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> Utah views EV drivers as tax evaders because they don't buy gas That's because they kind of are. Road taxes are often use-based, where gasoline is the way th

> Utah views EV drivers as tax evaders because they don't buy gas That's because they kind of are. Road taxes are often use-based, where gasoline is the way they extract "use" taxes. EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher weight. And it's not linear wear per pound, either. This is going to require a significant shift about how states and cities think about their road maintenance budgets and the taxes required to sustain them. A lot of states are going to, predictably, get this wrong.

jbritton 3y ago
I figure it’s semi trucks that do almost all the road damage. We could just tax the trucks, but that would just get passed along in higher prices for everything. So might as well pay for road repair out of the general fund than have special taxes.
- Kye 3y ago
  Diesel is already taxed at a higher rate than gasoline.
  - KennyBlanken 3y ago
    A diesel truck that has three times the pressure on the road and easily ten to fifteen times the total weight, while getting about 1/3rd the gas mileage of the average US passenger vehicle. Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car for what amounts to shouldn't we expect that a vehicle exerting three times the pressure on the road should pay more per mile than 'just' 3x what you and I do in our gas passenger cars?
    - Kon-Peki 3y ago
      > Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car Wear on the road is a function of weight. It’s really simple and uncontroversial. An EV generally weighs more than an ICE of equivalent size. Hopefully, the federal push to install tons of charging stations will usher in useful EVs with smaller batteries, lowering weight.
      - illiac786 3y ago
        I still think this is BS, considering trucks are causing 2500 times [0] more damage than gas cars and are certainly not bringing tax income proportionally to this. Why should EV then? [0] https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
        autoexecdotbat 3y ago
        This seems like a weird argument to make. We either pay collectively more for taxes for the roads we use, or collectively we pay WAY more for food, materials, and basically everything else if we tax trucks proportionally. Large trucks are carrying stuff, and the cost of that stuff is going to be directly associated with the cost of logistics. Yes, some states haven't figured out what that looks like, but I really don't think the right answer is to dump all that cost on truckers. I would rather pay more for my car's operational tax, increased EV tax or existing gas tax on ICE, than disproportionately affect the price of groceries for someone living paycheck to paycheck.
        one_level_deep 3y ago
        [dead]
        542354234235 3y ago
        Doesn’t this assume that the cost will not effect behavior? If trucking logistics becomes more expensive to properly account for the externalities, wouldn’t companies be more motivated to find more cost efficient methods. I’m sure there are plenty of items that could be shipped by rail, but aren’t because trucking is currently cheaper for the individual company, while the cost in road damage, pollution, greenhouse gasses, increased traffic, etc. are paid by everyone else. As for disproportionately affecting the poor, sales taxes (like on groceries and other goods) and excise taxes (like on gas) are exactly the regressive taxation systems that burden the very people living paycheck to paycheck. Shifting the tax burden from skimming off the top for the people spending all their income on daily necessities, towards companies paying the full cost of their chosen operations, would give the poor more buying power and allow market forces to find and utilize the most effective and efficient means to provide services instead of the cheapest means that are only cheap because they are subsidized by everyone else.
    - parl_match 3y ago
      > Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. By states, car makers, the federal government, and third party analysis firms. It's incredibly uncontroversial. It's even got a name, and associated math: it's called the Fourth Power Law https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-... > shouldn't we expect that a vehicle exerting three times the pressure on the road should pay more per mile than 'just' 3x what you and I do in our gas passenger cars Gas taxes make up a relatively small part of the cost of gas. If you run the numbers, you'll find that it's maybe closer to around 3.5-4x for most passenger EVs. At scale, that becomes a problem, but at the individual level, it's still a relatively small amount - and certainly less than the cost of gas.
      - tpxl 3y ago
