The great electric vehicle con

Big auto and energy giants are making YOU pay for their mess

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander stood up last week and announced a measly £63 million to supposedly make EV charging easier and cheaper for every household. What she didn’t tell you is that this pathetic sum is just another corporate handout disguised as help for ordinary people.

The scam revealed

Here’s the scam: 70% of people living in flats are forced to pay WAY MORE for electric vehicle charging than those lucky enough to have driveways. While homeowners can charge for as little as 2p per mile using domestic electricity rates, flat dwellers—who are disproportionately renters, young people, and those on lower incomes—get fleeced at public charging points.

This isn't an accident. It’s a deliberate feature of a system rigged against working people. And another reminder that it’s expensive to be poor: whether charging your car or not being able to save costs by buying in bulk or insulating your home.

The polluters who created this mess

Let’s be clear about who’s responsible here. For decades, car manufacturers like Ford, General Motors and Volkswagen actively suppressed electric vehicle technology while pumping out millions of planet-destroying petrol and diesel cars. They knew about climate change. They knew about air pollution killing five million people every year. They chose profits over people's lives.

And Tesla? Don’t let Elon Musk's greenwashing fool you. Tesla built its entire business model on selling luxury electric cars to the wealthy while positioning itself to control charging infrastructure. Now Musk is the richest man in the world, ready to extract maximum profit from the transition he claims to champion (and the “affordable” Tesla model remains unseen).

Meanwhile, oil giants like Shell and BP made trillions destroying our climate, then pivoted to controlling EV charging networks. The same companies that spent decades lobbying against clean transport are now positioning themselves as the solution—at premium prices, naturally.

Government serving their corporate masters

Alexander’s announcement is a perfect example of how our government serves corporate interests while throwing crumbs to the public. £63 million sounds impressive until you realise:

• The previous Conservative government promised £950 million for motorway charging networks before Labour scrapped it

• Energy companies are committing £6 billion of “private investment”, meaning they’ll own and control the infrastructure, setting prices to maximise their returns

• The government maintains the 20% VAT rate on public charging while home charging gets just 5%, a tax system designed to benefit property owners at the expense of renters

This is corporate socialism at its finest: socialise the costs, privatise the profits.

The real cost of corporate greed

3.4 million people could be left behind in the EV transition within five years. Not because the technology doesn’t exist, but because corporations have designed a system that excludes anyone who can't afford a house with a driveway.

Think about what this means:

• Young people starting their careers

• Families renting while saving for a deposit

• Anyone living in city centres where flats are the norm

Millions of working people who did nothing wrong except not being born wealthy enough to own property

All of them are being told: transition to electric vehicles to save the planet but pay through the nose for the privilege.

It’s true, another new government giveaway offer drivers up to a £3,750 discount to buy a new electric car, but given the average cost is £49,790 (significantly more than a new petrol car), it’s unlikely many people in need will be rushing to take advantage of it.

The solution they don’t want you to know

There’s a simple solution that would fix this overnight: make the polluters pay for the mess they created.

Every major car manufacturer should be forced to provide free or cost-price charging infrastructure as reparations for decades of environmental destruction. Every oil company should fund the transition they made necessary. Every energy giant should provide charging at domestic rates regardless of where you live.

Instead of taxing working people to fund corporate infrastructure, we should be demanding that Shell, Ford and the rest pay the true cost of cleaning up their mess.

Don’t fall for the divide and rule

The establishment wants you to blame your neighbours for driving petrol cars or get angry at environmental activists for pushing for clean transport. Don’t fall for it.

The real villains are the boardrooms where executives decided that short-term profits mattered more than a liveable planet. They created this crisis, they profited from it, and now they’re rigging the solution to extract even more wealth from ordinary people.

The polluters caused this problem, so they must pay for it. Not you. Not your neighbours struggling to make ends meet. Them.

Until we make that happen, every government announcement like Alexander’s is just another scam designed to make you pay for corporate greed while they laugh all the way to the bank.

It’s time to stop playing their game and start demanding Our Fair Future.