Ocado, the AA and Openreach joined other businesses in protesting against a £15 a day congestion charge for electric vans from Christmas 2025.
Petrol and diesel car drivers in central London pay £15 a day. However, as of Christmas 2025, drivers of electric vehicles will also have to pay the same charge, creating difficulties for the already sluggish growth in the popularity of electric vans.
Roughly just 5.9 per cent of new vans sold in 2023 were electric, and last week the car industry said it was also struggling to sell electric vehicles without government incentives. The rise in home deliveries has led to a 63 per cent increase in carbon emissions from vans since 1990, while car emissions have fallen over the same period.
As a result, over 40 companies have called on Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, to abandon plans to extend congestion charging to electric vans. Abolishing the exemption would undermine firms who have “taken on debt to invest in the air we breathe.” The Cleaner Vehicle Discount would end because the rise of electric vehicles has reduced the impact of the city centre entry charge, a spokesman for the mayor said.
The current system, entailing a charge of £10 per year to register each vehicle as exempt, has played a fundamental role in this investment. The decision to remove the exemption will therefore result in a high cost of £5,500 per vehicle per year for firms that have already switched from diesel.
Less than 3 per cent of vans registered in London are electric, and when the Mayor offered a £100 million scrappage programme for people affected by the Ulez expansion, just 2 per cent of vans changed to an electric version. This may be due to the fact that electric vans are more expensive than diesel vans and can be difficult to charge as they are too big for some public charging stations.
Oliver Lord, UK head of Clean Cities, said that Khan’s decision was at odds with “his commitment on climate.” He said: “Ultimately, small businesses are those set to suffer the most, with the progress towards a cleaner, electric future choked off in an economic situation already fraught with challenges. How is it right that a dirty diesel van pays the same as a cleaner electric vehicle in the most polluted part of the UK?”
