My main takeaway is you guys have a database (even if imperfect) for this. Here in the US we only have GasBuddy which is purely a crowdsourced best-effort thing. Problem is it’s tough to tell at a glance if a bunch of prices are equally old or if only some have been updated today. If some are stale and others fresh, pretty tough to even use the data.
It’s a relatively new GOV.UK requirement - this year IIRC.
US does not really need it as the government does not try to screw people. as it’s £2 / gallon on a good day and £3/gallon on a bad day. Uk tax is wild making it like £10 a gallon.
Pricing a product in an attempt to capture the cost of the negative externalities is probably not a bad idea. Also, the UK tax is supposed to raise every year to incentivise a move to EVs but they famously haven't increased it for years.
> capture the cost of the negative externalities
sounds plausible, but also at the same time that'll have some pretty bad side effects since the only people who can get by without driving a car are the completely destitute who don't have anyplace to be (but are a massive burden on the taxpayer in general) and the very wealthy who can afford to live in places like NYC, or like the 5% of addresses in SF that have good transit that could take you to your work in a reasonable time.
So if we made our fuel prices go from £2.50 to £8 what we are really doing is administering an ongoing massive punishment to everybody but those two groups. The middle 80% or so. (And also, hurting transit agencies too since buses run on diesel).
And they’re introducing an EV tax that’ll be charged per mile.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8jw9l7gx92o