9 ms·
Texas wants to charge Tesla and other EV owners annual fees
- potiuper 5y agoStick a generator in the trunk when the inspector comes and call it an ICE.
- detaro 5y agoNote: title means ~400 (-400 made me wonder about some weird legal trick to use a "charge" to give people money!)
- gundmc 5y agoOP copied the title from the article, but it seems weird to specifically call out Tesla when this legislation applies to all Electric Vehicles. I guess Tesla gets clicks?
- hexis 5y agoI’m unclear why the given justification, that EVs don’t pay gas taxes, is insufficient to justify an additional tax to support road maintenance.
- alkonaut 5y agoIn Texas cars don’t pay gas taxes either effectively. There is a tiny tax of 20c/gal. but that’s nowhere near this (another poster made a calculation of $60/yr roughly). Just make this $150/yr, charge $1/gal tax for ICE cars, that should make it about even. For comparison I pay $1500 yearly road tax and $4/gal in taxes alone at the pump and I find it too cheap to pollute still.
- agrajag 5y agoA counterargument would be that cars cause basically no road damage and it’s all caused by trucks. Studies have put the damage of a single truck at weight limit in the US to be equal to that of 9600 cars[1]. [1] https://www.gao.gov/assets/ced-79-94.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/ced-79-94.pdf
- _jal 5y agoOne of many hidden handouts to favored industries. Socialism for me, but not for thee.
- Consultant32452 5y agoDoes most of the damage to roads come from the vehicles driving on it or other things like temperature fluctuations?
- chrismcb 5y agoDriving does a lot of damage. While temp fluctuations cause damage, it is nothing compared to what a vehicle can do.
- adamcstephens 5y agoA counter argument is that we have a lot of road capacity for all the cars. I agree that heavier vehicles should pay a greater share, but we don’t have eight lane highways just for trucks.
- philipkglass 5y agoThe idea is sound but the tax appears to be disproportionate to what internal combustion vehicles pay. Texas taxes gas at 20 cents per gallon: https://www.thecentersquare.com/texas/texas-drivers-pay-20-cents-per-gallon-in-state-gas-taxes/article_c1c3ecd4-640e-11ea-97b8-03e422bf4d6f.html https://www.thecentersquare.com/texas/texas-drivers-pay-20-c... A Texan driver would have to buy 2000 gallons of gas a year to pay $400 in gas taxes to Texas. That seems pretty high when the average Texan drives 16347 miles per year [1]; it implies fuel economy of only 8.2 MPG at average travel distance. Even the big Ford F-450 has better average fuel economy than that. [1] https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a32880477/average-mileage-per-year/ https://www.caranddriver.com/research/a32880477/average-mile...
- stkdump 5y agoThe article argues that the EV tax is much higher than gas taxes, and even more so if you include taxes paid for electricity.
- chiph 5y agoThis is because the state won't be making any money from EVs off the motor fuels tax, which goes towards road maintenance.
- vmladenov 5y agoPerverse incentive. And Texas is already so toll-happy
- mytailorisrich 5y agoThis will become a very big issue in most places. Especially in Europe, governments rake in huge amounts from taxes on fuel, for instance. All gone as it stands if everyone drives an EV. EVs will be taxed one way or another.
- petre 5y agoThey should make a separate road tax instead of mixing up all sorts of taxes in fuel. Actually there is one for national roads or highways but they'd have to tax by distance, so taxing fuel is an easy one. In Europe we pay more taxes than what the fuel actually costs so obviously people are quite incentivized getting an EV. Which is good news because: no fumes.
- kingsuper20 5y agoI expect that they'll simply have a road tax and a gas tax.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoTexas and many other places already have a road tax, called a toll.
- detaro 5y agoFuel use is not a bad proxy though for ICE cars, so it made sense: People who drive more (and cause more road wear) pay more, heavy vehicles (which cause more road wear) pay more. Efficient vehicles are incentivized. And not a fan of calls for taxes based on actual distance driven, because tracking that leads to monitoring I'd rather the state not have.
- petre 5y agoYes but there's no need for monitoring anything other than the distance driven. We already have cameras monitoring license plates to identify owners that have not paid their fixed road tax. They could tax the electricity at charging stations, but then people would rather charge at home. For the roads in the county or region we already pay car property taxes.
- powerbroker 5y agoI'm a Tesla driver in Texas. If part of the fee were directed to putting at least 2 charging stations at every highway rest stop, and Texas welcome center, as well as a few other places -- then I would support it. On the other hand, if the Biden administration is already going to do this with federal money -- then I don't.
- jgtccnk 5y agoHow about you raise money from other Tesla drivers to build your supercharger network instead of asking the taxpayer to foot the bill for you?
- mocheeze 5y agoThat's basically their proposition by earmarking a portion of fees paid by other EV owners.
