
States Hit Electric Vehicle Owners with High Fees - howard941
https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/more-states-hitting-electric-vehicle-owners-with-high-fees/
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hourislate
I don't own an EV but I have no problem giving them a pass.

I'm sure the fuel tax these states collect at the pumps for gas powered off
road vehicles and equipment more than covers the extra fees they want to
charge EV's.

My lawn mower, weed wacker, kids minibike and gas generator don't use roads
but still pay a fuel tax at the pump.

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blisterpeanuts
Wouldn't it make more sense to use some other general tax revenue to fund the
roads? Whether or not they drive a car, everyone benefits almost equally from
the road system, which is used for transporting food and other vital products,
for medical transport, for law enforcement, for practically everything to
support our modern lifestyles.

Even someone claiming to be living totally off-grid is benefiting from roads
just by purchasing materials to build their homes, solar panels, selling their
produce at the farmer's market etc.

Like gasoline tax, a per-vehicle tax is regressive; the affluent can afford
it, but the poor get taxed almost as much for a necessity that they can't get
to work without. A case could be made that a Tesla S might pay a higher excise
tax than a Leaf (or any cheaper sedan) but the higher taxes levied on
electrics are going to disincentivize the working poor and lower middle class
from going to EV's.

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dcchambers
I know that this sounds unfair/bad - but it brings up something I never
thought about with EVs. With many states a huge portion of the taxes that
support the road infrastucture comes from the gas taxes. With EVs not filling
up at the pump - how can states ensure they pay their share to keep the roads
maintained?

Gas taxes are nice because they ensure that even people travelling into your
state help pay for the roads they are using. If you just charge higher tax at
registration you can't capture any of that revenue.

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yummypaint
Most road damage due to vehicles is actually caused by heavy commercial trucks
etc. Taxing vehicles by total impact on roads makes more sense to me, as the
price will effectively be passed onto consumers who buy products transported
by truck. It might help incentivise development of more local rail lines which
we need to be doing in the US anyway.

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magashna
And penalize people who don't actually need big stupid trucks.

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MisterTea
I assume you are talking about silly oversized pickups ala brodozers and the
like. The gp is talking about commercial vehicles which do actual work and are
part of infrastructure.

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janesvilleseo
I currently live in a state that charges extra for EV. I ran the numbers as I
have an EV. It turns out. I pay less tax under the EV tax then I would driving
using Gas.

I use the roads. I have no problem helping to pay for them.

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Glench
These fees are remarkably short-sighted. We're in a climate emergency and we
need massive adoption of electric vehicles powered by clean electricity as
soon as possible. Anything that gets in the way of that goal, especially in
the next 10 years, is contributing to our demise.

Basically if you're getting a new car, it needs to be electric _, and we 'll
let the energy companies catch up.

_ Saul Griffith of Otherlab at Maker Faire:
[https://youtu.be/CjFwHhB8JeU?t=21686](https://youtu.be/CjFwHhB8JeU?t=21686)

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ianai
They’re mostly R leaning states and/or currently R governed or controlled.

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kasey_junk
Il passed their fee through a legislative with D control of both houses & it
was signed by a D governor.

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ianai
They’re not on the map.

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sremani
Because that does not fit into the ALEC narrative. Washington state was one of
the earlier states to consider additional fee on EVs. I do not know if they
did it or not. The idea of certain vehicles not paying taxes that fund roads
is or at least used to be bi-partisan.

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gambiting
I think ultimately, we'll have to tax the electricity used for electric
vehicles, as at least over here(UK) roads are almost entirely maintained from
fuel taxes and those will keep shrinking with every year. I imagine that the
car will have its own meter and you will have to report it every now and then,
just like we already do with gas and electricity at home already. Or maybe all
chargers will be required to know that this electricity is charged at a
different tariff than the rest. We already do it with regular diesel and
diesel for non-motoring use after all.

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esotericn
Just use the odometer. You know the mileage, you know the weight of the car,
done.

In modern cars I can't imagine it would be very easy to cheat.

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gambiting
You want to tax the amount of electricity used though. 1 mile travelled
accelerator to the floor vs 1 mile travelled gently at 5mph will use very
different amounts of energy. And I mean it would be trivial for the car to
keep track of the number of kWh used.

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esotericn
The amount of energy isn't relevant though? The road wear is.

