Best Road Tax Free Cars

One of the necessary evils of motoring is road tax – officially known as Vehicle Excise Duty. Just how much motorists pay to have their car on the road boils down to how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is pumped out the car’s back-end.

Currently, any new car that emits more than 100g of CO2 every km has to pay at least some road tax, and that stretch to affect every CO2-emitting car when new rules come in from April 2017.

Put simply, the more efficient a car is, the less CO2 it is likely to emit and a higher combined mpg almost always correlates to a low CO2 output. So you won’t be seeing any Lambos or Porsches in this one. Or will you?…

Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid

Yes, you will. Some still struggle to appreciate that a modern Porsche can have more than two doors and two seats, but the Panamera – which has twice that – has proved a hit for the Stuttgart-based brand. More than 150,000 of them have been sold over seven years and an all-new model is expected before the end of 2016.

We’re referring to the S E-Hybrid variant specifically, not the four-litre Turbo model sadly. This plug-in hybrid emits just 71g/km of CO2 while blitzing to 62mph in 5.5 seconds. Free road tax is great but the saving is negated when you consider that it’ll set you back more than £80,000 for the car in the first place.

BMW i8

Another example that tax-free needn’t be thrill-free. This hybrid supercar combines the efforts of a 227bhp three-pot 1.5-litre petrol engine and two electric motors, producing the equivalent of 129bhp, to race up to 62mph in 4.4 seconds.

It’s one of the most eyecatching BMWs ever, which is really saying something, with its futuristic new-age exterior guaranteed to turn heads wherever it goes.

As with the Panamera, it may be exempt from road tax (at least until April 2017), but it comes at a price: £104,540 to be precise.

Tesla Model S

If you’re only going to have one car in your range, you’d better make it a belter and this 7 Series-sized electric saloon is a true innovator.

Before the Model S, many dismissed electric vehicles as glorified milk carts for those with more money than sense but a 2.5 second 0-60mph sprint has made the Tesla the world’s quickest production car.

Add in stunning looks and a swanky iPad-like central control panel and you have a truly amazing car. The best part is that it’s fully electric so it will remain exempt from road tax for the foreseeable future. The only thing to do now is scrape together the best part of £60,000 for one.

VW Up

Volkswagen’s city car is probably what you expected to see when you opened this piece. It’s so accomplished that it’d be silly to exclude due to how obvious a choice it is.

Like the Panamera, it has four seats and four doors and if you go for the one-litre 59bhp Bluemotion Technology model – which emits 94g/km of CO2 – you’ll be spared the burden of road tax, as long as you purchase before April 2017.

If you’re sold on the idea of a VED-free VW but need more space, you could go for the Polo 1L Bluemotion or the larger one-litre petrol Golf, or even bigger still, the Passat 1.6-litre diesel Bluemotion.

Volvo XC90

Road tax-free cars don’t get any bigger or heavier than Volvo’s Range Rover Sport rival. The original XC90 was on sale for 13 years before the second-generation model brought the SUV bang up-to-date with a classy interior, superb handling and great tech that shamelessly mimicked Tesla’s tablet-like control system.

Fitting it with a plug-in hybrid powertrain only improved its appeal, unlocking a 5.6 second 0-62mph sprint, 134mpg and 49g/km CO2 emissions.

Citroen C4 Grand Picasso

Another big’un that may have caught you off-guard. Citroen doesn’t get much of a mention on this site but any growing family would ignore this car at their peril. Seven seats, acres of boot space, an easy-going drive, decent-ish interior, all priced from around £22,000; it really is the ultimate package for the modern family.

BMW 1 and 3 Series

Yep, more BMWs. The Golf-sized 116d emits just 94g/km, while the recent arrival of a plug-in 3 Series brought the saloon into VED-free territory with 44g/km CO2 and a 144.7 combined mpg, with a £34,000 asking price.