        > This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. Your source claims no such thing. EVs may be heavier than equivalent ICE cars, but an electric Smart (the brand) is going to do less damage than a loaded Ford F150. Tax the weight, not a shitty proxy for weight.
        bequanna 3y ago
        …and an F150 uses more fuel than a car. Your comparison is misleading. Compare an ICE car to an EV car, not the lightest EV to the heaviest ICE.
        tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
        That was exactly their point. You can't use 'EV' to mean heavier vehicle across the board.
      - throwbadubadu 3y ago
        > This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. It is pretty much insignificant increase on road wear vs what trucks put on it?
    - dghughes 3y ago
      I used to have a Dodge 2500 diesel it weighed 4,000kg. For comparison an EV Tesla Model X is 2,500kg. a non-EV Toyota Camry is 1,500kg. I still have the dents in my driveway pavement!
  - mnw21cam 3y ago
    "Fuel duty is currently levied at a flat rate of 52.95p per litre for both petrol and diesel, while VAT at 20% is then charged on both the product price and the duty." https://racfoundation.org/data/percentage-uk-pump-price-which-is-tax-page https://racfoundation.org/data/percentage-uk-pump-price-whic...
    - mminer237 3y ago
      In the US, where Utah is located, diesel is taxed at a higher rate: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Gasoline_Diesel_Taxes.webp https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Gasoline...
      - Kye 3y ago
        I figured it was implied since we were talking about the US, but context has a way of collapsing in threaded conversations. Thanks for bringing it back around.
- parl_match 3y ago
  They do, but it's priced in. Many states have weigh stations as part of enforcing the existing taxation through diesel and licensing.
  - Etrnl_President 3y ago
    They also have to go through 3x the registration effort, and do it in every state they drive in.
    - MisterTea 3y ago
      > and do it in every state they drive in. Not anymore. You just get an IFTA sticker and apportioned plates.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      No, they all just get registered in Maine which supposedly has pretty lax rules on Semis
      - Etrnl_President 3y ago
        I travel a lot, and see semis from most states, and commercial pickup haulers from all states. They say NJ, NY, KY, and UT, are especially penurious about additional registration and licensing.
- thfuran 3y ago
  No, externalities should be priced in where practical otherwise the market will be more inefficient, which in this case means the public footing an unnecessarily high road repair bill.
- tomohawk 3y ago
  You're right about semis. The most cost effective thing for keeping the roads better is weigh stations open all the time. However, EVs cause around 2x more damage to roads than non EVs. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/26/pothole-electric-cars-damage-roads-double-petrol-telegraph/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/26/pothole-electric... Wait til the semi EVs hit the road! EVs also have significantly higher particulate emissions due to increased tire wear.
  - Gordonjcp 3y ago
    You know you linked to a fictional news site, right?
    - danielheath 3y ago
      Terrible source, yes, but it happens to be at least roughly on point in this instance; if my dim recall of the relevant engineering is correct, road damage grows quadratically to the pressure exerted on the road by tires, and EVs are typically nearly twice as heavy as ICE vehicles.
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        > and EVs are typically nearly twice as heavy as ICE vehicles. A 3-series BMW clocks in at 1700-2255 kg. A comparable Tesla Model Y clocks in at 1778-2003 kg (from empty to fully loaded).
        danielheath 3y ago
        2255kg is the maximum load, and 1700kg is not at all an ordinary car weight; hatchbacks are often closer to 650 and my sedan is barely over 1000. You could argue that those aren’t luxury vehicles, but downmarket EVs need to be heavy too, because batteries do not match the energy density of petrol. Myself, I’m replacing nearly every car trip with biking where feasible (young kids make that challenging, admittedly, but the car doesn’t see a ton of use these days).
- midasuni 3y ago
  Tax the semi trucks and it makes it more economical to use rail freight. Hiding the externalities is somewhat communist.
mholt 3y ago
IMO gas and diesel vehicles should pay a higher tax for all the air pollution they create that the public has to clean up or deal with (in terms of adverse health effects, health care, etc).
- dumbaccount123 3y ago
  [flagged]
KennyBlanken 3y ago
