Electric Mini saga update!

[Bitsilly]

I am touched and encouraged by all the support I've had here so I thought I' d give an update.
It seems that all the appeals etc that I and my MP have done have all been handled by the original bloke who dealt with my case!
My MP said if I can get an engineers report as ammo then he could use it to fight my corner.
So I told him there's no need as there is a good report from the DVLA themselves that they refused to release.
I told the case officer that Im not going to ask any more and it is in the hands of the Commissioner of Information to demand it from him.
And it suddenly turns out that he may be able to provide the report.
To ensure that is a good thing, I contacted the engineer who inspected the car for the DVLA and he said it was one of the finest projects he or his office had seen in years. He remembered it because his whole office of car lovers were quite excited by the car. He said fight the bas£@rds!
So, waiting for the report which may be ammo.
Also the case is in Classic Car this month and is also subject to an exclusive article in some Hagerty article soon.
That may encourage more signatures on the petition.
Who knows!

[AndyPen]

So good to hear a sound of positivity, something has to give sometime!!!

[gs.davies]

Great, hopefully you’ll get the right outcome on this and someone at the DVLA will get out on the right track.

[Polarsilver]

Un-related to electric car conversions but this may be of interest .. seems the DVLA have an issue with Commercial Vans that are road registered then later in life are converted into Camper Vans ( V5c should then show as Motor Caravan ) .. Self Converted Camper Van owners then being unable to get the conversion correctly registered as a Motor Caravan by the DVLA.. Seems that a number of such owners took their complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman the independent complaints handling service for government bodies & other public organisations .. The Ombudsman issued findings in October 2022 which concluded the DVLA was guilty of maladministration in its communication and transparency over what is required to register a vehicle as a motor caravan. The DVLA is required to improve its process and report back to the Ombudsman .. So does that mean that problems have been solved ? Well not yet at time of writing no DVLA revised guidance had been issued .. ( This Info is taken from the Caravan & Motorhome Club Magazine December 2022).

Clearly the DVLA are beyond any control or sanction..

[mab01uk]

I think we can add the DVLA to the list of vested interests that seem to go out of their way to constantly block any activity, summed up in this recent quote below in the news about broken Britain 2022 where nothing seems to function anymore.....
"In myriad areas of public life the British state has come to resemble a series of immovable objects, turning daily life into a short-ish list of permitted activities. Can’t build anything, can’t do anything; where every new idea is thwarted by some clipboard-wielding official, or becomes just too difficult to even try....."

[Exminiman]

Well done for persisting, you may well be becoming a trail blazer

Makes you wonder why DVLA are getting so involved in this stuff, ultimately their purpose is just to collect tax, road tax.

Maybe they see every vehicle. (regardless of whether they are historic) converted to electric as a lost opportunity to collect tax ?

Except now, the Government has just announced it will be charging road tax on electric vehicles…… maybe that will help the DVLA see Historic vehicle conversions in a more positive light ?

Image below summarises DVLA priorities, all pretty much padding except the tax take….

53595B26-470F-47C5-A39F-FFD1E10705A1.png

[surfblue63]

Good to hear that you are getting some kind of response and more publicity for this.
Hopefully you will get to enjoy your efforts eventually.

[mab01uk]

Well done for persisting, you may well be becoming a trail blazer

Makes you wonder why DVLA are getting so involved in this stuff, ultimately their purpose is just to collect tax, road tax.

Maybe they see every vehicle. (regardless of whether they are historic) converted to electric as a lost opportunity to collect tax ?

Except now, the Government has just announced it will be charging road tax on electric vehicles…… maybe that will help the DVLA see conversions in a more positive light ?

Another DVLA achievement below that was supposed to reduce the cost of collecting road tax....

Car tax evasion hits a record high seven years after paper discs were axed.

"Vehicles being used on UK roads without tax reached a record high in 2021, with car tax evasion levels now three times higher than before paper discs were scrapped seven years ago. Some 1.9 per cent of cars, vans, trucks on Britain's roads are evading Vehicle Excise Duty - representing almost 720,000 vehicles - recent figures confirm.
The number of untaxed vehicles in the UK has risen from 1.6 per cent in 2019, significantly higher than the 0.6 per cent non-compliance level in 2013 - the last full year before paper discs were abolished in a bid to save the DVLA millions of pounds every year. The move to abolish paper tax discs has clearly had the opposite effect, with the Treasury now missing out on up to £119million in lost revenue from unpaid vehicle tax each year."
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/car ... -axed.html

[mk1coopers]

Good to see positive replies here, the thread over on Piston Heads was

[wantafaster1]

Glad to see the outlook is a bit brighter.

[Peter Laidler]

Want to know why these qango authorities/agencies can act like this? Because they CAN. And they are not - or barely - answerable to anyone.

Give someone a yellow jacket and a bit of authority amd a clip-board and they will ALWAYS abuse it

[mab01uk]

Want to know why these qango authorities/agencies can act like this? Because they CAN. And they are not - or barely - answerable to anyone.

Give someone a yellow jacket and a bit of authority amd a clip-board and they will ALWAYS abuse it

I agree Peter, there were many examples of that happening in the UK during the covid lockdowns and what is happening in China this week shows where that can ultimately lead.....authority not answerable to anyone.

[mk1]

Hum, I think we need to keep some level of perspective.

Comparing a slightly incompetent & undoubtedly stubborn DVLA to one of the most restrictive & intrusive surveillance states in the world is pushing it a bit!

[Oneball]

I hope you get some resolution, I think you’ve been very unlucky that they are now applying the 8 point rule with a somewhat strict and blinkered approach, presumably due to the increasing number of electric vehicle conversions. It caught a lot of hot rods out a number of years ago and is an ongoing issue for many cars that have been on the road for years but a change of ownership or address etc then flags it on the DVLA system.

[swifty]

Also the dvla also hold a huge amount of personal information on us for the government. Remember the debate around ID cards !
Well that got in because of our photo card driving licences. … Ken

[gazza82]

Also the dvla also hold a huge amount of personal information on us for the government. Remember the debate around ID cards !

Data that they are more than happy to sell to dodgy car parking firms!

[Peter Laidler]

For fear of gobbing off on this subject again....... These agencies DO have a complaints procedure that you can use, via three stages of elevation but guess what.....? They investigate themselves! And you CAN go to the parliamentary ombudsman scheme for free but ONLY if you have exhausted the in-house, self investigation process.......anyway.....

The Parliamentary precess cannot overturn things such as stupid decisions and questionable policy or '.....it's bleedin obvious.....'. Nope, the only recourses - so far as me and my sisters in depth reading of the obscure legislation is to have them for 'MAL ADMINISTRATION which causes such a thing as 'causal loss' And then, they know that it's a matter for the High Court - or the County court for a financial loss. If you've got your ducks in a row and paperwork and tele calls, emails etc etc all accurately lined up, the all is good. Except that you'll also need £10,000 to take them on. They're funded by the taxpayer too!

And if you loose against the expensive Agency funded Barrister, don't forget it's a civil Court - and the winner takes all

Been there, done that and recently won

[Bitsilly]

The dedicated article on the Hagertys site has been confirmed now as a dos and don’t of EV conversions!!
I can only guess which category car will be in
Oh well, win some lose some!

[mab01uk]

Similar EV conversion stories in this thread on the 'openinverter' forum....
https://openinverter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2379

[Bitsilly]

Just for closure!
https://www.hagerty.co.uk/articles/main ... ment-40544

Thanks for everyone’s support but the car is to be stripped.
Cheers