6 ms·

NC Electric Car Drivers Begin Paying $100 Annual Fee

21 points by davidsmith8900 13y ago

bri3d 13y ago
CO, Nebraska, Virgina, and Washington also have such fees. The issue is basically that gasoline and diesel consumption was used as a proxy for travel miles in order to pay for road maintenance and the scale used to relate miles to gallons is no longer accurate even for gas-powered cars (as average economy has improved). Obviously electric cars are an easy first target, since passing a tax increase is much harder than targeting a small group.
- bane 13y ago
  > The issue is basically that gasoline and diesel consumption was used as a proxy for travel miles in order to pay for road maintenance and the scale used to relate miles to gallons is no longer accurate even for gas-powered cars That's very interesting. Is it possible that this could be part of the cause of the noticeably deteriorating state of roads these days?
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
    Yes I'm sure the literally dozens of electric cars not paying gas tax in North Carolina are responsible for the shitty roads.
    - maxerickson 13y ago
      The question is clearly enough about gas and diesel vehicles.
    - stefan_kendall 13y ago
      Your scale is way off. I see electric cars everywhere.
  - thrownaway2424 13y ago
    Of course it is. The gas tax (federal anyway) hasn't gone up even in nominal terms since 1993, even though CPI has gone up 61% since then and the real-dollar price of gas has tripled. Since the government's cut of fuel price has been shrinking for 20 years, so has the fund available for fixing roads.
- pktgen 13y ago
  Why do taxes have to be spread out everywhere? Why not just have an income tax and sales tax, or maybe only one (I've heard arguments for both sides, but don't want to get into that debate) to cover all this? It's the same thing with all the ridiculous fees governments charge for various things. For example, registering a vehicle at the DMV. Why does this cost anything? After all, your taxes already pay the salary of the person at the DMV, their office, etc. and the sales tax (in states that have it) paid on a vehicle purchase should take into account that the new owner will need to register it. It's just a ridiculous way of "not really increasing" taxes.
  - johnpmayer 13y ago
    Two reasons. The first, to which you allude, is that those who make the rules are trying to stay in their jobs. It's a symptom of democracy. The second is that these are all knobs one can turn to fine-tune incentives of behaviors; cost complexity isn't inherently bad.
  - URSpider94 13y ago
    One answer is that there is a philosophy that fees or taxes should only be levied on people who use them. Automobile ownership is a discretionary act that is already highly subsidized, so the government feels justified in levying specific fees against car owners. Another answer is that user fees are politically expedient, as you point out -- it's a way to increase government revenue without increasing taxes per se. In any case, if you buy a car, the DMV fees ARE generally rolled into the purchase, though as a separate item. Not to be too pedantic, but you can always buy a vehicle and not register it -- for example, if you are from out of state and plan to register it in your home state, or if you need to do some work on it before you put it on the road.
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Still a third answer: unwanted behavior is sometimes taxed to deter it.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    People who use roads should pay for them, varying roughly according to how much they use them. This will ensure that the roads are used in the most efficient manner possible. Basic economics. Since it's not really practical to directly charge for road use (with the occasional toll road as an exception), taxes can serve as a decent substitute. Given that, it's good to line up the taxes with use.
- kstrauser 13y ago