> Road taxes are often use-based, where gasoline is the way they extract "use" taxes. 26% of road funds come from gas taxes; 11 percent from tolls, another 25% from the federal government: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/highway-and-road-expenditures https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative... Now, about those "paying their fair share of 25% of the cost of the roads" gas taxes: In Utah, the gas tax was $0.245 in 1997. Today it's $0.34, when adjusting for inflation alone it should be $0.46, so drivers have received what amounts to a 25% tax reduction in the last ~30 years. The federal gas tax hasn't been raised in thirty years. So there's another tax break drivers have gotten. That's just inflation. Average fuel economy has risen from 18mpg to over 22, which means per mile drivers are paying on average 20% less of "their fair share" due to mileage increases alone. So it's a bit weird that suddenly people in gas cars are getting high and mighty about EV owners "not paying their fair share." > EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher rate. And it's not linear wear per pound, either. The Ford F150, which is the most popular "car" sold in America, is between 4,069 and 5,697 pounds. A Tesla Model 3 is 3,862 to 4,048 lbs. A Chevy Bolt is ~3600lb. Yet..who gets taxed more by Utah? Does Utah give people with small 3000lb gas cars a tax break, and penalize 5,000lb pickup truck owners? Also, where were all these concerns about increased road wear on budgets when American purchasing trends tilted toward larger and heavier SUVs and pickups? Average vehicle weight has risen 10%+ since 1990. EVs start to get popular and suddenly now everyone's very concerned about...road wear? Bish, please. Utah didn't want to raise the gas tax (it's a political third rail) so they relied on their extremely stupid electorate to buy up the myth that drivers in gas cars are "paying their fair share" and instituted a punitive tax on EVs which Dumb Yokel Bob fully supports because it's sticking it to those "libruhls in them fuckin' priuses an shit", believing everything he hears on conservative radio about EVs (for example, that they 'cost' more CO2 to make than a regular car. Which is true....until around 14,000 miles into ownership when the EV breaks even compared to a gas car.)
- henry2023 3y ago
  >> Does Utah give people with small 3000lb gas cars a tax break, and penalize 5,000lb pickup truck owners? Yes, if your car has less weight you use less gas and therefore have a “tax break” compared to the guy on the 5,000lb truck. >> EVs start to get popular and suddenly now everyone's very concerned about...road wear? Would it be better to ignore the problem?
milkytron 3y ago
This is why I advocate for a gross vehicle weight rating and vehicle miles traveled tax, regardless of energy source (although gas should still be taxed on its own). GWVR and VMT pretty much measure how much impact a car has on road maintenance, so it makes sense to charge heavier vehicles and vehicles that drive more, more. I think it even makes sense for semis, the cost may go up for goods slightly as they pass that cost onto customers, but we'd be paying less in federal taxes for roads, less in property taxes for roads, and if you drive less (good for health, environment, etc) you'll likely be saving money. It also more accurately taxes EVs with ICEs based on road wear and tear instead of all these haphazard ideas.
- Etrnl_President 3y ago
  Just tax the roads themselves. Wear is the problem after all, disincentivise it.
  - jocaal 3y ago
    where are those damn flying cars they promised
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > This is why I advocate for a gross vehicle weight rating and vehicle miles traveled tax The problem is, while that works out on highways and other federally owned road, the distribution on state or county/city level is almost impossible. Say you have a trucking company doing regional service and one doing interstate transport - both their fleets will have similar driven miles because economically, companies want their many-hundred-thousand-dollar assets to be on the road as long as traffic safety laws allow. Now, assuming they both pay the same mile tax to the state... the state makes an insane profit on the interstate trucking company given that only a low percentage of the miles driven were happening on that state's roads, with the clear majority being on federal highways and other states' roads.
- tomp 3y ago
  I disagree. Roads are a public good. Having a road available to use, is worth almost as much as actually using it. Not to mention all the positive externalities of a better connected country (more trade, business, economic growth).
tomohawk 3y ago
Instead of that, they could mandate meters on the charging stations that add a surcharge to the electricity. That would be less invasive, and be analogous to how they collect usage fees by taxing gas. There is a general legal principle that the state must use the least intrusive means to accomplish a goal. A lawsuit might force a change.
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  Except you can charge from every single outlet.
  - tomohawk 3y ago
