4 ms·

EVs are breaking this funding model. I'd suggest curbside parking should be charged everywhere. Free omnipresent parking is what has hollowed out American citi

EVs are breaking this funding model. I'd suggest curbside parking should be charged everywhere. Free omnipresent parking is what has hollowed out American cities. Car storage is an awful use of public space.

gorkish 2y ago
You are woefully incorrect. in most places EV's road taxes are massively disproportionate to the amount of road tax an ICE vehicle would pay. Here in Texas, I would ordinarily pay about $30/year in road taxes on gasoline driving a 30mpg vehicle 12,000/mi anually. But I have an EV instead so instead I pay: $500 in surcharge for the first year of registration and $200 surcharge for every year thereafter. Oh whoops I misspoke; I actually have 3 EVs so despite being one person, I pay approximately 25x more road tax than the average driver here. I'm not necessarily complaining about the /amount/ of tax but the simple fact that it is both disproportionately applied and far too low overall. The state should charge based on actual mileage, but since they just eliminated state inspections, good luck with that. Second best alternative is to make it a flat surcharge for all.
- JasserInicide 2y ago
  I pay approximately 25x more road tax than the average driver here. But you're not, it's to make up for the revenue TX would get from you via the gas tax. Also EVs are heavier on average therefore do more damage to the road so paying for that too.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    And rubber dust.
  - gorkish 2y ago
    I have driven my vehicles 70,442 actual miles since Jan 1, 2018. (Thanks to TeslaFi I have actual data -- I didn't drive all of these miles in TX, and while I have that data, I'm not going to be pedantic about it.) The revenue to the state is $0.15/gal towards the highway fund and $0.05/gal towards education. Since the EV surcharge does not fund education, I don't feel it is appropriate to include this portion in the comparison. So with my actual driving data in mind, here's what I would have paid if my 3 vehicles were 30mpg ICE cars: 70,442 mi / 7 years / 30mpg = 335 gal * $0.15 = $50/year to the Texas highway fund. Vs my actual paid: $200 (2023) * 3 cars + $200 (2024) * 3 cars = $1200 I therefore concede that my initial estimate was a bit high. I paid 24x more tax than I would have if I didn't own EV's, but this was only 20x more than the average driver due to my driving habits. Had I not purchased and registered my vehicles before the surcharge took effect, I would have been worse off due to the $500 surcharge on initial registration: $500 (first year registration) * 3 + $200 * 3 = $2100
- nkurz 2y ago
  It's a good argument, but is your math right? Texas looks to have a state tax of 20 cents a gallon, plus a federal tax of 18 cents a gallon. 12000 miles at 30 mpg is 400 gallons. The state portion is thus $80/year, and the combined is $152. Which leaves your argument mostly intact, but off by ~2.5x or ~5x depending on how you count. Or did I mess up the math myself? Also, it appears the average driven per vehicle per year in Texas is more like 16000 miles (https://www.trustedchoice.com/insurance-articles/wheels-wings-motors/average-miles-driven-per-year/ https://www.trustedchoice.com/insurance-articles/wheels-wing...). This would make the $200/year surcharge close to equivalent for the total missing gas taxes (state and federal) for a vehicle that is likely heavier than average.
  - gorkish 2y ago
    Yeah sorry about that I was ballparking it pretty good; your numbers are truer. But if we are going to take it into this territory, we do need to break down those taxes a little bit to make a proper comparison. On the state tax side, 75% of the fee goes to the highway fund, so @400gal the actual road tax portion is $60. The remainder goes to education per the Texas constitution, but the EV surcharge does not fund education, so I do not feel it is fair to include this portion in the comparison. The federal fuel tax applies to fuel used for electricity generation as well, and is passed to the consumer as a surcharge. I'd argue that EVs are already