  It's still ludicrous. I'm not a civil engineer, but I was discussing this with my friends who are. In summary, the amount of damage that a vehicle does to a road is proportional to the fourth power of its weight. A Nissan Leaf weighs 3,291 pounds (source: http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/versions-specs/ http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/versions-specs/). A GMC Yukon Denali weighs 5,491 pounds (source: http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/capabilities.html http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/ca...), or 1.67 times more. It should do approximately 7.75 more damage to the roads it drives over than the Leaf will. At an average of 15,000 per year, the Yukon owner getting 16 mpg (source: average of 14mpg city and 18mpg highway from http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/powertrain.html http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/po...) will burn about 950 gallons of gas per year. At $0.563 per gallon tax (source: combined state and federal taxes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States), that owner will pay about $550 per year in taxes. If NC is being honest about their reasons for taxing electric vehicle owners, then the Yukon owner is being subsidized about $225 a year (should pay: $775, will pay: $550) for driving a more polluting, more damaging vehicle. That's assuming that electricity is completely untaxed in NC so that the Leaf driver is paying only that $100 tax. TL;DR This isn't about fundraising. It's about protecting gas-burning vehicle markets.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    Roughly 0 people that are presently considering an electric car are concerned about $100 a year.
    - sgustard 13y ago
      They might care because (1) a $100 tax can quickly grow to several times that, and (2) it's a slap in the face for doing the right thing.
      - maxerickson 13y ago
        So do you think it is going to stop a lot of people from buying electric cars or are you just being picky? Because I meant that it probably wasn't really going to stop very many people from buying electric cars (so it is then strange to assume it is about protecting the market for ICE cars).
- revelation 13y ago
  Taxes rarely make sense in the way you describe, and whoever came up with the 100 bucks number.. well rest assured, he didn't really have this in mind.
novalis78 13y ago
auto pay with bitcoin whenever you use a road. done.
sgustard 13y ago
Great idea, let's also tax: bicyclists, carpoolers, the unemployed (damn them for not commuting), and drivers of fuel-efficient cars of all kinds.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Carpoolers will be taxed through this, although less since they have fewer vehicles; bicyclists aren't taxed because 1. there are so few of them that it wouldn't matter and 2. we do not want to decrease incentives to bike below their already very low level; and the unemployed have jack all to do with it.
- valleyer 13y ago
  Bicyclists, carpoolers, and people who don't drive for whatever reason don't put as much strain on the road. Why would we tax them? Moreover, what is your point?
  - sgustard 13y ago
    Point is, local governments see an existing source of revenue declining. They panic and go after the next ready target, forgetting about the incentives behind the original tax (to dissuade gasoline usage).
- adolph 13y ago
  Don't forget breathing. There is all of this carbon humans exhale.
mullingitover 13y ago
What a great way to discourage people from engaging in a behavior that you want them to engage in. Why not make up for the (arguably inconsequential) loss in revenue by making the people with the less desirable behavior (purchasing gas-guzzling, polluting vehicles) subsidize the desirable behavior? In other words, make up for lost revenues by increasing gasoline taxes. If it gets to the point where that's not enough, increase gasoline taxes again, and generally keep increasing them until people aren't driving ICE vehicles anymore. When it gets to the point where even that doesn't cover it, charge vehicle registration fees based on vehicle weight, since that's the true measure of the vehicle's contribution to the wear and tear on the roadways.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Why do you care what kind of car someone else wants to drive? Is it this: Among a few dozen who commented last spring when legislators were debating the fee, many cited the environmental benefits of cars that produce zero tailpipe emissions What's the environmental impact of a reasonably new gasoline car with catalytic converter and other emissions controls vs. the impact of coal-generated electric power for an EV? I don't know, but I would not be surprised if the EV was worse.
  - brc 13y ago
