Road use tax for EVs?

P

Packard

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2020
Messages
4,750
The federal tax collected on gasoline is supposed to be used for road infrastructure and public transportation. That is why marine fuel and home heating oil is not allowed to be used for motor vehicles. 

But electric cars use roads and road infrastructure.  How is it that they get a pass on those costs?  Federal gasoline tax is currently at 18 cents per gallon.

The average new car sold in the USA gets 25.7 miles per gallon (estimated).  The previous average was 22.2 miles per gallon (actual).

So the taxes are costing on average $0.007 per mile.  Why don’t electric vehicles have to pay that?
 
California, Hawaii, Minnesota, Oregon, Utah, and Virginia

They do road user fees.  To some extent... it's harder to enforce and collect than gas tax.  Like income tax at source is meant to overcome that problem too. 

On the federal level, it's a concern but the EV lobby group and lackies are stronger than the transport group.  The later also includes petro companies in addition the truckers so they make good strawmen for the 'big bad evil corp wants to kill you all' that currently controls the megaphone.

It's okay.  I get my food from the local grocery store.  "I don't need long haul trucks or transport"  /s
 
Does this help with your question?

chat.openai.com_2023-06-02_14-02-20.png


EV_Taxes__Fees_2023-06-02_14-05-15.png
 
At the end of the day we never pay our fair share for many things in our lives. In reality, we have never paid the true price for gasoline, especially considering the billions spent by the US on foreign policy and military actions (e.g., decades of maintaining shipping lanes in the Mediterranean, 1st Iraq War, policies in South America, etc.) to ensure we Americans have plenty of cheap oil. The list goes on and on…everything from health care, insurance, farm subsidies, disposal of garbage with all our throw away products, etc.  You could also make the argument that drivers of gas vehicles may be paying taxes for roads, but they are definitely not paying for the damage their vehicles do to our environment, air quality, etc. Further, the federal gas tax does not even come close to paying for all the infrastructure improvements that are needed and should actually be raised to cover these costs and push people into more efficient vehicles. Anyway, you started the conversation.
 
I suspect this conversation is going to end up going places that are not acceptable on FOG.  It's probably already there. I'll give a tad more life before the axe is dropped.

Seth
 
I would guess, at least at this point, they are somewhat holding back on that as an encouragement to get people into EVs.
All the debate about the environmental impact aside, many people (regardless of personal convictions) will not make the change if it costs them more money. Whether it is the initial outlay of the vehicle itself, the expected costs of maintenance, or the cost of the energy it takes to make it move, if you can't afford it, you go the less expensive route.
 
I think EV's should pay road use somehow, but it's tricky. You can charge a 9000 lb Hummer EV three times a 3400 pound eGolf to account for weight, but how do you factor in mileage? I think some areas check your mileage each year and assess a fee, but how do they distribute the fees to the different city, county, and state road budgets? In a perfect world I guess every single road would be a toll road with a very small toll, but I don't think anyone would go for that in the US (privacy, and the perception of how much driving costs per mile).

Our family car is an EV, our third one, but it's only fair that you contribute to the wear and tear your car puts on roads. I might be in a minority--I would guess most EV drivers think they should get a pass for saving the environment. My personal opinion is that the US is focusing too much on EV's and not enough on making cities more walkable/bikeable so you don't have to drive everywhere.
 
Easiest way to do this would be to tax tires --- just calculate how much damage is done by a given tire over its lifetime and tack that on when its sold --- phase it in as gas taxes are phased out (or left in place to discourage them).
 
That's not a bad idea. You'd have to do it on new tires not used, or they'd just get illegally dumped. You'd also probably have a lot of people driving to the state next door that hasn't added the tire tax and now whatever state does this first is going to miss all that revenue for road maintenance.

If they can work out those details it'd be logistically easier than yearly mileage checks.
 
Require EV manufacturers to make odometers blue tooth transmitters.  I’m not sure when and where they would take readings.  That would take some real thought.

But the technology is available (I have EZ Pass for bridge toll collection so I know the tech exists).

I’m not sure tires would work.  You would have to implement for all vehicles or people would be swapping tires from EV cars to their gas powered cars.

 
I think having any type of transmitter would be challenging nowadays because of privacy concerns. But you could just have an odometer check as part of the yearly safety inspection, assuming you have those.

