The UK needs a plan to save the pick-up truck in 2025 because we’ll miss it when it’s gone

The 2024 Budget caused uproar in some quarters, but one announcement that slipped under the radar will shake up the pick-up truck sector. 

At the moment, models that can carry more than a tonne in payload are classed as light commercial vehicles for tax purposes. This has seen a boom in double cab models that pile on the luxury, but cost a fraction in company car tax when compared with diesel-powered SUVs. Pick-ups will move to the emissions-based system for passenger cars in the 2025 tax year, so costs will shoot up.

We’ll likely see a rush of sales before the tax year starts in April (trucks bought before the deadline can pay at the current rate for four more years), and then a lull as demand drops.

But then it should pick up again, as the likes of Ford, Isuzu and Toyota come on-stream with their own plug-in pick-ups, be they hybrid, all-electric or even hydrogen-powered.

The one-tonne rule was a quirk of the UK’s taxation system, so don’t expect to see a sudden withdrawal by the class contenders – top-spec versions of the Ford Ranger and Volkswagen Amarok were already outside the realms of the LCV tax requirements anyway, and you still see those on the road – but it will take a little time for the alternative fuels to come on stream.

We’ve already seen the all-electric Isuzu D-Max, though, while the Maxus T90 EV is already sold here, albeit as a rear-wheel-drive machine. The Ford Ranger Hybrid uses existing tech from the Kuga to fast-track its arrival to market, so don’t expect the status quo to be upset greatly by the Budget changes.

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