    If you're going to go down that route, you have to look at total vehicle ownership. That includes the manufacture and trasnport of components, total vehicle miles and costs, and many other factors. IMO the dicsussions of the benefits of electric cars should be done at the local level - where it matters. The other problem is so intractable and remote it will never be agreed. Does a Prius generate less total emissions per mile driven than a Diesel VW? That is virtually unknowable, though I am sure many people try, usually finding a result consistent with their viewpoint. The benefits of electric vehicles for local issues are: less noise and zero tailpipe emissions. This is where people should focus their attention.
  - hobs 13y ago
    That's an interesting question, however there is no inherent need for the electric power to be generated via coal power, whereas the gas car cannot get away from burning said fossil fuels, even though it can be made more efficient. I did some googling and there are a number of arguments on the internet about comparing a coal generated power plant's electricity emissions to a gas powered car's emissions, and I think depending on your average consumption either side could win that argument. However if the electricity was generated in not the dirtiest possible way we know how, gas car seems to lose every other time.
jellicle 13y ago
Yay red states.
001sky 13y ago
They should have a "battery tax", given that someone has to recycle and dispose of the waste. For a car that lasts only 8 yrs, this is an $800 tax. The total cost[1] of a camry is about $8K a year, or $64K over the timeframe. With about $16K in petrol costs baked in, of which maybe 1/8 of the costs or about 2K would be inflated by petrol taxes. This makes the savings of driving an electric car still about 60% on just taxes/government fees if you lump them together. Its really netither here nor there in the big scheme of things and won't move the needle either way. [1] ie. operating costs and depreciation, net basis.
- mikeash 13y ago
  Aren't these batteries filled with valuable materials that can be recycled? You don't need a disposal tax for something like that.
- mullingitover 13y ago
  > They should have a "battery tax", given that someone has to recycle and dispose of the waste. This is a total non-issue. The manufacturers will happily take those old batteries off your hands and recycle them free of charge.
  - 001sky 13y ago
    free of charge Not quite. The new, replacement battery is quite expesnive and sold at a high margin. So this is not "free", nor does it pay into the public good (domain) in any way to offset the carbon footprint of building the car (smelting steel, aluminum, mining etc), or the transportation damage to the road-system (a function of weight x miles, not emissions). The good news is that current cells are highly recylable in the technological sense, so its not like they are hazardous spent fuel rods. But the usage (mileage) will be proportionate to battery life. So it makes sense to tax the fuel-supply of the electric car in the same way as the fuel tax. That is, if you believe in those things (public goods, etc).
    - mullingitover 13y ago
      > The new, replacement battery is quite expesnive and sold at a high margin. That's beside the point. The battery recycling is free. Of course the battery replacement costs money, but the battery already comes with a fee: sales tax. The supply chain for producing the battery is likewise taxed in various ways. > So it makes sense to tax the fuel-supply of the electric car in the same way as the fuel tax. Then why are you talking about taxing the battery? The battery is the container, not the fuel. Electricity is already taxed.
brc 13y ago
This was always on the cards, the only surprise to me is that someone has moved on it so fast. The major problem facing governments over growth of electric cars is loss in tax revenue currently enjoyed from fuel taxes. In most places the amount of fuel tax collected far exceeds that which is spent on road infrastructure. Governments simply take activities with inelastic demand as the best place for collecting revenue. Because fuel was primarily used for transportation, which has a very inelastic curve, it always has been heavily taxed. Same goes for airline travel and smoking. Flying and tobacco taxes all normally bring in far more revenue than they cost the government - because taxes are levied on a basis of extract sufficient feathers from the goose with a