As cars have been getting heavier and heavier, the idea of taxing particularly weighty vehicles has come up a few times. It might be about to get very real, with the Conservative Party claiming that Chancellor John Healey may be bringing in such a levy in the next budget on 28 October 2026.
Confusingly, it’s size rather than weight that Tory transport spokesman Richard Holden brought up when speaking to the Daily Mail. “It seems like Labour is preparing to hit drivers with yet another tax at the Budget by measuring the width of people’s wing mirrors and sending them a bill for the size.”
The same Mail report brings up Transport & Environment’s (T&E) lobbying for a tax on larger vehicles based on weight. Last year, the clean energy group, which is said to have had “productive” meetings with treasury officials, proposed a tax of £10 per kilogram on petrol and diesel cars weighing more than 1,600kg and electric cars over 2,000kg. It would be based on kerb weight and applied as a one-off tax at the point of purchase.
Such a tax would hit relatively modest-sized cars along with larger SUVs, particularly plug-in hybrids, for which T&E’s proposal doesn’t make allowances. Many EVs would also be hit by the tax. A document released by the organisation gives several examples of potential tax amounts for popular vehicles:
