Well, the bill is close to passing. $200-$250 flat fee + additional $150 for any vehicle driven 9,000+ miles.
Texas lawmakers move to raise penalties on owners of Teslas and other electric vehicles
Since the average U.S. driver logs 13,476 miles per year, this means that nearly every EV owner will be charged an extra $350-$400 per year.
The average Texan who drives a personal vehicle pays ~$120 in gas taxes per year. Sounds fair?
I'm curious whether there are any legal minds on this board who might be able to inform on the legality of this bill? While the bill singles out a narrowly-defined group of people among the tens of millions using Texas roads in an equivalent way to pay a disproportionately high tax, the most questionable part seems to be the additional charge for people driving over 9,000 miles per year. The state has no way of knowing how many miles on a given vehicle are accumulated in-state vs. out-of-state (I accumulate the majority of miles on my vehicle from out-of-state road trips), so the State of Texas is effectively levying a state tax on interstate activity, which would seem to violate the United States constitution. Am I missing something here?
Additionally, it likely leads to double taxation, for Texas EV drivers, as some states likely enact some form of tax on public charging stations as their analog to the gas tax, causing Texas drivers to pay taxes in other states for activity that is also increasing the taxes they pay in Texas.