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US transportation bill would add a $130 annual fee for EV drivers
- amykhar 5mo agoIt kind of makes sense because gasoline taxes help fund road projects. Of course, if you live in a state like Pennsylvania, there's not much evidence of real improvements to the pothole infested roads.
- DANmode 5mo agoOn-topic: tire taxes already go into a Federal cleanup fund, increasing those makes sense. Off-topic: Metal doesn’t do well in that region, you expect better from road-materials? When in PA/NY and others near the Lakes, I regularly see newer rusted cars, rusted-out newer satellite dishes… PennDOT is possibly one of the best in the country. Your expectations for the physical shape of the roads and their materials are absurd, given the chronic, sustained WEEKS of humidity, precipitation/snow in the region.
- stasomatic 5mo agoHave you been to Europe? I just returned from Paris where it rained and hailed last week. The roads are pristine. Same in London.
- DANmode 5mo agoGood luck getting Pennsylvanians to spend over £300 million per year, per city, on roads, like London does. That should scale. More serious, on topic reply: The combination heat and humidity during Summer is the differentiating factor. Worse than London etc. You can rebuild the road twice a year, still gonna crack.
- stasomatic 5mo agoIt can be done was my point. Our taxes go elsewhere though. >You can rebuild the road twice a year, still gonna crack. Rebuild or patch potholes? It's been over 2 decades since I've been to Philly and Pittsburg, not sure how things are now. I lived in the tri-state area for 15 years until '05. Never saw anything approaching rebuilding, just mickey mouse patching (Brooklyn, NJ, Manhattan).
- kha1n3vol3 5mo agoThey should simply place the fee on tires. Then it is a consumable tied to usage rather than trying to match the fee to estimate of mileage.
- prettychill 5mo agotires all wear in different ways and for different reasons.
- Erem 5mo agoWhat reasons wouldn’t also reflect wear against the roads though? I think the idea is to impose a price based on wearing the roads, and a tire tax pretty elegantly approximates that I think
- Someone 5mo ago> What reasons wouldn’t also reflect wear against the roads though? Off-road driving.
- Scoundreller 5mo agoPut on your dyed tires for that. Don’t get caught driving on the road with them!
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- to11mtm 5mo agoI'll give a fun one. On a lot (really most) of 4WD/AWD drive vehicles, but especially those with 'full-time' (cries in Subaru), if you need to replace one tire 20k miles in (i.e. due to a road hazard etc) you then have to replace the entire set to avoid damaging the drivetrain. I suppose in theory you could try to 'trust' shops to properly pro-rate such scenarios, however I'm skeptical that it could be implemented in a trustworthy way without being more trouble than it's worth.
- thelastgallon 5mo agoThis is not enough. To undo the damage done by previous years sales of EVs, perhaps add a minimum 7500 (upto 100000 depending on price of car) federal sales tax on car manufacturers without dealerships and/or who sell more than 200K EVs per annum. This disincentive is absolutely necessary to undo the damage done by these eyesores on American roads.
- Erem 5mo agoHaving dealerships has nothing to do with road wear. Are you just shaping those conditions to target the car companies you don’t like?
- ivraatiems 5mo ago"We should tax EVs because I think they are ugly" is a take I genuinely would never have imagined I'd hear.
- bdangubic 5mo agoif ugliness = taxation on cars, every US made car should get a special $100k tax on top of MSRP, Ford and Chevy like $150k :)
- thelastgallon 5mo agoLegislators are forgetting that they can charge a federal tax at charging stations, 18.4 cents/watt or something like that.
- bluefirebrand 5mo agoCharitably, they maybe haven't forgotten this. Maybe they think that most people will just charge at home instead of charging stations if they pay significantly more at charging stations
- DANmode 5mo agoWhy start with the lever everybody expects and nobody will ever stop you from pulling?
- stahtops 5mo agoPeople charge at home: no $ People charge at work: business has to eat the cost, can’t have that. If this fee makes sense, then they should also remove any existing taxes for roads and assess the fee to every car.
- idontwantthis 5mo agoUser already do. That’s just how you use an electric car.
- m463 5mo agotax what you want less of...
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> if state departments of transport don’t collect this federal EV tax, the federal government will “withhold an amount equal to 125 percent of the amount owed from the state’s highway apportionment.” Ah, I see the game plan. Republicans pass this. Democrats then stiff red states in some particular way, maybe by taxing the ethanol content of gasoline.
- tstrimple 5mo agoWhen do Democrats stiff red states? This "hurt your opponents" style of governance comes exclusively from one political party in the US and it's not the Democratic Party. I would almost guarantee as soon as Democrats regain power they will try to shift to "politics as usual" and try to be bipartisan about things.
- iugtmkbdfil834 5mo agoJust a reminder to folks everywhere. Never say to new taxes. After all, last time I checked, roads were supposed to be taken care of by gas tax ( which is extra hilarious, because Trump administration was trying to figure out how to waive it for now ).
- 486sx33 5mo ago[dead]
- ivraatiems 5mo agoIt's fair to say that EV owners need to pay their share of road taxes. I don't think even most EV owners would necessarily disapprove of that in principle; I am one and I don't at all. I do think that this bill is clearly structured to disincentivize EV purchases at a time when transitioning to EVs is an extremely good ideas for both the public and the climate. There are a ton of other ways to go about this that would be less punitive: A one-time fee at purchase. A tax on public charging. A tax on charger purchase for home use, or on electricity at homes which have chargers installed. I think the goal here is to get people not to buy EVs. Also - and maybe this is a shortcoming of the reporting in the article, not the legislation - I have questions. How is this going to be collected? Is the IRS going to ask if you own an EV and then assess a tax? Are states going to do it? Who's going to pay for the process of figuring out who owns which EVs and how much to tax them? Is there a grandfather period for existing EVs or are we taxing all EVs going forward? Are we taxing them retroactively, too? (By the way, the "Albert Gore" quoted in the article, despite their similar names and political interests, appears to be no relation to the former Vice President of the United States. That's a fun coincidence.)
- watersb 5mo agoTax everyone based on annual miles * weight of the vehicle.