Kansas - Proposal to Double Tax EVs

[beatle]

That chart is simply using the 4th-power rule with 4000lb = 1.
The 4th power rule is the idea that damage to the road is based on the 4th power of the vehicle weight.
However, that's an oversimplification.
The actual 4th power rule is, I believe, closer to: the amount of damage done is proportional to the 4th power of the excess axle weight compared to the load-bearing weight of the road.
So, a moderately loaded big rigs won't do much to an Interstate, but would obliterate your residential street.
Similarly, light vehicle weights don't really matter much as the roads are built to take much higher weights.
And of course there's other damage. Our big winter problem is frost heaves which happen when there are large temperature swings.

Here is another page regarding the 4th power rule and calculating road wear with more details about how it isn't a one-size-fits-all:

How Much Damage Do Heavy Trucks Do to Our Roads?

(Inside Science) -- It may be obvious that heavy semitrucks stress and damage roads more than the average commuter sedan does. But by how much? Since the 1960s, the Generalized Fourth Power Law has been used as a rule of thumb when considering the relative damage done to the pavement depending...

www.insidescience.org

Agreed that there are other factors that have nothing to do with vehicle-caused road wear. This calculation, like many tax laws, is an oversimplification of an idea in an attempt to levy taxes on those who most benefit or depend on their collection for some publicly funded service. If the tax were easy to calculate and everyone agreed on it being fair, it just wouldn't be America!

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

To answer the question in the subject, yes, this would apply on Tesla Superchargers. Tesla would pay it, but they don't necessarily need to pass it on to the customer. The bill even requires you to pay the tax if you give away the electricity for free. Costs for installing new public charging stations and retrofitting all existing stations would be high because you couldn't just install an outlet or an unmetered EVSE at your location. You must have some form of monitoring system to know how many kWh were delivered.

Penalties are huge: "A violation of the bill’s provision involving failure, neglect, or refusal to render the road repair tax to the Director would be an unclassified misdemeanor and any person convicted would be punished by a fine of $25 per kilowatt-hour of energy that the tax is found to not have been remitted to the Department of Revenue, imprisonment in the county jail for not less than 30 days or more than one year, or by both fine and imprisonment. Any other violation could also result in a fine of $5,000 up to $50,000, or imprisonment in the county jail for not less than 30 days or more than one year, or by both fine and imprisonment."

As written, if your business had a 120V outlet that was accessible and someone charged their EV at the outlet, you would be subject to a $25/kWh fine and jail time of 1 month to 1 year.

The bill wording is:"
"Public charging station" means any device or infrastructure that supplies electricity to the public for the charging of an electric vehicle. "Public charging station" does not include such a device or infrastructure.
"

The key words are "public", "supplies" and "for". Public implies wider use, not something specific like workplace charging.
In the example you give, the business isn't supplying electricity to the public for charging, they have an outlet and somebody is taking that electricity.
However, if the business specifically made the outlet available to people to charge, e.g. at a hotel, that would be a different matter.

But, without amendment there is definitely potential to put businesses off from having some basic provision of charging if they need to meter use.

 

[archae86]

In principle I'd like a road use tax which relied on a combination of mileage and weight. Tax gasoline by the gallon or electricity by the kilowatt-hour seems inferior in getting at the actual proper contribution.

But I don't expect it to happen.

 

[Earl]

The actual 4th power rule is, I believe, closer to: the amount of damage done is proportional to the 4th power of the excess axle weight compared to the load-bearing weight of the road.
So, a moderately loaded big rigs won't do much to an Interstate, but would obliterate your residential street.
Similarly, light vehicle weights don't really matter much as the roads are built to take much higher weights.

While there is less damage to the roads that are built to carry weight, the cost to build such a road probably follow something like the 4th power law as well. I suspect it all works out reasonably well without having to worry whether the extra cost is to fix road damage or to make the road strong enough to not get damaged as much.
This is definitely a challenge for EVs. The consumption tax on gasoline is quite equitable and close to proportional to damage done since heavier ICE and those who drive more consume more gasoline so they pay more tax without need for honor systems, privacy invasion, developing formulae, etc.
The worst thing IMHO is the flat tax on EVs. Flat tax so badly punishes those who don't drive very much and, hence, do little road damage.
A mileage-base tax seems close, however, electronic monitoring is a severe violation of privacy if not done reasonably. Many states have annual inspections of various types. These could possibly serve to read and document annual mileage driven without too much privacy invasion.
The issue of how many miles are driven in the state that benefits is, yet, another challenge, especially in the northeast USA, such as where so many people live in New Hampshire but commute long distances into Massachusetts although they already have the problem if folks buy gas at home in New Hampshire. I suppose such places could initiate toll roads . . .

 

[Robotpedlr]

What if I drive 50% of my miles in another state?

No difference to filling up (and paying gas tax) and then driving to another state and using 50% of your tank. They are not refunding the tax or charging you less.