minimum of hissing. The problem with electric cars (as far as revenue collection goes) is that you can plug them in anywhere. But putting extra broad-based taxes on electricity consumption is electoral poison. So how to tax vehicle-destined electricity? If electric cars start to supplant liquid fuels in large numbers, governments are looking at a major revenue source drying up. Adding a fixed charge seems like a simple but problem-ridden way of solving it, but makes more sense than trying to do things like have specially-taxed outlets for electric cars. Personally I think a per-mile charge based on vehicle size is the correct way to go (regardless of fuel type or vehicle class). Drive less, pay less. Drive smaller vehicles, pay less. But doing so naturally attracts the ire of those with a problem being tracked. And so on we go. Taxation is imperfect. My guess is that they are doing this before electric-car ownership becomes a big group. That way a smaller charge can be introduced and normalised before the group gets too large. It's always easier to incrementally creep up a tax rather than introduce a new one.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  "In most places the amount of fuel tax collected far exceeds that which is spent on road infrastructure. " Lol wut no. Were you talking about places other than USA? Because here in the USA, billions of dollars are transferred every year from general funds into the highway administration because the fuel tax is not even close to sufficient for maintenance of highways. This is also true at the state level, but to a much higher ratio. “Nationwide in 2010, state and local governments raised $37 billion in motor fuel taxes and $12 billion in tolls and non-fuel taxes, but spent $155 billion on highways,” writes the Tax Foundation’s Joseph Henchman. Another $28 billion of that $155 billion comes from revenue from the federal gas tax. http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pay-only-third-state-local-road-spending http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pa...
GigabyteCoin 13y ago
Wow. That's absolutely disgusting. "We're not getting our gas taxes and destroying the environment in the process, so guess what? You owe us the $100 we would have forced out of you annually had you of purchased an all gas vehicle for $10,000 less." I thought property taxes were meant to pay for local roads?
warfangle 13y ago
The point of taxing gasoline to pay for road upkeep is, from what I can tell, because it accurately reflects 'how much you drive' -- sort of. Perhaps a shift needs to be made in what is taxed and how, in order to accommodate petrol-free vehicles. One option is tolls. Nobody likes tolls. Another option is this fee - but it doesn't accurately reflect the wear on a road generated by the car. A tire tax? Higher inspection fees? The latter would discourage the cars that need inspections from getting inspections due to the cost. Maybe we need to wholly rethink how we fund public transportation infrastructure - not just roads, but railways and bridges and aeronautics.
scarmig 13y ago
The users of a resource should, of course, pay for that resource. And there's a compelling logic that the people who cause maintenance to be required should be the ones charged for it. The issue is, Leaf drivers are very much not the people who damage roads: Leafs are somewhat light cars (a bit more than a Civic, substantially less than SUVs). Cumulative road damage is linear with the number of miles driven and quartic with vehicular weight. Gas taxes roughly capture the linearity from miles driven but only a fraction of the factor from vehicle weight. If the Republican leader quoted in the article is actually interested in bridging the gap between gasoline tax revenues and expenditures on roads and ending the subsidy the public provides for expensive private decisions, he should look toward charging more of road users in general than a small minority of a couple thousand (it probably costs as much to implement and collect this tax as the revenue it brings). Instead of, you know, sticking taxes to the people whose consumption choices he finds so damn hippy and unpalatable. (And, yes, I oppose government subsidies for electric vehicles too, whose environmental benefits should be captured by more efficient carbon taxes or permits.)
- Smudge 13y ago
  Where I'm from, most of the road damage happens because water expands when it freezes.