    Sounds like tax evasion. You still need a charger/adapter between the outlet and the vehicle. Perhaps build the meter into the vehicles charging port.
    - Robotbeat 3y ago
      You have got to be kidding me. Next you’ll say that properly inflating your tires is “tax evasion” because you’ll burn less gas.
- otherme123 3y ago
  In my country you pay an anual fee for having a vehicle, like property tax but for vehicles. The larger the vehicle, more you pay, discount if you have an EV (no emissions). It's not that difficult.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    Which is crazy. Use a car for 500 miles a year you pay the same as someone using it for 50,000 miles a year Just charge on the odometer reading each year. 3p a mile or whatever. Maybe charge more based on weight.
    - consp 3y ago
timbre1234 3y ago
EV drivers more than make this up by not having nearly as many externalities (pollution) as gas drivers. Gas drivers seem to always conveniently forget those real societal costs when they're trying to talk about "fairness".
- luma 3y ago
  That still doesn't pay for roads. I love EVs and think their use should be more broadly encouraged, but the gas tax made for a very simple use tax and it's not obvious how one would replace it to do the same thing for EVs. Simply saying EVs are so much better for the environment that they don't need to pay for roads at all seems a little short sighted.
  - 34679 3y ago
    >it's not obvious how one would replace it to do the same thing for EVs. Taxing tires would work. Also, mileage is already recorded during vehicle inspections. That could be used to calculate tax but would be more open to fraud.
    - flavius29663 3y ago
      I don't want tires to be taxed, it would incentivize people to use tires more than they would do today, and that is bad news for traffic safety. Not only for themselves but for other people on the road too.
- lm28469 3y ago
  > by not having nearly as many externalities (pollution) as gas drivers Depend where you get your electricity from. Also most of car pollution comes from tires and brake dust, which EV create more of given their weight and torque https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyre... See, we can play this silly game all day long or just all chip in.
  - 3y ago
heresie-dabord 3y ago
How much fuel-tax revenue do we think Utah is recovering from EV drivers? I would guess that we are talking about very small numbers -- certainly under 5% of drivers.[1] Whatever principle Utah is asserting to "recover" fuel taxes from EV drivers isn't making much of a difference. At the same time, the Utah policy is clearly discouraging EV adoption. > EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher weight. We are talking about a small presence in the automobile market. If everyone were to drive a Tesla, then yes we would have more heavy passenger cars on the road. For example, a 2023 Honda Civic weighs between 1,429 kg and 1,517 kg. One best-selling SUV, the Toyota RAV4, weighs 1755 kg. But the most popular type of vehicle in the US (and in Utah) by sales is the pick-up truck. The top three pick-up trucks each weigh about 2500 kg. If we are going to start quibbling about weight this way, we will need to recognise that drivers of vehicles should be taxed according to their obesity to maintain our roadways. [1] https://electrek.co/2022/08/24/current-ev-registrations-in-the-us-how-does-your-state-stack-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/08/24/current-ev-registrations-in-t...
- bequanna 3y ago
  ICE vehicles do pay taxes by weight. Larger vehicles use more fuel and pay more taxes.
  - zimzam 3y ago
    But this isn't necessarily proportional to the amount of wear-and-tear they cause on roads.
    - Spivak 3y ago
      If you want true accuracy you're going to need to track the car 24/7 which would be unpopular.
      - xethos 3y ago
        Or worse - it could be popular.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> And it's not linear wear per pound, either. If it's not linear then the difference between a 4000 lbs car vs a 3000 lbs one is nothing compared to the damage done by a loaded 80 000 lbs truck. What I notice, on european highways: it's always the rightmost lane that is deformed. The leftmost lane is never deformed. The aquaplanning risks due to water present in two bands on the lane is always on the rightmost lane. Always, always, always. Why? Because the rightmost lane is the one trucks do use. Where I live atm, in the middle of nowhere, there are two things deforming the road: heavy vehicles (I'm not talking about 4000 lbs cars here but tractors / trucks) and... Tree roots. Most of the patches made on the road are due to tree roots lifting the road's concrete.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
analog31 3y ago
My hunch is that the wear caused by both ic and ev cars is negligible comared to trucks. Thus road use taxes, including gas, subsidize heavy trucking.