paying the same federal fuel tax when they are getting their electricity from taxable fuel sources. Even so, it's not the state's job to collect it, and Texas also doesn't pay any of the EV surcharges to the federal government. Because of this, I'd argue that the federal fuel tax is completely out of scope. If the federal government decides this is unbalanced and needs to be corrected, they can change their own tax code. Finally, don't forget that the first year surcharge is $500. I amortized the total registration fees over 5 years as 500+200x4 = $260/yr. So at 16k miles @30mpg = 400gal * 0.15/gal = $60 in state road taxes for an ICE car vs $260 for an EV, or stated another way the EV pays the equivalent road tax of driving an ICE car 56,000 miles per year.
cogman10 2y ago
Not yet. The biggest road destroyers are heavy vehicles which are all still fossil fuel powered. The only part of the problem broken is that EV owners are no longer subsidizing the damage done by walmart to a road. Raising fuel taxes is a win-win for everyone. It makes EVs more attractive and shipping garbage more expensive. It's an effective way to directly impact CO2 emissions.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  > The biggest road destroyers are heavy vehicles which are all still fossil fuel powered. How does EV trucking solve weight? It doesn’t, batteries are heavy. Edit: are batteries not heavy?
  - plorkyeran 2y ago
    Nothing in the post you're responding to suggests that EV trucking would solve weight. If EV trucking did become common then the model of funding road infrastructure with fuel taxes would stop working, but that hasn't actually happened yet.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      So, instead of taxing fuel, the tax is at the "electric pump" and no money is saved, and the roads still get beat up? I think the theme is people are tired of spending an exorbitant amount of money of transportation fuel.
      - cogman10 2y ago
        Roads will always get beat up. Roads always need maintenance. The question is who will pay for it and how will it be funded. Another truth is that shipping and transportation are two major CO2 emitters. Climate change is real, and CO2 emissions are the primary driver of it. So, with that in mind, we have an already existing carbon tax both federally and in most states which directly correlates to CO2 emissions. And, conveniently, it is also directly linked to common needed infrastructure damaged the most by vehicles that use the most fuel. It's the fuel tax. Now, we could talk policy to handle people tired of spending money on transportation fuel. Perhaps we have a fuel tax break for people earning less than 100k. Perhaps we subsize the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles. Perhaps we incentivize the production of small trucks, and we outlaw oversized pickup trucks and SUVs for personal use. All solvable problems that could be tackled with separate policy.
dv_dt 2y ago
Cargo trucks already break this model because damage in roads increases with the cube of weight and diesel taxes are nowhere near a power of three larger than gas taxes
- mysterydip 2y ago
  Not disagreeing, but if diesel tax is per gallon and cargo trucks have a worse mpg (looks like 7.2 is considered the average?) then they are paying more per mile in tax, possibly 2-4x more than a car (15-30 mpg)
  - dv_dt 2y ago
    So a typical suv might be 5000lbs and a typical loaded semi tractor is 35000 lbs, 7x the weight. So 7^3 = 343. So they pay 2-4x more than an suv but cause 300x more damage. Thats a pay for use imbalance of around 100x
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  States used to have per-axle weight taxes for trucks for this very reason. It was part of how this country paid for the interstates in the first place. You can still pass many of the old weight stations on the interstates. It's still a surprise more states aren't turning the lights back on them and/or building new ones. I feel like the same could be applied to EV registration taxes attempting to make up for gas taxes: I think they should be charged on a scale by per-axle vehicle weight. It might help incentivize smaller cars again.

