Want to pay nothing in VED road tax? You’ll have to buy an EV. Here are out top 10 tax-free cars under the latest rules

The UK VED road tax system can be full of pitfalls, especially for the unacquainted. If you’re buying a new car, you’ll want to know how much that vehicle is going to cost you on a month-by-month basis, and that can vary wildly depending on which of the car tax bands your new wheels fall into. More often than not, a car’s on-the-road price will include its first year of tax, but after that it’s down to you to pay up every year.

From 1 April 2017, the government introduced new rules which completely shook up the system. Cars which previously cost pennies to tax now face significant annual bills and if you want a vehicle that’s free to tax for the foreseeable future you’ll now need an electric car.

That’s right, gone are the days when you could buy a tax-free car running on conventional fuel. Only zero-emissions vehicles will qualify for that particular privilege, and even then there’ll be something to pay annually on models costing over £40,000, so even hydrogen fuel cell cars pay the taxman for the first few years.

Read more: Auto Express