
NC Electric Car Drivers Begin Paying $100 Annual Fee - davidsmith8900
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/01/10/3522102/in-place-of-gas-taxes-nc-electric.html
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mullingitover
What a great way to discourage people from engaging in a behavior that you
want them to engage in.

Why not make up for the (arguably inconsequential) loss in revenue by making
the people with the less desirable behavior (purchasing gas-guzzling,
polluting vehicles) subsidize the desirable behavior? In other words, make up
for lost revenues by increasing gasoline taxes. If it gets to the point where
that's not enough, increase gasoline taxes again, and generally keep
increasing them until people aren't driving ICE vehicles anymore.

When it gets to the point where even that doesn't cover it, charge vehicle
registration fees based on vehicle weight, since that's the true measure of
the vehicle's contribution to the wear and tear on the roadways.

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ams6110
Why do you care what kind of car someone else wants to drive? Is it this:

 _Among a few dozen who commented last spring when legislators were debating
the fee, many cited the environmental benefits of cars that produce zero
tailpipe emissions_

What's the environmental impact of a reasonably new gasoline car with
catalytic converter and other emissions controls vs. the impact of coal-
generated electric power for an EV? I don't know, but I would not be surprised
if the EV was worse.

~~~
hobs
That's an interesting question, however there is no inherent need for the
electric power to be generated via coal power, whereas the gas car cannot get
away from burning said fossil fuels, even though it can be made more
efficient.

I did some googling and there are a number of arguments on the internet about
comparing a coal generated power plant's electricity emissions to a gas
powered car's emissions, and I think depending on your average consumption
either side could win that argument. However if the electricity was generated
in not the dirtiest possible way we know how, gas car seems to lose every
other time.

~~~
lucisferre
Not to mention electric drive motors are vastly more efficient than internal
combustion. So much so that even line losses and other non-arguments often
cited by anti-EV people wouldn't make up the difference.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Energy_efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car#Energy_efficiency)

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bri3d
CO, Nebraska, Virgina, and Washington also have such fees.

The issue is basically that gasoline and diesel consumption was used as a
proxy for travel miles in order to pay for road maintenance and the scale used
to relate miles to gallons is no longer accurate even for gas-powered cars (as
average economy has improved). Obviously electric cars are an easy first
target, since passing a tax increase is much harder than targeting a small
group.

~~~
pktgen
Why do taxes have to be spread out everywhere?

Why not just have an income tax and sales tax, or maybe only one (I've heard
arguments for both sides, but don't want to get into that debate) to cover all
this?

It's the same thing with all the ridiculous fees governments charge for
various things. For example, registering a vehicle at the DMV. Why does this
cost anything? After all, your taxes already pay the salary of the person at
the DMV, their office, etc. and the sales tax (in states that have it) paid on
a vehicle purchase should take into account that the new owner will need to
register it.

It's just a ridiculous way of "not really increasing" taxes.

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URSpider94
One answer is that there is a philosophy that fees or taxes should only be
levied on people who use them. Automobile ownership is a discretionary act
that is already highly subsidized, so the government feels justified in
levying specific fees against car owners.

Another answer is that user fees are politically expedient, as you point out
-- it's a way to increase government revenue without increasing taxes per se.

In any case, if you buy a car, the DMV fees ARE generally rolled into the
purchase, though as a separate item. Not to be too pedantic, but you can
always buy a vehicle and not register it -- for example, if you are from out
of state and plan to register it in your home state, or if you need to do some
work on it before you put it on the road.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Still a third answer: unwanted behavior is sometimes taxed to deter it.

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scarmig
The users of a resource should, of course, pay for that resource. And there's
a compelling logic that the people who cause maintenance to be required should
be the ones charged for it.

The issue is, Leaf drivers are very much not the people who damage roads:
Leafs are somewhat light cars (a bit more than a Civic, substantially less
than SUVs). Cumulative road damage is linear with the number of miles driven
and quartic with vehicular weight. Gas taxes roughly capture the linearity
from miles driven but only a fraction of the factor from vehicle weight.

If the Republican leader quoted in the article is actually interested in
bridging the gap between gasoline tax revenues and expenditures on roads and
ending the subsidy the public provides for expensive private decisions, he
should look toward charging more of road users in general than a small
minority of a couple thousand (it probably costs as much to implement and
collect this tax as the revenue it brings). Instead of, you know, sticking
taxes to the people whose consumption choices he finds so damn hippy and
unpalatable.

(And, yes, I oppose government subsidies for electric vehicles too, whose
environmental benefits should be captured by more efficient carbon taxes or
permits.)

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Smudge
Where I'm from, most of the road damage happens because water expands when it
freezes.

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brc
This was always on the cards, the only surprise to me is that someone has
moved on it so fast.

The major problem facing governments over growth of electric cars is loss in
tax revenue currently enjoyed from fuel taxes. In most places the amount of
fuel tax collected far exceeds that which is spent on road infrastructure.
Governments simply take activities with inelastic demand as the best place for
collecting revenue. Because fuel was primarily used for transportation, which
has a very inelastic curve, it always has been heavily taxed. Same goes for
airline travel and smoking. Flying and tobacco taxes all normally bring in far
more revenue than they cost the government - because taxes are levied on a
basis of extract sufficient feathers from the goose with a minimum of hissing.

The problem with electric cars (as far as revenue collection goes) is that you
can plug them in anywhere. But putting extra broad-based taxes on electricity
consumption is electoral poison. So how to tax vehicle-destined electricity?
If electric cars start to supplant liquid fuels in large numbers, governments
are looking at a major revenue source drying up.

Adding a fixed charge seems like a simple but problem-ridden way of solving
it, but makes more sense than trying to do things like have specially-taxed
outlets for electric cars.

Personally I think a per-mile charge based on vehicle size is the correct way
to go (regardless of fuel type or vehicle class). Drive less, pay less. Drive
smaller vehicles, pay less. But doing so naturally attracts the ire of those
with a problem being tracked. And so on we go. Taxation is imperfect.

My guess is that they are doing this before electric-car ownership becomes a
big group. That way a smaller charge can be introduced and normalised before
the group gets too large. It's always easier to incrementally creep up a tax
rather than introduce a new one.

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thrownaway2424
"In most places the amount of fuel tax collected far exceeds that which is
spent on road infrastructure. "

Lol wut no. Were you talking about places other than USA? Because here in the
USA, billions of dollars are transferred every year from general funds into
the highway administration because the fuel tax is not even close to
sufficient for maintenance of highways. This is also true at the state level,
but to a much higher ratio.

“Nationwide in 2010, state and local governments raised $37 billion in motor
fuel taxes and $12 billion in tolls and non-fuel taxes, but spent $155 billion
on highways,” writes the Tax Foundation’s Joseph Henchman. Another $28 billion
of that $155 billion comes from revenue from the federal gas tax.

[http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-
pa...](http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pay-only-
third-state-local-road-spending)

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sgustard
Great idea, let's also tax: bicyclists, carpoolers, the unemployed (damn them
for not commuting), and drivers of fuel-efficient cars of all kinds.

