Owners of gas-guzzling cars to be hit by five-fold tax increase

Motorists who drive fuel-hungry BMWs, people carriers and Range Rovers face a five-fold increase in road tax under radical plans to combat Britain’s spiralling greenhouse gas emissions.

The proposals are being studied by transport and environment ministers after it emerged that car buyers are ignoring warnings about the dangers of climate change by increasingly choosing luxury cars, larger MPVs and 4×4s with large, powerful engines.
The Government’s influential energy conservation agency, the Energy Saving Trust (EST), has told ministers the only way to force motorists to buy “green” cars is to introduce a new top rate of road tax as high as