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If the government would get out of the way, yes. Unfortunately we have a government that has so clearly been bought and paid for by the existing money. Our Pr

by grecy 5y ago

If the government would get out of the way, yes. Unfortunately we have a government that has so clearly been bought and paid for by the existing money. Our Prime Minister brought coal into Parliament and extolled it's virtues, going on and on about how it's the future. Right now they're building a $600M gas power plant[1], and Victoria is the only jurisdiction in the world where you are actively fined for driving an EV. [2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/23/solar-power-in-australia-outstrips-coal-fired-electricity-for-first-time https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/23/solar... [2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-22/victoria-electric-vehicle-levy-road-users-opposed-by-industry/100086872 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-22/victoria-electric-veh...

stirlo 5y ago
> where you are actively fined for driving an EV. Hyperbolic statements like this are unhelpful; The government has implemented a distance based tax on EVs (road pricing) to offset losses from the existing fuel excise taxes. It's certainly not progressive but it is not and never has been a "fine"
- grecy 5y ago
  Taxes on undesirable behaviour are for all intents and purposes the same as fines. i.e. carbon taxes.
  - rswail 5y ago
    Yes, that is one form of taxation. But taxes for road use are to pay for the roads, ie consider them a "network usage" fee. Having it be distance based is because there is currently a petrol tax that is also distance based, because it is per litre of fuel. What should happen is that all vehicles should have the same distance based fee applied, with the additional cost of the CO2 output as a multiple. Make EVs the base fee.
    - reitzensteinm 5y ago
      Exactly. Or EVs could be taxed for road use, but a subsidy put in place to not discourage adoption during the transition. Oh, wait, that's exactly what Victoria has done: https://www.solar.vic.gov.au/zero-emissions-vehicle-subsidy https://www.solar.vic.gov.au/zero-emissions-vehicle-subsidy Personally, I'd keep the EV tax as is, remove the subsidy, and significantly increase the ICE tax. Cars are awful, and their negative externalities don't stop at CO2 emissions.
      - stephen_g 5y ago
        No, a per-km charge is really regressive and poorly designed. People in regional areas need to drive much further but have worse maintained roads and don’t cause anything like the congestion metro drivers do, and don’t cause anything like the road wear the big trucks do. A state like Victoria shouldn’t be charging somebody driving in, say, South Australia either. To do it properly, you’d need different zones (higher charge in congested areas for example), but that would require creepy GPS tracking, or creepy ANPR everywhere. Really not a road we want to be going down as a society I think. They could just double the cost of rego for everyone if they’re so concerned about not getting a tax they don’t get already (Fed Govt does).
        belorn 5y ago
        I have yet to decide if I consider ANPR more creepy than parking when ANPR is used for taxation or road tolls. Both require some form of payment system when a car is located at some specific place and when computers are involved they store records of license plates and locations. Both would benefit from tight data regulation to prevent abuse and data retention. The only major difference is that sometimes you can not avoid going pass a road toll. However the same can also be said about finding a parking space, and parking data is likely much more detailed information than passing the edge of a traffic zone. Many parking spaces in the city where I live have also moved over to use ANPR, which kind of mean the two concepts has already merged to a degree.
        reitzensteinm 5y ago
- stephen_g 5y ago
  That’s what they say, but it’s actually misleading and inaccurate. The fuel excise is a Federal tax that just goes into general revenue (same as, say, income tax, alcohol excises, the tobacco excise, etc.). It’s the states that are implementing the EV taxes. They don’t automatically or directly get any money from the fuel excise. The EV tax is a new, different, and not equivalent tax. They’ve hastily brought it in now before enough people have EVs to realise - which explains why it’s so badly designed (take, for instance, rural drivers that need to drive much further distances than city folk but have worse maintained roads and don’t really cause significant road wear or congestion. They’ll pay far more than the city dwellers! Or if you drive half the time in a different state, like people in regional areas who live on the border, you’ll pay a state tax for driving on another state’s roads!).
  - ludston 5y ago
    To be fair, people in regional areas that travel long distances already pay far more fuel related taxes than those in cities on account of using more fuel per capita.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  Your statement, whilst true in direct translation is false in spirit. It's a fine in a tax's clothing. It is a tax wielded as weapon intended to inhibit uptake of EV's. Australia should be subsidising EV purchases, not hastily implementing a new tax that further suppresses progress in a country falling ever further behind the rest of the world.
belorn 5y ago
Do Australia have a car tax? If I look at the rules here in Sweden I find that EV owners also have to pay a car tax as any other car owners. They do get the first 5 years as free as tax bonus, but after that they pay just as any other car owner. The tax is a base value (~36$ per year) and then an additional value based on the emissions and attributes of the car. Car ownership is taxed because there is road usage, parking, health care, and other costs associated with car ownership. There are also pollution created by the wheels, oils, cleaning products, and so on. To be honest, 36$ per year seems pretty cheap as a base value considering all the cost to society and should probably be raised when more cars become EV and less money is gotten from gas and car taxes. The alternative is to raise other taxes like income in order to fill the gap in the budget or lower the budget of road maintenance.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  yes, there's "rego" - the registration tax, collected by states on cars owned by residents of that state, and used to maintain the roads in the state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_registration#Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_registration#Aus...