~~~
valleyer
Bicyclists, carpoolers, and people who don't drive for whatever reason don't
put as much strain on the road. Why would we tax them? Moreover, what is your
point?

~~~
sgustard
Point is, local governments see an existing source of revenue declining. They
panic and go after the next ready target, forgetting about the incentives
behind the original tax (to dissuade gasoline usage).

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001sky
They should have a "battery tax", given that someone has to recycle and
dispose of the waste. For a car that lasts only 8 yrs, this is an $800 tax.
The total cost[1] of a camry is about $8K a year, or $64K over the timeframe.
With about $16K in petrol costs baked in, of which maybe 1/8 of the costs or
about 2K would be inflated by petrol taxes. This makes the savings of driving
an electric car still about 60% on just taxes/government fees if you lump them
together. Its really netither here nor there in the big scheme of things and
won't move the needle either way.

[1] ie. operating costs and depreciation, net basis.

~~~
mullingitover
> They should have a "battery tax", given that someone has to recycle and
> dispose of the waste.

This is a total non-issue. The manufacturers will happily take those old
batteries off your hands and recycle them free of charge.

~~~
001sky
_free of charge_

Not quite. The new, replacement battery is quite expesnive and sold at a high
margin. So this is not "free", nor does it pay into the public good (domain)
in any way to offset the carbon footprint of building the car (smelting steel,
aluminum, mining etc), or the transportation damage to the road-system (a
function of weight x miles, not emissions).

The good news is that current cells are highly recylable in the technological
sense, so its not like they are hazardous spent fuel rods. But the usage
(mileage) will be proportionate to battery life. So it makes sense to tax the
fuel-supply of the electric car in the same way as the fuel tax. That is, if
you believe in those things (public goods, etc).

~~~
mullingitover
> The new, replacement battery is quite expesnive and sold at a high margin.

That's beside the point. The battery recycling is free. Of course the battery
replacement costs money, but the battery already comes with a fee: sales tax.
The supply chain for producing the battery is likewise taxed in various ways.

> So it makes sense to tax the fuel-supply of the electric car in the same way
> as the fuel tax.

Then why are you talking about taxing the battery? The battery is the
_container_ , not the fuel. Electricity is already taxed.

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warfangle
The point of taxing gasoline to pay for road upkeep is, from what I can tell,
because it accurately reflects 'how much you drive' \-- sort of. Perhaps a
shift needs to be made in what is taxed and how, in order to accommodate
petrol-free vehicles.

One option is tolls. Nobody likes tolls.

Another option is this fee - but it doesn't accurately reflect the wear on a
road generated by the car.

A tire tax? Higher inspection fees? The latter would discourage the cars that
need inspections from getting inspections due to the cost.

Maybe we need to wholly rethink how we fund public transportation
infrastructure - not just roads, but railways and bridges and aeronautics.

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GigabyteCoin
Wow. That's absolutely disgusting.

"We're not getting our gas taxes and destroying the environment in the
process, so guess what? You owe us the $100 we would have forced out of you
annually had you of purchased an all gas vehicle for $10,000 less."

I thought property taxes were meant to pay for local roads?

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jellicle
Yay red states.

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novalis78
auto pay with bitcoin whenever you use a road. done.