bri3d 13y ago

CO, Nebraska, Virgina, and Washington also have such fees. The issue is basically that gasoline and diesel consumption was used as a proxy for travel miles in order to pay for road maintenance and the scale used to relate miles to gallons is no longer accurate even for gas-powered cars (as average economy has improved). Obviously electric cars are an easy first target, since passing a tax increase is much harder than targeting a small group.

bane 13y ago
> The issue is basically that gasoline and diesel consumption was used as a proxy for travel miles in order to pay for road maintenance and the scale used to relate miles to gallons is no longer accurate even for gas-powered cars That's very interesting. Is it possible that this could be part of the cause of the noticeably deteriorating state of roads these days?
- GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
  Yes I'm sure the literally dozens of electric cars not paying gas tax in North Carolina are responsible for the shitty roads.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    The question is clearly enough about gas and diesel vehicles.
  - stefan_kendall 13y ago
    Your scale is way off. I see electric cars everywhere.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  Of course it is. The gas tax (federal anyway) hasn't gone up even in nominal terms since 1993, even though CPI has gone up 61% since then and the real-dollar price of gas has tripled. Since the government's cut of fuel price has been shrinking for 20 years, so has the fund available for fixing roads.
pktgen 13y ago
Why do taxes have to be spread out everywhere? Why not just have an income tax and sales tax, or maybe only one (I've heard arguments for both sides, but don't want to get into that debate) to cover all this? It's the same thing with all the ridiculous fees governments charge for various things. For example, registering a vehicle at the DMV. Why does this cost anything? After all, your taxes already pay the salary of the person at the DMV, their office, etc. and the sales tax (in states that have it) paid on a vehicle purchase should take into account that the new owner will need to register it. It's just a ridiculous way of "not really increasing" taxes.
- johnpmayer 13y ago
  Two reasons. The first, to which you allude, is that those who make the rules are trying to stay in their jobs. It's a symptom of democracy. The second is that these are all knobs one can turn to fine-tune incentives of behaviors; cost complexity isn't inherently bad.
- URSpider94 13y ago
  One answer is that there is a philosophy that fees or taxes should only be levied on people who use them. Automobile ownership is a discretionary act that is already highly subsidized, so the government feels justified in levying specific fees against car owners. Another answer is that user fees are politically expedient, as you point out -- it's a way to increase government revenue without increasing taxes per se. In any case, if you buy a car, the DMV fees ARE generally rolled into the purchase, though as a separate item. Not to be too pedantic, but you can always buy a vehicle and not register it -- for example, if you are from out of state and plan to register it in your home state, or if you need to do some work on it before you put it on the road.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Still a third answer: unwanted behavior is sometimes taxed to deter it.
- mikeash 13y ago
  People who use roads should pay for them, varying roughly according to how much they use them. This will ensure that the roads are used in the most efficient manner possible. Basic economics. Since it's not really practical to directly charge for road use (with the occasional toll road as an exception), taxes can serve as a decent substitute. Given that, it's good to line up the taxes with use.
kstrauser 13y ago
It's still ludicrous. I'm not a civil engineer, but I was discussing this with my friends who are. In summary, the amount of damage that a vehicle does to a road is proportional to the fourth power of its weight. A Nissan Leaf weighs 3,291 pounds (source: http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/versions-specs/ http://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/versions-specs/). A GMC Yukon Denali weighs 5,491 pounds (source: http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/capabilities.html http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/ca...), or 1.67 times more. It should do approximately 7.75 more damage to the roads it drives over than the Leaf will. At an average of 15,000 per year, the Yukon owner getting 16 mpg (source: average of 14mpg city and 18mpg highway from http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/powertrain.html http://www.gmc.com/yukon-denali-luxury-suv/features-specs/po...) will burn about 950 gallons of gas per year. At $0.563 per gallon tax (source: combined state and federal taxes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States), that owner will pay about $550 per year in taxes. If NC is being honest about their reasons for taxing electric vehicle owners, then the Yukon owner is being subsidized about $225 a year (should pay: $775, will pay: $550) for driving a more polluting, more damaging vehicle. That's assuming that electricity is completely untaxed in NC so that the Leaf driver is paying only that $100 tax. TL;DR This isn't about fundraising. It's about protecting gas-burning vehicle markets.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Roughly 0 people that are presently considering an electric car are concerned about $100 a year.
  - sgustard 13y ago
    They might care because (1) a $100 tax can quickly grow to several times that, and (2) it's a slap in the face for doing the right thing.
    - maxerickson 13y ago
      So do you think it is going to stop a lot of people from buying electric cars or are you just being picky? Because I meant that it probably wasn't really going to stop very many people from buying electric cars (so it is then strange to assume it is about protecting the market for ICE cars).
revelation 13y ago
Taxes rarely make sense in the way you describe, and whoever came up with the 100 bucks number.. well rest assured, he didn't really have this in mind.

novalis78 13y ago

auto pay with bitcoin whenever you use a road. done.

sgustard 13y ago

Great idea, let's also tax: bicyclists, carpoolers, the unemployed (damn them for not commuting), and drivers of fuel-efficient cars of all kinds.

jamesaguilar 13y ago
Carpoolers will be taxed through this, although less since they have fewer vehicles; bicyclists aren't taxed because 1. there are so few of them that it wouldn't matter and 2. we do not want to decrease incentives to bike below their already very low level; and the unemployed have jack all to do with it.
valleyer 13y ago
Bicyclists, carpoolers, and people who don't drive for whatever reason don't put as much strain on the road. Why would we tax them? Moreover, what is your point?
- sgustard 13y ago
  Point is, local governments see an existing source of revenue declining. They panic and go after the next ready target, forgetting about the incentives behind the original tax (to dissuade gasoline usage).
adolph 13y ago
Don't forget breathing. There is all of this carbon humans exhale.