jbritton 3y ago

I figure it’s semi trucks that do almost all the road damage. We could just tax the trucks, but that would just get passed along in higher prices for everything. So might as well pay for road repair out of the general fund than have special taxes.

Kye 3y ago
Diesel is already taxed at a higher rate than gasoline.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  A diesel truck that has three times the pressure on the road and easily ten to fifteen times the total weight, while getting about 1/3rd the gas mileage of the average US passenger vehicle. Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car for what amounts to shouldn't we expect that a vehicle exerting three times the pressure on the road should pay more per mile than 'just' 3x what you and I do in our gas passenger cars?
  - Kon-Peki 3y ago
    > Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car Wear on the road is a function of weight. It’s really simple and uncontroversial. An EV generally weighs more than an ICE of equivalent size. Hopefully, the federal push to install tons of charging stations will usher in useful EVs with smaller batteries, lowering weight.
    - illiac786 3y ago
      I still think this is BS, considering trucks are causing 2500 times [0] more damage than gas cars and are certainly not bringing tax income proportionally to this. Why should EV then? [0] https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
      - autoexecdotbat 3y ago
        This seems like a weird argument to make. We either pay collectively more for taxes for the roads we use, or collectively we pay WAY more for food, materials, and basically everything else if we tax trucks proportionally. Large trucks are carrying stuff, and the cost of that stuff is going to be directly associated with the cost of logistics. Yes, some states haven't figured out what that looks like, but I really don't think the right answer is to dump all that cost on truckers. I would rather pay more for my car's operational tax, increased EV tax or existing gas tax on ICE, than disproportionately affect the price of groceries for someone living paycheck to paycheck.
        one_level_deep 3y ago
        [dead]
        542354234235 3y ago
        Doesn’t this assume that the cost will not effect behavior? If trucking logistics becomes more expensive to properly account for the externalities, wouldn’t companies be more motivated to find more cost efficient methods. I’m sure there are plenty of items that could be shipped by rail, but aren’t because trucking is currently cheaper for the individual company, while the cost in road damage, pollution, greenhouse gasses, increased traffic, etc. are paid by everyone else. As for disproportionately affecting the poor, sales taxes (like on groceries and other goods) and excise taxes (like on gas) are exactly the regressive taxation systems that burden the very people living paycheck to paycheck. Shifting the tax burden from skimming off the top for the people spending all their income on daily necessities, towards companies paying the full cost of their chosen operations, would give the poor more buying power and allow market forces to find and utilize the most effective and efficient means to provide services instead of the cheapest means that are only cheap because they are subsidized by everyone else.
  - parl_match 3y ago
    > Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. By states, car makers, the federal government, and third party analysis firms. It's incredibly uncontroversial. It's even got a name, and associated math: it's called the Fourth Power Law https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-... > shouldn't we expect that a vehicle exerting three times the pressure on the road should pay more per mile than 'just' 3x what you and I do in our gas passenger cars Gas taxes make up a relatively small part of the cost of gas. If you run the numbers, you'll find that it's maybe closer to around 3.5-4x for most passenger EVs. At scale, that becomes a problem, but at the individual level, it's still a relatively small amount - and certainly less than the cost of gas.
    - tpxl 3y ago
      > This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. Your source claims no such thing. EVs may be heavier than equivalent ICE cars, but an electric Smart (the brand) is going to do less damage than a loaded Ford F150. Tax the weight, not a shitty proxy for weight.