The tire tax would replace the gas tax and apply to all vehicles, but the more I think about it, there are issues. Some tire compounds trade long life for softer tires that perform better and I guess are safer. Also wouldn't the A/T tires that go on many SUV's last longer since they start off with a lot more tread? What if you get a puncture early in the life?

It seems like there would be too much variation in actual taxes paid, versus actual mileage * vehicle weight.
 
Buy a gas powered car and an EV that use the same size tires.  Always claim that the new tires are for the gas powered car. 

The tire thing is going to be too easy to defeat.

In New York, the combined gas tax (state and federal) is $0.48/gallon.  If you based the tax on tires, a tire with a 50,000 mile rating would use about 600 gallons.  So they would have to add $288.00 for taxes for a set of four tires.  That would be an addition of $72.00 per tire.  The politicians would find that to be a tough bit of legislation to sell to their constituency.

Plus the little-discussed hidden costs of owning an EV.
https://www.topspeed.com/hidden-costs-owning-electric-vehicles/

Back in 1970, I wanted to travel the country in a van.  I shopped that Ford Econoline (my memory is hazy, but I think it was about $2,500.00 after haggling) and the VW bus which was about 1,000.00 more. 

I was at the VW dealer and I could not see spending the extra money (gas was $0.299/gallon).  The salesman kept harping on the fuel economy.

“Don’t you want the better fuel economy?”
“Yeah, sure I do.”
“If you want economy, you have to pay for it.”  That concept back then, made little sense to me.

The EVs are on the cusp of being a good deal or not being a good deal. Adding the electric tax might push sales back for another 5 years or more.

Right now, the gasoline car drivers are subsidizing the EVs.  That concept offends me.  We see it play out in lots of circumstances.

(I was also offended by having to pay for dog licenses, the funds of which are used to deal with unwanted litters.  If you paid good money to purchase a well-bred dog, you are almost certainly not adding to the unwanted litter problem.).

 
Packard said:
Plus the little-discussed hidden costs of owning an EV.
https://www.topspeed.com/hidden-costs-owning-electric-vehicles/
Click to expand...

We own two EVs (both Teslas) one is a 2018 model, the other a 2023 model.    Most of the items in that article are wrong or overstated.

My experience is that EV costs much less to operate than my previous ICE cars.  Both in maintenance and fuel/electricity costs.  We spent about the same for the EVs as we would have spent for an ICE car.

Bob
 
Solving these sorts of complex socioeconomic problems is not simple but it will get done and soon.  I don't expect the solution will emerge from this thread, but I guarantee that discussions are ongoing as we speak between government and vehicle manufacturers and likely electric utilities.  When many, many billions are at stake there is plenty of incentive to work things out.
 
Packard said:
Buy a gas powered car and an EV that use the same size tires.  Always claim that the new tires are for the gas powered car. 
Click to expand...

Read what I said --- this gets phased in for _all_ tires, regardless of fuel --- for a while, gas/diesel powered cars and trucks pay double (because they should be discouraged).

Yes, there's a bit of variability to it, but there's already a lot of effort for folks to make longer-lasting tires, so I don't think that would change, and again, the estimate would be based on estimate of damage said tire would do when mounted to a typical vehicle (so no saving by swapping from one to another).

The big thing is, we need something which isn't intrusive --- current proposals are to use GPS to track all vehicles and have folks pay for their mileage usage each year when they register/inspect the vehicle.

I will never own a vehicle with a camera, and I disabled the OnStar system on my father's truck when I inherited it --- I only bought my first cell phone a couple of years ago, and when I don't need to use it, it goes into a signal-blocking bag (I get enough robocalls on my landline).
 
Don't forget about the Hybrids changing the amount of purchases and revenue.
Mine gets +/- 40 mpg resulting in roughly 1/2 as many trips to the gas station.
 
I read recently that the Mercedes hybrid can go 36 miles on pure electric.  I typically drive 20 to 25 miles per day.

If I bought that car, a tank of gasoline could last me 6 months or more. Effectively, it would be a pure electric vehicle 90% or more of the time. I might go weeks without using any gasoline at all.

How would you tax that situation?

Note:  I drive about 7,000 miles per year split between two vehicles.
 
You're gas-adjacent and we'll tax you like a gas guzzler as you still enable the petroleum industry.  Fence sitters are the worst kind - so on second thought, we'll tax you twice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top