mullingitover 13y ago

What a great way to discourage people from engaging in a behavior that you want them to engage in. Why not make up for the (arguably inconsequential) loss in revenue by making the people with the less desirable behavior (purchasing gas-guzzling, polluting vehicles) subsidize the desirable behavior? In other words, make up for lost revenues by increasing gasoline taxes. If it gets to the point where that's not enough, increase gasoline taxes again, and generally keep increasing them until people aren't driving ICE vehicles anymore. When it gets to the point where even that doesn't cover it, charge vehicle registration fees based on vehicle weight, since that's the true measure of the vehicle's contribution to the wear and tear on the roadways.

ams6110 13y ago
Why do you care what kind of car someone else wants to drive? Is it this: Among a few dozen who commented last spring when legislators were debating the fee, many cited the environmental benefits of cars that produce zero tailpipe emissions What's the environmental impact of a reasonably new gasoline car with catalytic converter and other emissions controls vs. the impact of coal-generated electric power for an EV? I don't know, but I would not be surprised if the EV was worse.
- brc 13y ago
  If you're going to go down that route, you have to look at total vehicle ownership. That includes the manufacture and trasnport of components, total vehicle miles and costs, and many other factors. IMO the dicsussions of the benefits of electric cars should be done at the local level - where it matters. The other problem is so intractable and remote it will never be agreed. Does a Prius generate less total emissions per mile driven than a Diesel VW? That is virtually unknowable, though I am sure many people try, usually finding a result consistent with their viewpoint. The benefits of electric vehicles for local issues are: less noise and zero tailpipe emissions. This is where people should focus their attention.
- hobs 13y ago
  That's an interesting question, however there is no inherent need for the electric power to be generated via coal power, whereas the gas car cannot get away from burning said fossil fuels, even though it can be made more efficient. I did some googling and there are a number of arguments on the internet about comparing a coal generated power plant's electricity emissions to a gas powered car's emissions, and I think depending on your average consumption either side could win that argument. However if the electricity was generated in not the dirtiest possible way we know how, gas car seems to lose every other time.

jellicle 13y ago

Yay red states.

001sky 13y ago

They should have a "battery tax", given that someone has to recycle and dispose of the waste. For a car that lasts only 8 yrs, this is an $800 tax. The total cost[1] of a camry is about $8K a year, or $64K over the timeframe. With about $16K in petrol costs baked in, of which maybe 1/8 of the costs or about 2K would be inflated by petrol taxes. This makes the savings of driving an electric car still about 60% on just taxes/government fees if you lump them together. Its really netither here nor there in the big scheme of things and won't move the needle either way. [1] ie. operating costs and depreciation, net basis.

mikeash 13y ago
Aren't these batteries filled with valuable materials that can be recycled? You don't need a disposal tax for something like that.
mullingitover 13y ago
> They should have a "battery tax", given that someone has to recycle and dispose of the waste. This is a total non-issue. The manufacturers will happily take those old batteries off your hands and recycle them free of charge.
- 001sky 13y ago
  free of charge Not quite. The new, replacement battery is quite expesnive and sold at a high margin. So this is not "free", nor does it pay into the public good (domain) in any way to offset the carbon footprint of building the car (smelting steel, aluminum, mining etc), or the transportation damage to the road-system (a function of weight x miles, not emissions). The good news is that current cells are highly recylable in the technological sense, so its not like they are hazardous spent fuel rods. But the usage (mileage) will be proportionate to battery life. So it makes sense to tax the fuel-supply of the electric car in the same way as the fuel tax. That is, if you believe in those things (public goods, etc).
  - mullingitover 13y ago
    > The new, replacement battery is quite expesnive and sold at a high margin. That's beside the point. The battery recycling is free. Of course the battery replacement costs money, but the battery already comes with a fee: sales tax. The supply chain for producing the battery is likewise taxed in various ways. > So it makes sense to tax the fuel-supply of the electric car in the same way as the fuel tax. Then why are you talking about taxing the battery? The battery is the container, not the fuel. Electricity is already taxed.