      - bequanna 3y ago
        …and an F150 uses more fuel than a car. Your comparison is misleading. Compare an ICE car to an EV car, not the lightest EV to the heaviest ICE.
        tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
        That was exactly their point. You can't use 'EV' to mean heavier vehicle across the board.
    - throwbadubadu 3y ago
      > This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. It is pretty much insignificant increase on road wear vs what trucks put on it?
  - dghughes 3y ago
    I used to have a Dodge 2500 diesel it weighed 4,000kg. For comparison an EV Tesla Model X is 2,500kg. a non-EV Toyota Camry is 1,500kg. I still have the dents in my driveway pavement!
- mnw21cam 3y ago
  "Fuel duty is currently levied at a flat rate of 52.95p per litre for both petrol and diesel, while VAT at 20% is then charged on both the product price and the duty." https://racfoundation.org/data/percentage-uk-pump-price-which-is-tax-page https://racfoundation.org/data/percentage-uk-pump-price-whic...
  - mminer237 3y ago
    In the US, where Utah is located, diesel is taxed at a higher rate: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Gasoline_Diesel_Taxes.webp https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Gasoline...
    - Kye 3y ago
      I figured it was implied since we were talking about the US, but context has a way of collapsing in threaded conversations. Thanks for bringing it back around.
parl_match 3y ago
They do, but it's priced in. Many states have weigh stations as part of enforcing the existing taxation through diesel and licensing.
- Etrnl_President 3y ago
  They also have to go through 3x the registration effort, and do it in every state they drive in.
  - MisterTea 3y ago
    > and do it in every state they drive in. Not anymore. You just get an IFTA sticker and apportioned plates.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    No, they all just get registered in Maine which supposedly has pretty lax rules on Semis
    - Etrnl_President 3y ago
      I travel a lot, and see semis from most states, and commercial pickup haulers from all states. They say NJ, NY, KY, and UT, are especially penurious about additional registration and licensing.
thfuran 3y ago
No, externalities should be priced in where practical otherwise the market will be more inefficient, which in this case means the public footing an unnecessarily high road repair bill.
tomohawk 3y ago
You're right about semis. The most cost effective thing for keeping the roads better is weigh stations open all the time. However, EVs cause around 2x more damage to roads than non EVs. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/26/pothole-electric-cars-damage-roads-double-petrol-telegraph/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/26/pothole-electric... Wait til the semi EVs hit the road! EVs also have significantly higher particulate emissions due to increased tire wear.
- Gordonjcp 3y ago
  You know you linked to a fictional news site, right?
  - danielheath 3y ago
    Terrible source, yes, but it happens to be at least roughly on point in this instance; if my dim recall of the relevant engineering is correct, road damage grows quadratically to the pressure exerted on the road by tires, and EVs are typically nearly twice as heavy as ICE vehicles.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      > and EVs are typically nearly twice as heavy as ICE vehicles. A 3-series BMW clocks in at 1700-2255 kg. A comparable Tesla Model Y clocks in at 1778-2003 kg (from empty to fully loaded).
      - danielheath 3y ago
        2255kg is the maximum load, and 1700kg is not at all an ordinary car weight; hatchbacks are often closer to 650 and my sedan is barely over 1000. You could argue that those aren’t luxury vehicles, but downmarket EVs need to be heavy too, because batteries do not match the energy density of petrol. Myself, I’m replacing nearly every car trip with biking where feasible (young kids make that challenging, admittedly, but the car doesn’t see a ton of use these days).
midasuni 3y ago
Tax the semi trucks and it makes it more economical to use rail freight. Hiding the externalities is somewhat communist.