by grecy 5y ago

stirlo 5y ago

> where you are actively fined for driving an EV. Hyperbolic statements like this are unhelpful; The government has implemented a distance based tax on EVs (road pricing) to offset losses from the existing fuel excise taxes. It's certainly not progressive but it is not and never has been a "fine"

grecy 5y ago
Taxes on undesirable behaviour are for all intents and purposes the same as fines. i.e. carbon taxes.
- rswail 5y ago
  Yes, that is one form of taxation. But taxes for road use are to pay for the roads, ie consider them a "network usage" fee. Having it be distance based is because there is currently a petrol tax that is also distance based, because it is per litre of fuel. What should happen is that all vehicles should have the same distance based fee applied, with the additional cost of the CO2 output as a multiple. Make EVs the base fee.
  - reitzensteinm 5y ago
    Exactly. Or EVs could be taxed for road use, but a subsidy put in place to not discourage adoption during the transition. Oh, wait, that's exactly what Victoria has done: https://www.solar.vic.gov.au/zero-emissions-vehicle-subsidy https://www.solar.vic.gov.au/zero-emissions-vehicle-subsidy Personally, I'd keep the EV tax as is, remove the subsidy, and significantly increase the ICE tax. Cars are awful, and their negative externalities don't stop at CO2 emissions.
    - stephen_g 5y ago
      No, a per-km charge is really regressive and poorly designed. People in regional areas need to drive much further but have worse maintained roads and don’t cause anything like the congestion metro drivers do, and don’t cause anything like the road wear the big trucks do. A state like Victoria shouldn’t be charging somebody driving in, say, South Australia either. To do it properly, you’d need different zones (higher charge in congested areas for example), but that would require creepy GPS tracking, or creepy ANPR everywhere. Really not a road we want to be going down as a society I think. They could just double the cost of rego for everyone if they’re so concerned about not getting a tax they don’t get already (Fed Govt does).
      - belorn 5y ago
        I have yet to decide if I consider ANPR more creepy than parking when ANPR is used for taxation or road tolls. Both require some form of payment system when a car is located at some specific place and when computers are involved they store records of license plates and locations. Both would benefit from tight data regulation to prevent abuse and data retention. The only major difference is that sometimes you can not avoid going pass a road toll. However the same can also be said about finding a parking space, and parking data is likely much more detailed information than passing the edge of a traffic zone. Many parking spaces in the city where I live have also moved over to use ANPR, which kind of mean the two concepts has already merged to a degree.
      - reitzensteinm 5y ago
stephen_g 5y ago
That’s what they say, but it’s actually misleading and inaccurate. The fuel excise is a Federal tax that just goes into general revenue (same as, say, income tax, alcohol excises, the tobacco excise, etc.). It’s the states that are implementing the EV taxes. They don’t automatically or directly get any money from the fuel excise. The EV tax is a new, different, and not equivalent tax. They’ve hastily brought it in now before enough people have EVs to realise - which explains why it’s so badly designed (take, for instance, rural drivers that need to drive much further distances than city folk but have worse maintained roads and don’t really cause significant road wear or congestion. They’ll pay far more than the city dwellers! Or if you drive half the time in a different state, like people in regional areas who live on the border, you’ll pay a state tax for driving on another state’s roads!).
- ludston 5y ago
  To be fair, people in regional areas that travel long distances already pay far more fuel related taxes than those in cities on account of using more fuel per capita.
BLKNSLVR 5y ago
Your statement, whilst true in direct translation is false in spirit. It's a fine in a tax's clothing. It is a tax wielded as weapon intended to inhibit uptake of EV's. Australia should be subsidising EV purchases, not hastily implementing a new tax that further suppresses progress in a country falling ever further behind the rest of the world.

belorn 5y ago

Do Australia have a car tax? If I look at the rules here in Sweden I find that EV owners also have to pay a car tax as any other car owners. They do get the first 5 years as free as tax bonus, but after that they pay just as any other car owner. The tax is a base value (~36$ per year) and then an additional value based on the emissions and attributes of the car. Car ownership is taxed because there is road usage, parking, health care, and other costs associated with car ownership. There are also pollution created by the wheels, oils, cleaning products, and so on. To be honest, 36$ per year seems pretty cheap as a base value considering all the cost to society and should probably be raised when more cars become EV and less money is gotten from gas and car taxes. The alternative is to raise other taxes like income in order to fill the gap in the budget or lower the budget of road maintenance.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
yes, there's "rego" - the registration tax, collected by states on cars owned by residents of that state, and used to maintain the roads in the state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_registration#Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_registration#Aus...