Yeah we get it coming and going here. Their argument is that by taxing the public chargers they are collecting the equivalent to gas taxes; when EV owners objected because they're paying the annual fee, they basically "but you're charging at home so you aren't paying the tax most of the time".
Um. So, about a year ago, a local newspaper up this way stated that the DMV was looking for volunteers to join a study about electric vehicle charging costs. Let's see, got the emails around here somewhere.. Yep, it was called the "TETC MBUF Pilot", which was a study being run by The Eastern Transportation Coalition. MBUF is Mileage Based User Fee. They had hired a company named, "Azunga" to do the dirty work. Out of curiosity I applied and got in.
General idea: Each state on the East Coast, from Maine down to Florida and wrapping around to Alabama set up a cost per mile. The Azunga guys would either send one a GPS fob that could communicate with their servers, or, if you had the Right Kind of Car (a Tesla being one) they would go at the Tesla API/Tesla Mothership and get the mileage that way.
Each month they would send one a purported bill stating how much money one would owe for bopping about the landscape. However, no actual money changed hands, ever. And Azunga swore up, down, and sideways that all user data and access codes would be very thoroughly destroyed. Which, apparently, was the case.
At the beginning, middle, and end of the study they asked participants to fill out questionnaires about how they felt about it all.
I kind of wondered how toll roads would fit into all of this.
Interesting bits: Each state got to set their own BEV cost per mile. It ranged pretty widely; I think that Pennsylvania was the most expensive. Cost per month depended upon mileage, natch. In theory, I guess, they could have jiggered things for the GPS-enabled cars to pay tax to the appropriate state one was driving through at the time; but what with our Tesla cars, that info wasn't available, so it was mileage, only.
I think that, since then, Virginia has gone for this approach. From what you guys are saying, GA hasn't. I think NJ is mumbling in their beer about it all.
Turns out that there was 'way more than one study. The website with the info is at
The Eastern Transportation Coalition MBUF Pilot - Paving the way to fair transportation funding..