mholt 3y ago

IMO gas and diesel vehicles should pay a higher tax for all the air pollution they create that the public has to clean up or deal with (in terms of adverse health effects, health care, etc).

dumbaccount123 3y ago
[flagged]

KennyBlanken 3y ago

> Road taxes are often use-based, where gasoline is the way they extract "use" taxes. 26% of road funds come from gas taxes; 11 percent from tolls, another 25% from the federal government: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/highway-and-road-expenditures https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative... Now, about those "paying their fair share of 25% of the cost of the roads" gas taxes: In Utah, the gas tax was $0.245 in 1997. Today it's $0.34, when adjusting for inflation alone it should be $0.46, so drivers have received what amounts to a 25% tax reduction in the last ~30 years. The federal gas tax hasn't been raised in thirty years. So there's another tax break drivers have gotten. That's just inflation. Average fuel economy has risen from 18mpg to over 22, which means per mile drivers are paying on average 20% less of "their fair share" due to mileage increases alone. So it's a bit weird that suddenly people in gas cars are getting high and mighty about EV owners "not paying their fair share." > EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher rate. And it's not linear wear per pound, either. The Ford F150, which is the most popular "car" sold in America, is between 4,069 and 5,697 pounds. A Tesla Model 3 is 3,862 to 4,048 lbs. A Chevy Bolt is ~3600lb. Yet..who gets taxed more by Utah? Does Utah give people with small 3000lb gas cars a tax break, and penalize 5,000lb pickup truck owners? Also, where were all these concerns about increased road wear on budgets when American purchasing trends tilted toward larger and heavier SUVs and pickups? Average vehicle weight has risen 10%+ since 1990. EVs start to get popular and suddenly now everyone's very concerned about...road wear? Bish, please. Utah didn't want to raise the gas tax (it's a political third rail) so they relied on their extremely stupid electorate to buy up the myth that drivers in gas cars are "paying their fair share" and instituted a punitive tax on EVs which Dumb Yokel Bob fully supports because it's sticking it to those "libruhls in them fuckin' priuses an shit", believing everything he hears on conservative radio about EVs (for example, that they 'cost' more CO2 to make than a regular car. Which is true....until around 14,000 miles into ownership when the EV breaks even compared to a gas car.)

henry2023 3y ago
>> Does Utah give people with small 3000lb gas cars a tax break, and penalize 5,000lb pickup truck owners? Yes, if your car has less weight you use less gas and therefore have a “tax break” compared to the guy on the 5,000lb truck. >> EVs start to get popular and suddenly now everyone's very concerned about...road wear? Would it be better to ignore the problem?

milkytron 3y ago

This is why I advocate for a gross vehicle weight rating and vehicle miles traveled tax, regardless of energy source (although gas should still be taxed on its own). GWVR and VMT pretty much measure how much impact a car has on road maintenance, so it makes sense to charge heavier vehicles and vehicles that drive more, more. I think it even makes sense for semis, the cost may go up for goods slightly as they pass that cost onto customers, but we'd be paying less in federal taxes for roads, less in property taxes for roads, and if you drive less (good for health, environment, etc) you'll likely be saving money. It also more accurately taxes EVs with ICEs based on road wear and tear instead of all these haphazard ideas.

Etrnl_President 3y ago
Just tax the roads themselves. Wear is the problem after all, disincentivise it.
- jocaal 3y ago
  where are those damn flying cars they promised
mschuster91 3y ago
> This is why I advocate for a gross vehicle weight rating and vehicle miles traveled tax The problem is, while that works out on highways and other federally owned road, the distribution on state or county/city level is almost impossible. Say you have a trucking company doing regional service and one doing interstate transport - both their fleets will have similar driven miles because economically, companies want their many-hundred-thousand-dollar assets to be on the road as long as traffic safety laws allow. Now, assuming they both pay the same mile tax to the state... the state makes an insane profit on the interstate trucking company given that only a low percentage of the miles driven were happening on that state's roads, with the clear majority being on federal highways and other states' roads.
tomp 3y ago
I disagree. Roads are a public good. Having a road available to use, is worth almost as much as actually using it. Not to mention all the positive externalities of a better connected country (more trade, business, economic growth).

tomohawk 3y ago

Instead of that, they could mandate meters on the charging stations that add a surcharge to the electricity. That would be less invasive, and be analogous to how they collect usage fees by taxing gas. There is a general legal principle that the state must use the least intrusive means to accomplish a goal. A lawsuit might force a change.

