pay for energy improvements?

If the logic is straightforward and the facts are indisputable — report after report indicate the UK’s power plants and grids will be hard-pressed to keep up with future demands — the message, though, is worrisome.

According to the consulting firm Saturn Energy, electricity “should cost about the same as petrol” and electric-car owners should pay a fuel duty for each mile driven to keep it that way. The funds raised from that duty could then be used to pay for new power plant construction, whether nuclear, wind or gas driven. Such improvements are needed to help keep the lights on in years to come, according to the consultancy, especially as more and more electric cars place greater pressure on the nation’s energy infrastructure.

Yet John McShane, managing director of Saturn Energy, also acknowledges an electric-car fuel duty would act as a disincentive to those considering plug-ins.

The fundamental problem, of course, is money: how much is needed to keep the lights on, etc., and who will pay? The answers at the moment, unfortunately, appear to be: “Too much,” and “Someone else.”

Those are questions the UK’s Green Investment Bank Commission has already begun wrestling with, though it remains to be seen whether the creating financing options it’s recommending will actually succeed.

What do you think? How can we best pay for the transition to a low-carbon economy? Will it take an outright and substantial carbon tax? Something else? Or do we simply continue with business as usual until the lights begin flickering? Let us know your thoughts.