- jfk13 5y agoDo gasoline taxes go towards providing filling stations at convenient places? I thought they were - at least in theory - supposed to go towards highway maintenance. In which case it seems only right that you should pay some kind of fee or tax towards this; after all, your Tesla uses the same roads as any other car.
- rgacote 5y agoEVs run on the same roads and bridges that non-EV cars use.
- rsj_hn 5y agoEh, 17 states already charge EVs and those numbers are going to go up. Just a back of the envelope estimate: With Federal gas taxes of 20 cents per gallon and state levies ranging from 20-60 cents, let's say an average of 40 cents for a total of 60 cents a gallon. ~120 Billion gallons of gas are used each year, say 200 million adult drivers means each adult is paying around .6*120B/.2B = $360 per year in gas taxes. $400 seems to be a reasonable ballpark for the gas tax revenue lost per year. That's not a revenue stream governments are going to be willing to lose, so as EV popularity increases, you can expect more of this. It doesn't seem too awful, TBH. The alternative would be to have a special levy on electricity, similar to what we do with gasoline, but that's going to hit a lot more than PEV drivers, so if we fund roads with use fees, which we currently do, then paying a few hundred bucks a year in lieu of gas taxes seems fair.
- ayberk 5y agoWA has similar fees for electric vehicles and the main problem is the fact that it's a flat fee. With gas taxes you inherently pay more if you drive more, whereas EV owners pay the same regardless of how much they drive. Moreover, it's a $225 fee which is what a 30mpg gas car would pay for driving ~15k miles or so. This TX bill seems to have a flat fee + another fee based on mileage, which sounds more reasonable.
- InvaderFizz 5y agoTexas is already short on their highway funds. Only 41% are funded by use fees[0]. Back of the napkin for me says it should be about $0.40/gal given the Texas gas tax is $0.20. Either way, I suspect that even this is too low and Texas is due for an increase in the gas tax by another $0.10-$0.20 in the next few years. This $400 fee will most likely be the EV taxes moving first, in my estimation. 0: https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2019/jul/motor-fuels-taxes.php https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2019/jul/...
- jhayward 5y agoTexas gas taxes are $0.20 state tax, plus $0.184 Federal tax for $0.384 per gallon total. $400 / $0.384 = 1042 gallons of gasoline in equivalent taxes. Typical annual mileage per vehicle runs around 12,000 miles. Most cars get much better than the 11.51 mpg implied by the tax. So Texas EV users are being financially punished for cleaning up the air. Which is very, very much on-brand for Texas. I'm amazed they aren't outlawed.
- aimor 5y agoLooks like in Texas the gas tax is $0.20/gallon. A sedan might get 33 miles per gallon, drive 10,000 miles a year, consuming 300 gallons of gas: $60 paid in taxes each year. Is that right? The US average looks like 25 mpg and 14,000 miles driven, 560 gallons: $112 or with federal taxes $215.
- HarryHirsch 5y agoFor the oil princes who run the state it's right. Proof we live in an oligarchy.
- dv_dt 5y agoNot a complex fix. Send in your mileage when renewing the licensing. With the monitoring of new vehicles, you could probably have the manufacturer send it in. Pay a per mile roads tax. Unfortunately too many proposals want to overcharge and or use Orwellian gps surveillance to determine something simple like mileage.
- epistasis 5y agoWhen the new Transportation Secretary floated this idea a little while back, somewhat unexpectedly, he had to really quickly walk it back because of the backlash. Having trouble finding a halfway decent news article, but this describes a bit: https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/27/pete-buttigieg-biden-administration-drivers-taxed-by-mile/ https://www.tmz.com/2021/03/27/pete-buttigieg-biden-administ...
- tyingq 5y agoApparently, it also applies to hybrids and natural gas, but with lower fees https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB1728/id/2381166/Texas-2021-SB1728-Engrossed.html https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB1728/id/2381166/Texas-2021-SB...
- singhrac 5y agoThe title is incorrect! It's "~"400 in annual fees, not -400. Very different implication.
- bombcar 5y agoRescind the gas tax and tax the tires instead. Works even with larger vehicles as they have more tires.
- philips 5y agoI have never heard of this idea. Has any other state or country done this?
- homerowilson 5y agoyes, we've had this in Ohio for over a year ($200/year for full EV, $100/year for hybrids).
- tomjakubowski 5y agodisincentivizing car owners from replacing their tires sounds like a public safety hazard.
- wernercd 5y agotaxing gas doesn't stop people from buying gas... taxing cigarettes' doesn't stop people from smoking. While I question the intelligence and timing of taxing cars... taxing tires would stop people from replacing tires more than any other rising cost, how? I also question whether they would "remove" the gas tax... I also question why people wouldn't cross state lines to save money (depending on tax and/or distances - same as nearby where Delaware has no sales tax but the business taxes are higher so it kinda balances out).
