Centre for British Progress Urges UK to Tax Self-Driving Cars Early

The Centre for British Progress is urging UK ministers to impose taxes or charges on self-driving vehicles before they become commonplace. Its report argues that an early levy could help address private-hire job losses, added traffic and the long-term loss of fuel-duty revenue as autonomous and electric vehicles spread.

The proposal is not simply a tax on a new kind of car. It rests on the idea that a vehicle without a paid driver changes the economics of movement. The thinktank says privately owned autonomous vehicles could encourage more car use at the expense of public transport, while robotaxis can travel without passengers when the cost of keeping a car in motion is low. It cites Department for Transport forecasts that highly automated driving could raise road miles by 24% by 2050.

Set the charge before resistance hardens

The report’s timing argument is central: levy autonomous vehicles before a sizable group of owners has an interest in resisting it. Its authors point to fuel duty as a model for acting early. Fuel duty currently brings in about £27 billion a year, but the report says that revenue is expected to diminish as electric vehicles replace petrol and diesel cars. An autonomous-vehicle charge could become one replacement revenue stream.

A levy would not settle the jobs question

The report frames its labor concern around England’s 417,000 taxi and private-hire drivers. It says widespread autonomous-vehicle adoption could put hundreds of thousands of private-hire jobs at risk, even while acknowledging potential safety benefits and new skilled work in the sector. That makes the proposed charge an attempt to finance or soften a transition, rather than a claim that the transition can be avoided.

The GMB union says a charge alone would not meet that challenge. It has called on the government, Transport for London and operators to set out plans to reskill and redeploy private-hire drivers. The union’s position shifts the question from whether autonomous vehicles should generate public money to whether workers facing displacement receive a concrete route into other jobs.

Wayve warns against a launch-stage levy

Wayve rejects the premise that the sector should face a specific levy at this stage. The British autonomous-vehicle company says an early charge would penalise promising UK innovators and undermine the government’s growth agenda. Its response puts a different risk at the center of the dispute: a policy meant to prepare for widespread use could instead make it harder for domestic companies to scale.

The argument is arriving as passenger services begin to take shape in London. Uber, working with Wayve, has started limited autonomous-vehicle services in the capital, while Waymo and Baidu are seeking to enter the market. The report places an early policy choice alongside that market development: establish a charge before autonomous vehicles become widespread, or allow the sector to grow without one.