Wyoming taxing EV users

[SR22pilot]

Can we leave the politics out of TMC, please?

I don't see this as politics. It is often brought up that electric cars aren't pollution free. Pollution is generated when electricity is produced. Similarly people bring up EV subsidies. The fact is that gasoline is highly subsidized. This includes everything from tax breaks on drilling equipment to military spending where we otherwise wouldn't have spent anything or would have spent a lot less. There are lots of trouble spots around the world. The US ignores many and gets involved in others. I think it is clear that oil is a motivation in many cases. This is a very large hidden tax. I'm not saying whether it is right or wrong, just that it exists. This doesn't even touch on the cost of the environmental effects of burning gasoline.

In Georgia we have annual emissions testing. It would have been simple and fair to eliminate the gas tax and switch to an annual mileage tax. That would have been equitable. The present $200/year tax isn't.

Something that was pointed out to me is that an electric car does much less road damage than a gas car of equivalent weight. To see what was mentioned to me just look at parking spots where you will see the damaged area from oil leaks.

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[Olle]

I don't see this as politics. It is often brought up that electric cars aren't pollution free. Pollution is generated when electricity is produced. Similarly people bring up EV subsidies. The fact is that gasoline is highly subsidized. This includes everything from tax breaks on drilling equipment to military spending where we otherwise wouldn't have spent anything or would have spent a lot less. There are lots of trouble spots around the world. The US ignores many and gets involved in others. I think it is clear that oil is a motivation in many cases. This is a very large hidden tax. I'm not saying whether it is right or wrong, just that it exists. This doesn't even touch on the cost of the environmental effects of burning gasoline.


Something that was pointed out to me is that an electric car does much less road damage than a gas car of equivalent weight. To see what was mentioned to me just look at parking spots where you will see the damaged area from oil leaks.

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Totally agree. There might be some element of politics in this though, but if no politics are allowed, we would need to eliminate this whole thread. Not saying we should of course.

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Can we leave the politics out of TMC, please?

You are right, I just edited out the politics, I am just trying to bring up the real cost of fossil fuel in the context of the EV tax discussion.

 

[Skotty]

Ideally, gas tax for road maintenance should be dropped and a new system should be developed to tax based on mileage and vehicle type or weight. That might be far too painful to try to implement, so the next best alternative is to create the new system but apply it only to vehicles not powered by gas. But then you have to deal with vehicles that are partially powered by gas -- the plug-in hybrids; in this case, they could maybe use the average percentage of travel not using gasoline for the given vehicle type.

The obvious means for tracking mileage is mileage readings by places that do inspections. Newer cars with connectivity could have fancier stuff built into them to, with the owners consent, submit mileage electronically without having to visit an inspection station. GPS tracking is excessive and unnecessary. Concerns about driving in states other than the one you are licensed in should be disregarded; it's unneeded complexity with little to no benefit.

These taxes could be lumped in with paying income taxes so that they are paid incrementally, deducted from income. If done this way, your yearly mileage would basically modify your road tax rate. This would mean the tax would actually be a combination of mileage driven and income level. Higher income families would then pay a disproportionately higher amount for road maintenance, but that's how most taxes work already anyway. You could avoid that by setting a cap (tax only on first $x of income); this would keep the rich from paying too much but still allow breathing room for the broke and unemployed.

The key is to make it as complex as it needs to be for it to be sensible, but no more complex than that.

These are just initial ideas.

Or you could just say ... uhhhhh ... what ifs we make them EV drivers pay ... uh ... what be an easy number to think of ... $100 DOLLARS ... per year for thems be driving on them there roads? Yay! We's be making legis... ligis... legislert... legislaters... laws and stuff.

 

[DFibRL8R]

Paying for roads is one thing but the costs to each and every one of us in terms of the negative health effects of drilling, refining, transporting and burning gasoline (and yes sometimes seeing it level entire towns when it blows up) surely eclipses this number. Insurance premiums, taxes to support medicare, lost productivity etc all would decrease if we weren't breathing petroleum combustion products. Cheap gas is really not so cheap when you factor in the negative effects and IMO gas should be taxed severely.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Paying for roads is one thing but the costs to each and every one of us in terms of the negative health effects of drilling, refining, transporting and burning gasoline (and yes sometimes seeing it level entire towns when it blows up) surely eclipses this number. Insurance premiums, taxes to support medicare, lost productivity etc all would decrease if we weren't breathing petroleum combustion products. Cheap gas is really not so cheap when you factor in the negative effects and IMO gas should be taxed severely.

A simpler and more comprehensive way to do that would be to institute a carbon tax. But that is politically impossible in the USA, so then what?

It is easier to implement a tax or fee if it is linked to roads, not pollution, because most people use roads daily and can sometimes be persuaded to support paying for them. Ideally a tax/fee based on miles and vehicle weight that actually covers the cost of highway/bridge construction and maintenance would be used. Since that is complicated to administer we fall back to the now traditional gas tax, which typically doesn't keep up with inflation or miles traveled, due to improved fuel efficiency. And, in some states, registration fees supplement the gas tax.

While I'd like to see a better system, roads and bridges need funding now, by whatever means that is politically possible. And I don't think it is helpful to give EVs a free ride just because they are cleaner than ICEVs. $50/year in Wyoming and Colorado or $100/year in North Carolina seems fair. $200/year in Georgia strikes me as a bit punitive and unfair. Others may draw the line differently.

 

[TNEVol]

I did a study of this in Alabama. To replace lost fuel tax revenue here, will require an annual EV tag tax of $138 (with reasonable assumptions about miles driven and fuel economy). So $50 or $100 seems like a good deal. The states need the revenue for road repairs, as a Tesla puts as much wear & tear on roads and bridges as any vehicle with a comparable weight.

I don't oppose a tax for the roads but did you deduct the tax on electricity?