gorkish 2y ago

You are woefully incorrect. in most places EV's road taxes are massively disproportionate to the amount of road tax an ICE vehicle would pay. Here in Texas, I would ordinarily pay about $30/year in road taxes on gasoline driving a 30mpg vehicle 12,000/mi anually. But I have an EV instead so instead I pay: $500 in surcharge for the first year of registration and $200 surcharge for every year thereafter. Oh whoops I misspoke; I actually have 3 EVs so despite being one person, I pay approximately 25x more road tax than the average driver here. I'm not necessarily complaining about the /amount/ of tax but the simple fact that it is both disproportionately applied and far too low overall. The state should charge based on actual mileage, but since they just eliminated state inspections, good luck with that. Second best alternative is to make it a flat surcharge for all.

JasserInicide 2y ago
I pay approximately 25x more road tax than the average driver here. But you're not, it's to make up for the revenue TX would get from you via the gas tax. Also EVs are heavier on average therefore do more damage to the road so paying for that too.
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  And rubber dust.
- gorkish 2y ago
  I have driven my vehicles 70,442 actual miles since Jan 1, 2018. (Thanks to TeslaFi I have actual data -- I didn't drive all of these miles in TX, and while I have that data, I'm not going to be pedantic about it.) The revenue to the state is $0.15/gal towards the highway fund and $0.05/gal towards education. Since the EV surcharge does not fund education, I don't feel it is appropriate to include this portion in the comparison. So with my actual driving data in mind, here's what I would have paid if my 3 vehicles were 30mpg ICE cars: 70,442 mi / 7 years / 30mpg = 335 gal * $0.15 = $50/year to the Texas highway fund. Vs my actual paid: $200 (2023) * 3 cars + $200 (2024) * 3 cars = $1200 I therefore concede that my initial estimate was a bit high. I paid 24x more tax than I would have if I didn't own EV's, but this was only 20x more than the average driver due to my driving habits. Had I not purchased and registered my vehicles before the surcharge took effect, I would have been worse off due to the $500 surcharge on initial registration: $500 (first year registration) * 3 + $200 * 3 = $2100
nkurz 2y ago
It's a good argument, but is your math right? Texas looks to have a state tax of 20 cents a gallon, plus a federal tax of 18 cents a gallon. 12000 miles at 30 mpg is 400 gallons. The state portion is thus $80/year, and the combined is $152. Which leaves your argument mostly intact, but off by ~2.5x or ~5x depending on how you count. Or did I mess up the math myself? Also, it appears the average driven per vehicle per year in Texas is more like 16000 miles (https://www.trustedchoice.com/insurance-articles/wheels-wings-motors/average-miles-driven-per-year/ https://www.trustedchoice.com/insurance-articles/wheels-wing...). This would make the $200/year surcharge close to equivalent for the total missing gas taxes (state and federal) for a vehicle that is likely heavier than average.
- gorkish 2y ago
  Yeah sorry about that I was ballparking it pretty good; your numbers are truer. But if we are going to take it into this territory, we do need to break down those taxes a little bit to make a proper comparison. On the state tax side, 75% of the fee goes to the highway fund, so @400gal the actual road tax portion is $60. The remainder goes to education per the Texas constitution, but the EV surcharge does not fund education, so I do not feel it is fair to include this portion in the comparison. The federal fuel tax applies to fuel used for electricity generation as well, and is passed to the consumer as a surcharge. I'd argue that EVs are already paying the same federal fuel tax when they are getting their electricity from taxable fuel sources. Even so, it's not the state's job to collect it, and Texas also doesn't pay any of the EV surcharges to the federal government. Because of this, I'd argue that the federal fuel tax is completely out of scope. If the federal government decides this is unbalanced and needs to be corrected, they can change their own tax code. Finally, don't forget that the first year surcharge is $500. I amortized the total registration fees over 5 years as 500+200x4 = $260/yr. So at 16k miles @30mpg = 400gal * 0.15/gal = $60 in state road taxes for an ICE car vs $260 for an EV, or stated another way the EV pays the equivalent road tax of driving an ICE car 56,000 miles per year.

cogman10 2y ago

Not yet. The biggest road destroyers are heavy vehicles which are all still fossil fuel powered. The only part of the problem broken is that EV owners are no longer subsidizing the damage done by walmart to a road. Raising fuel taxes is a win-win for everyone. It makes EVs more attractive and shipping garbage more expensive. It's an effective way to directly impact CO2 emissions.

dgfitz 2y ago
> The biggest road destroyers are heavy vehicles which are all still fossil fuel powered. How does EV trucking solve weight? It doesn’t, batteries are heavy. Edit: are batteries not heavy?
- plorkyeran 2y ago
  Nothing in the post you're responding to suggests that EV trucking would solve weight. If EV trucking did become common then the model of funding road infrastructure with fuel taxes would stop working, but that hasn't actually happened yet.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    So, instead of taxing fuel, the tax is at the "electric pump" and no money is saved, and the roads still get beat up? I think the theme is people are tired of spending an exorbitant amount of money of transportation fuel.
    - cogman10 2y ago
      Roads will always get beat up. Roads always need maintenance. The question is who will pay for it and how will it be funded. Another truth is that shipping and transportation are two major CO2 emitters. Climate change is real, and CO2 emissions are the primary driver of it. So, with that in mind, we have an already existing carbon tax both federally and in most states which directly correlates to CO2 emissions. And, conveniently, it is also directly linked to common needed infrastructure damaged the most by vehicles that use the most fuel. It's the fuel tax. Now, we could talk policy to handle people tired of spending money on transportation fuel. Perhaps we have a fuel tax break for people earning less than 100k. Perhaps we subsize the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles. Perhaps we incentivize the production of small trucks, and we outlaw oversized pickup trucks and SUVs for personal use. All solvable problems that could be tackled with separate policy.

dv_dt 2y ago

Cargo trucks already break this model because damage in roads increases with the cube of weight and diesel taxes are nowhere near a power of three larger than gas taxes

mysterydip 2y ago
Not disagreeing, but if diesel tax is per gallon and cargo trucks have a worse mpg (looks like 7.2 is considered the average?) then they are paying more per mile in tax, possibly 2-4x more than a car (15-30 mpg)
- dv_dt 2y ago
  So a typical suv might be 5000lbs and a typical loaded semi tractor is 35000 lbs, 7x the weight. So 7^3 = 343. So they pay 2-4x more than an suv but cause 300x more damage. Thats a pay for use imbalance of around 100x
WorldMaker 2y ago
States used to have per-axle weight taxes for trucks for this very reason. It was part of how this country paid for the interstates in the first place. You can still pass many of the old weight stations on the interstates. It's still a surprise more states aren't turning the lights back on them and/or building new ones. I feel like the same could be applied to EV registration taxes attempting to make up for gas taxes: I think they should be charged on a scale by per-axle vehicle weight. It might help incentivize smaller cars again.