The Guardian: Road pricing may be the best option as number of electric cars rises
Article published: 12 Sep, 2021
IB Economics syllabus: Microeconomics (government intervention)
This article is an opionion-based one, and as such does not report about a news event. Therefore, perhaps this is not the best one for a microeconomics commentary, yet it gives a good idea about the problem the UK is going to face if car use increases further in the coming years. Most notably, an electric vehicle is much cheaper to maintain as “the cost of petrol, fuel duty and vehicle excise duty is about £1,100 a year for the average petrol or diesel car, while for electric vehicles it is only £320.” That said, car use might increase further in the country, leading to even larger traffic and more congestion. Therefore, as the article states, the government could come up with taxing motorists in order to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads.  However, towards the end, the article introduces quite a few disadvantages/concerns, which are pretty interesting and valid. The key concept here would be intervention.
Source of image: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
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