It’s to make up for the lost revenue from gas tax. That tax is built into gas prices, so most people don’t know they’re even paying it, or what percentage it is. Gas purchase correlates to how much a car is being driven, hence people who drive more are paying more tax and paying more towards roads/infrastructure. With EVs there isn’t an easy way to make folks who drive more pay more in “road tax.” Most states are just tacking it onto registration fees as a flat fee.
This all being said, undoubtedly states that are politically anti-EV are going to use these fees to discourage EV adoption. But there are also situations like pro-EV California where the roads are in poor condition, the budget is mismanaged, and the state is always in desperate need of making up lost tax dollars. Really it comes down to the fact that with the death of ICE, states will be losing the mechanism for funding road maintenance.
It's an interesting situation though. I think most places has some kind of tax on electricity???. Where I live there is about five different taxes. Including VAT on the other taxes. Yeah, really.
So, whether it's anywhere near what you pay in taxes on gas you are probably paying some on the electricity for the car.
I wonder if anyone has ever done the math on this. How much it translates to per mile driven. I guess it would be very different in different countries/states depending on the local taxation on both gas and electricity.
Of course in most cases the tax collector won't know that it's for an EV and not your general use so it won't end up in the right coffer, if it even is with gas, which is unclear in many jurisdictions..
So now you are paying both the EV fee and this electricity tax.
Of course then there are those with solar who are not paying any or very little electricity tax because of that.
It'll take awhile for anyone to figure out how this can be taxed fairly. When it is that solution probably won't be implemented anyway.
It'll be interesting to see what happens in Norway when their gas tax, which is very high, goes from many billions towards zero. It'll happen there several years before anywhere else.
Not the point of my post but:
There will now be around 89 posts that says it's mostly heavy traffic that ruins the roads anyway. Well guess what. That's irrelevant. That cost ends up with consumers anyway. Anything that is shipped on the roads in some form we are all paying for it if it's taxed in higher prices on gods. If it's not taxed we are all paying by the roads being worse. So truckin' fuel taxation is kind of a none issue. At least from a financial point.