Robotbeat 3y ago
Except you can charge from every single outlet.
- tomohawk 3y ago
  Sounds like tax evasion. You still need a charger/adapter between the outlet and the vehicle. Perhaps build the meter into the vehicles charging port.
  - Robotbeat 3y ago
    You have got to be kidding me. Next you’ll say that properly inflating your tires is “tax evasion” because you’ll burn less gas.
otherme123 3y ago
In my country you pay an anual fee for having a vehicle, like property tax but for vehicles. The larger the vehicle, more you pay, discount if you have an EV (no emissions). It's not that difficult.
- midasuni 3y ago
  Which is crazy. Use a car for 500 miles a year you pay the same as someone using it for 50,000 miles a year Just charge on the odometer reading each year. 3p a mile or whatever. Maybe charge more based on weight.
  - consp 3y ago

timbre1234 3y ago

EV drivers more than make this up by not having nearly as many externalities (pollution) as gas drivers. Gas drivers seem to always conveniently forget those real societal costs when they're trying to talk about "fairness".

luma 3y ago
That still doesn't pay for roads. I love EVs and think their use should be more broadly encouraged, but the gas tax made for a very simple use tax and it's not obvious how one would replace it to do the same thing for EVs. Simply saying EVs are so much better for the environment that they don't need to pay for roads at all seems a little short sighted.
- 34679 3y ago
  >it's not obvious how one would replace it to do the same thing for EVs. Taxing tires would work. Also, mileage is already recorded during vehicle inspections. That could be used to calculate tax but would be more open to fraud.
  - flavius29663 3y ago
    I don't want tires to be taxed, it would incentivize people to use tires more than they would do today, and that is bad news for traffic safety. Not only for themselves but for other people on the road too.
lm28469 3y ago
> by not having nearly as many externalities (pollution) as gas drivers Depend where you get your electricity from. Also most of car pollution comes from tires and brake dust, which EV create more of given their weight and torque https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyre... See, we can play this silly game all day long or just all chip in.
- 3y ago

heresie-dabord 3y ago

How much fuel-tax revenue do we think Utah is recovering from EV drivers? I would guess that we are talking about very small numbers -- certainly under 5% of drivers.[1] Whatever principle Utah is asserting to "recover" fuel taxes from EV drivers isn't making much of a difference. At the same time, the Utah policy is clearly discouraging EV adoption. > EVs also wear roads more than gas cars do, on average, because of their higher weight. We are talking about a small presence in the automobile market. If everyone were to drive a Tesla, then yes we would have more heavy passenger cars on the road. For example, a 2023 Honda Civic weighs between 1,429 kg and 1,517 kg. One best-selling SUV, the Toyota RAV4, weighs 1755 kg. But the most popular type of vehicle in the US (and in Utah) by sales is the pick-up truck. The top three pick-up trucks each weigh about 2500 kg. If we are going to start quibbling about weight this way, we will need to recognise that drivers of vehicles should be taxed according to their obesity to maintain our roadways. [1] https://electrek.co/2022/08/24/current-ev-registrations-in-the-us-how-does-your-state-stack-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/08/24/current-ev-registrations-in-t...

bequanna 3y ago
ICE vehicles do pay taxes by weight. Larger vehicles use more fuel and pay more taxes.
- zimzam 3y ago
  But this isn't necessarily proportional to the amount of wear-and-tear they cause on roads.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    If you want true accuracy you're going to need to track the car 24/7 which would be unpopular.
    - xethos 3y ago
      Or worse - it could be popular.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

> And it's not linear wear per pound, either. If it's not linear then the difference between a 4000 lbs car vs a 3000 lbs one is nothing compared to the damage done by a loaded 80 000 lbs truck. What I notice, on european highways: it's always the rightmost lane that is deformed. The leftmost lane is never deformed. The aquaplanning risks due to water present in two bands on the lane is always on the rightmost lane. Always, always, always. Why? Because the rightmost lane is the one trucks do use. Where I live atm, in the middle of nowhere, there are two things deforming the road: heavy vehicles (I'm not talking about 4000 lbs cars here but tractors / trucks) and... Tree roots. Most of the patches made on the road are due to tree roots lifting the road's concrete.

deleted 3y ago

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analog31 3y ago

My hunch is that the wear caused by both ic and ev cars is negligible comared to trucks. Thus road use taxes, including gas, subsidize heavy trucking.