- jedberg 5y ago> taxing gas doesn't stop people from buying gas It's not a direct correlation, but there appears to be a cliff when people stop driving as much or exchange high consumption vehicles for lower consumption. You can see this effect when gas taxes go up in various states, and also comparing Europe to the USA. > taxing cigarettes' doesn't stop people from smoking. It very much does. Every time a state increases their tobacco tax, smoking rates go down.
- Bang2Bay 5y agonot -$400. it is > $400. title is misleading. For a second I was happy the lawmakers have magically turned green
- causality0 5y agoA single 18-wheeler causes as much road wear as 9,600 sedans. Charge everyone proportionally and I'll be happy. http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf
- Traster 5y agoThis is pretty meaningless though since that 18 wheeler is transporting your magnum condoms to walmart so it's just going to be passed back onto you in higher prices when you next want to create balloon animals.
- danaris 5y agoThe idea that any and all cost increases to businesses are directly passed on to the consumer is overly simplistic, and would logically mean that we should never make businesses pay for anything extra ever.
- salawat 5y ago... That's generally how it does work. I mean, yeah, when you hit a certain point, you might forego a bit of profitability a little here and there, but if you can't even get the stuff where it needs to be to do good for less than $X when it used to be $Y where Y<X for less than your overhead + outlay, you have to bump your price ask up to reflect the market reality. It feels like it shouldn't be that way, but a surprisingly large amount of what makes the modern world work is proxying and physical caching as a business model.
- causality0 5y agoWhich I can reduce by being a frugal and responsible consumer. Laws and regulations should encourage good behavior.
- chrismcb 5y agoGas tax guess to more that maintenance. It also goes to new roads and other infrastructure improvements
- thrwhizzle 5y agoRoad maintenance fees should not be attached to the price of gasoline. The wear and tear on the road is a function of the weight of the vehicle and the miles driven. The best place to figure out the fee should be the annual inspection. Plug into the computer, check the mileage, and calculate how many miles were driven since the last inspection. Put it into a calculator, and send out the fee. Most of the road wear is from trucks, anyway. And I mean big rigs, not an F-150.
- Gibbon1 5y agoI don't have a ready source to back this up but I read someones comment that said there is a wide disparity between how roads and highways are paid for. Cities pay for their roads out of their general budget usually.
- jedberg 5y agoA lot of states have passed these laws, but it seems like a silly way to solve the problem. When you register your car, you have to say how many miles you drove, and it gets verified every few years with smog checks. Why not just charge a per mile-ton fee? Maybe give freight trucks a break so we don't kill shipping, or only charge them for their empty weight? Have some of the fee go to the state and some go federally for redistribution (like gas taxes work now). Then eliminate the gas tax as a source of funding for road maintenance and shift it to a carbon tax? And make EVs come in for a "milage check" since they won't have smog checks. Then everyone pays fairly for road maintenance based on how much they use the roads, and people driving ICE vehicles will pay for the externality of their pollution through their gas consumption.
- Consultant32452 5y agoMy state has no way of finding out how many miles I drive. No smog checks, etc. So some other mechanism would be required.
- jedberg 5y agoNot that hard to add a milage check, or just take your word for it. Eventually you'd get caught lying if they make cops write down how many miles you have when they give you a ticket, or when you sell your car.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoA solution might be to allow your automobile manufacturer to provide the state authority (who charges for mileage) on a cadence with the data, scoped only to mileage data. Tesla has the mileage data for all of my vehicles. They could even provide mileage driven data by state. I wouldn’t mind clicking an approve button, and have my credit card charged when needed. This is already how my tolls work (albeit with a transponder instead of vehicle telemetry).
- jedberg 5y ago
- ashtonkem 5y agoFunny how these concerns about paying for roads never apply to the semi trucks that do the vast majority of the damage.
- boardwaalk 5y agoTreat gas cars and electric cars the same. Dump the gas tax, charge a fee that takes into account mileage/vehicle weight. Even if you should (based on environmental impact or even just road infrastructure impact) tax gas vehicles more. But we know that's not gonna happen here in Texas.
- xiphias2 5y agoGiving subsidies for buying EVs and then taxing them later doesn't sound that bad actually, it's like a loan. Right now the high sticker price of EVs is a bigger problem than the maintenance cost.
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y agoThat would make sense if Texas was offering EV subsidies.
- potiuper 5y agoPoliticians and lobbyists have managed to conflate gas tax revenue directly with road maintenance funding. The gas tax instead should be seen as an energy dependence tax. Even if there was no possibility of some new energy infrastructure to gas, the revenue should go towards subsidizing energy independence. Finding and creating the best path to achieving energy independence would be incentivised through a discounted future revenue projections of the gas tax and include climate change effects on all industries including road maintenance however minor, along with domestic energy production.
- chrismcb 5y agoMy problem with a tac like this is you don't get anything from tourists.