brc 13y ago

This was always on the cards, the only surprise to me is that someone has moved on it so fast. The major problem facing governments over growth of electric cars is loss in tax revenue currently enjoyed from fuel taxes. In most places the amount of fuel tax collected far exceeds that which is spent on road infrastructure. Governments simply take activities with inelastic demand as the best place for collecting revenue. Because fuel was primarily used for transportation, which has a very inelastic curve, it always has been heavily taxed. Same goes for airline travel and smoking. Flying and tobacco taxes all normally bring in far more revenue than they cost the government - because taxes are levied on a basis of extract sufficient feathers from the goose with a minimum of hissing. The problem with electric cars (as far as revenue collection goes) is that you can plug them in anywhere. But putting extra broad-based taxes on electricity consumption is electoral poison. So how to tax vehicle-destined electricity? If electric cars start to supplant liquid fuels in large numbers, governments are looking at a major revenue source drying up. Adding a fixed charge seems like a simple but problem-ridden way of solving it, but makes more sense than trying to do things like have specially-taxed outlets for electric cars. Personally I think a per-mile charge based on vehicle size is the correct way to go (regardless of fuel type or vehicle class). Drive less, pay less. Drive smaller vehicles, pay less. But doing so naturally attracts the ire of those with a problem being tracked. And so on we go. Taxation is imperfect. My guess is that they are doing this before electric-car ownership becomes a big group. That way a smaller charge can be introduced and normalised before the group gets too large. It's always easier to incrementally creep up a tax rather than introduce a new one.

thrownaway2424 13y ago
"In most places the amount of fuel tax collected far exceeds that which is spent on road infrastructure. " Lol wut no. Were you talking about places other than USA? Because here in the USA, billions of dollars are transferred every year from general funds into the highway administration because the fuel tax is not even close to sufficient for maintenance of highways. This is also true at the state level, but to a much higher ratio. “Nationwide in 2010, state and local governments raised $37 billion in motor fuel taxes and $12 billion in tolls and non-fuel taxes, but spent $155 billion on highways,” writes the Tax Foundation’s Joseph Henchman. Another $28 billion of that $155 billion comes from revenue from the federal gas tax. http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pay-only-third-state-local-road-spending http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pa...

GigabyteCoin 13y ago

Wow. That's absolutely disgusting. "We're not getting our gas taxes and destroying the environment in the process, so guess what? You owe us the $100 we would have forced out of you annually had you of purchased an all gas vehicle for $10,000 less." I thought property taxes were meant to pay for local roads?

warfangle 13y ago

The point of taxing gasoline to pay for road upkeep is, from what I can tell, because it accurately reflects 'how much you drive' -- sort of. Perhaps a shift needs to be made in what is taxed and how, in order to accommodate petrol-free vehicles. One option is tolls. Nobody likes tolls. Another option is this fee - but it doesn't accurately reflect the wear on a road generated by the car. A tire tax? Higher inspection fees? The latter would discourage the cars that need inspections from getting inspections due to the cost. Maybe we need to wholly rethink how we fund public transportation infrastructure - not just roads, but railways and bridges and aeronautics.

scarmig 13y ago

The users of a resource should, of course, pay for that resource. And there's a compelling logic that the people who cause maintenance to be required should be the ones charged for it. The issue is, Leaf drivers are very much not the people who damage roads: Leafs are somewhat light cars (a bit more than a Civic, substantially less than SUVs). Cumulative road damage is linear with the number of miles driven and quartic with vehicular weight. Gas taxes roughly capture the linearity from miles driven but only a fraction of the factor from vehicle weight. If the Republican leader quoted in the article is actually interested in bridging the gap between gasoline tax revenues and expenditures on roads and ending the subsidy the public provides for expensive private decisions, he should look toward charging more of road users in general than a small minority of a couple thousand (it probably costs as much to implement and collect this tax as the revenue it brings). Instead of, you know, sticking taxes to the people whose consumption choices he finds so damn hippy and unpalatable. (And, yes, I oppose government subsidies for electric vehicles too, whose environmental benefits should be captured by more efficient carbon taxes or permits.)

Smudge 13y ago
Where I'm from, most of the road damage happens because water expands when it freezes.