It's a bit more nuanced than that over here, if you are VAT registered (so a business) you can claim the VAT back, if you are a private individual then you can't claim it, it just goes into the governments purse. This even applies to second hand vehicles sold by a garage, which always feels a bit odd that on a £1K vehicle you have to pay £200 to the government for the privilege, a VAT registered buyer can still claim it back though. However the annual duty/tax/road fund licence/vehicle excise duty is based on emissions (mostly), and not dependent on whether it is a van or a car.
Lorries are more again, of course, last time I heard which was about 10 years ago was of the order of £4K p.a., bound to have gone up by now.