Unless you're talking about like, indirectly taxing the emissions (since the
UK is pretty bad, 300gCO2e/kWh). I would have thought it makes sense to just
apply that, at the grid level, on all electricity consumption.

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gambiting
I mean, I'm just thinking that's how it works with petrol/diesel already -
we're taxing it on per litre basis, so if you drive a very efficient
vehicle(or just drive gently) then you will pay less of that tax than someone
who drives a very inefficient car, even if the distances covered are exactly
the same. Obviously just because that's how we do it now doesn't mean we have
to keep doing that forever.

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esotericn
Sure, the purpose of those taxes are completely different though.

Emissions taxation obviously makes sense to apply per unit of fuel - if you
buy 1L of petrol you're almost certainly going to burn it, and the CO2
produced is going to be pretty much identical regardless of which vehicle it's
used in or whether it's used in a generator or whatever.

Road wear is more indirect and really just sort of works out on balance (e.g.
some pay more than they should, some less).

With an EV only the road wear is relevant. If you're inspecting the car, it
makes no sense to use kWh (a proxy for road use) when you can just use mileage
(the actual road usage).

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dbdjdbd
No, because driving like an asshole wears roads more than driving like a
grandma.

In both ICE and EV this is not by captured by millage, but is captured by
energy consumed.

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justlaughingatt
This thread seems to love Big Oil in ways that make me skeptical of the msg

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paganel
Generally speaking the average person who buys an EV is better off than the
average person who buys a gasoline/diesel car, new or used, the reason being
that EVs are on average more expensive compared to the same class of vehicles
which are powered by gasoline/diesel (to say nothing of the fact that I don't
know of used EVs that can be purchased under 4,000-5,000 euros, of which the
roads around me are full of).

As such it makes sense to tax more the people that have more money, you aren't
going to get as much money from a single-mum driving her 1.2l Opel Corsa
compared to what you can get from a programmer/lawyer/real estate investor who
drives a 80,000 euro Tesla.

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magashna
>Max Baumhefner, staff attorney of the climate and energy program at the
Natural Resources Defense Council, says the reality is much different, because
most of the 1.3 million EVs on the road today were bought as used cars. That’s
because they’re typically bought on leases, then sold used after two to three
years to low- and middle-income people, many looking to save money on gas, he
says.

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paganel
Not sure how things are in the States, but over here in Europe when I search
for an electric vehicle in the 4,000-6,000 euro range [1] I get mostly just
toy cars (i.e. the Renault Twizy). And low-income people generally go for
2,000-3,000 euro cars, even lower. Maybe things are better for this class of
people in the States and they can afford to purchase used EVs with starting
prices of $10,000 or $15,000, can't tell.

[1]
[https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/search.html?damageUnrepai...](https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/search.html?damageUnrepaired=NO_DAMAGE_UNREPAIRED&fuels=ELECTRICITY&isSearchRequest=true&maxPrice=6000&minPrice=4000&pageNumber=2&scopeId=C&sfmr=false)

~~~
cannonedhamster
Car prices in my area would generally consider $10-$15k for a relatively new
EV vehicle off lease as a deal, I just checked prices around here and
confirmed that. A new ICE car here can easily set you back over $30k for a
small car and upwards of $60k for a large truck. Unless you're making less
than average in this area the price of an EV is only slightly more than an ICE
vehicle used in the same condition.

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mikece
One idea: eliminate gasoline taxes and charge every vehicle an annual road use
fee based on the weight of the vehicle as part of their registration renewal.

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wastedhours
Petrol taxes are probably the fairest way to tax ICE based on usage short of
having black-boxes in every car (which would in turn create a nice black
market in itself for fiddling them) - heavier and less efficient vehicles
naturally use more and so get charged more, the more you drive, the more you
burn, the more you pay.

I can't see a fairer way than that for ICE at the moment.

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5555624
The OP wants to eliminate petrol taxes on ICE vehicles to treat all vehicles
the same way. Right now, an EV doesn't pay any petrol taxes, which are often
used to maintain road infrastructure.

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dsfyu404ed
Since nobody is making EV heavy trucks yet and EVs are a small minority of
road traffic they account for approximately none of the infrastructure wear
and tear.

It's a pure cash grab. If they need more money they should be up front about
it rather than being smiley and trying to portray it as EV owners not paying
their fair share. I say this as someone who buys a heck of a lot of gas.

