Probably an unpopular opinion but this is to offset a federal fuel tax they aren’t getting since it’s an EV. It could be calculated better based on miles but that opens up a privacy issue.
My solution is due away with all fuel taxes and tax tires. They have a know wear rate based on miles, and don’t have any privacy issues like location tracking.
Seeing as one truck does the damage of 10,000 cars on the roads, personal vehicles should not be paying the lion’s share of road money.
So it shouldn’t matter the type of tire.
Those tires are much larger so you could just tax them more. Plus a pneumatic tire can only hold so much weight which is why they are 18 of them on a huge truck. Not to mention more load causes more wear on the tire so they go through them quicker. I mean it’s not perfect, lots of things affect tire wear like road surface, road smoothness, alignment, etc. Maybe you keep the diesel fuel taxes and just tax tires on passenger cars. Maybe give a tax break to small diesel cars to offset the double tax. Just brainstorming…
I think it’s a good idea. It’s more Progressive than what we have right now. The feds will never do it, some states could be forced to however. That is where the majority of these gas taxes come in at anyway.
Generally the wear on tires is proportional to the wear on roads, since both are effectively grinding against each other with grit as the grinding medium in between. It would be harder to find a more accurate way to measure an individual vehicle’s contribution to road wear, given that weight is such a large factor.
If you used mass surveillance to record exactly how many miles everyone drove and record exactly which vehicle model they were driving for each mile (to know the vehicle weight), you’d still miss out on the cargo factor. For transport trucks that’s the biggest factor, since an empty trailer weighs far less than a full one (and different types of goods have radically different densities).
Of course we already know how much transport trucks weigh and how many miles they drive, since transport trucks are required to go through weigh stations and drivers have to keep detailed logs of how many miles they drive (and hours they drive consecutively). The issue then comes down to consumers and other business vehicles (pickup trucks etc).
None of this is accurate:
Generally the wear on tires is proportional to the wear on roads, since both are effectively grinding against each other with grit as the grinding medium in between. It would be harder to find a more accurate way to measure an individual vehicle’s contribution to road wear, given that weight is such a large factor.
Surface wear on roads from tire contact is not a concern, the damage is done due to a combination of compression cycles (the 4th power law) and weather. The 4th power law being that road wear is equal to the 4th power of the axel load.
Your tire wear rate is based on so many unique factors, with vehicle weight being a relatively minor one. Force of accel/decell/turning, suspension tuning, tread, rubber compound, road material, etc.
Your tire rubber is not grinding away the road surface. It’s wild that I even have to say that.
People already run tires that are worn well past the point of safety, making them more expensive will exacerbate that issue.
You’re not wrong, but this would still happen if you’re were free. People just can’t be arsed to do anything.
Probably a much lower rate, but still.
And also what happens if your tire is damaged and needs to be replaced?
Maybe a tax rebate based on tread-wear of the damaged tire? If it still has 50% of the tread, you get a 50% rebate on your tire tax.
I heard that some countries charge a vehicle tax based on the weight of the vehicle. Some based on the number of cylinders.
One of the problems with removing the fuel tax is that affluent people will be able to avoid the additional registration tax by registering their vehicle in another state, such as where their summer home is. Having a gas tax allows taxes to go where the fuel is purchased and indirectly where the vehicle is using the roads. This doesn’t work for electric vehicles.
I’m surprised no politician suggested toll booths all over.
Rich people with summer homes in another state are likely not a major percentage of drivers, I’m guessing.
You don’t have to be rich to register your vehicle in Montanna. It happens all the time in California to avoid smog and taxes.
Also, just because the rich are a small percentage of the population obviously doesn’t mean they should be taxed less, that’s a wild statement.
That wasn’t his statement, though. He was saying that the super-rich are a tiny outlier group, so even an infrastructure personal tax that they manage to avoid will have minimal impact on the system at large, because they are so small that even heavy abuse in this scenario is a rounding error.
I think he is insinuating that a system that works but allows tiny groups to fall through the cracks would still be acceptable for this, which I tend to agree with.
It is much like in the past when welfare recipients were vilified because a tiny number of them found a way to qualify even though they made a bit too much money for it, or managed to double dip somehow to get more than was intended. The system still fills a need and more or less works (its grievous underfunding and paperwork hell notwithstanding) and is far better than nothing, so the statistically insignificant amount of fraud or evasion is an acceptable cost to people that understand statistics and are speaking in good faith.
just because the rich are a small percentage of the population obviously doesn’t mean they should be taxed less, that’s a wild statement.
That is a wild statement. That’s not even remotely close to what I said.
Yeah, lots of military folk take advantage of service friendly laws to get their DLs and register their vehicles in Arizona and pay their income taxes in Texas or Washington.
California is actually going after people registering in Montana when their primary residence is California.
Just like NYC does for people who claim they don’t live in the city to avoid taxes
I mean, they have inspections for smog and shit, right? Take your EV in for its smug check and they check its mileage and assess the road use tax.
Take your EV in for its smug check
With the current fuel prices, every EV will pass its smug check :-D
In the USA? Hardly at all and in all states. I was under the same (false) impression before.
How many miles to pay $130 in federal taxes?
A Republican proposing a tax on EVs does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. There’s absolutely no reason to go looking for a silver lining or making apologetics.
I don’t mind a road tax. I prefer it over tolls. We already pay gas taxes for infrastructure. My issue is that it is a set price. I honestly think it should be based on the price and weight of your vehicle, and your annual mileage. A subcompact for your daily 20 minute commute is less damaging to the road than a truck traveling 70k miles per year is.
My other problem, no guarantees that it will be used for infrastructure.
Tolls already handle the mileage part, and they already have different tolls per vehicle class, though the classes are outdated. But that can easily be adjusted.
The only downside of tolls is that they track your vehicle movement, but let’s not kid ourselves, flock cameras already track your movement to your neighborhood, and it’s run by an openly comically evil company.
Tolls only handle the mileage part if they were on every street, right? I’d say that is unfeasable, but as you mention they could just figure it all out with those flock cameras ;(((((((
Yeah, like say, a set rate with your registration.
“Won’t you pay a little extra to save the planet? No? What a scumbag you are.”
Proceeds to dump toxic waste into a river to save $1200
proceeds to pay $100,000 in lawyer fees to fight a $5,000 ticket for dumping.
It’s never an option to tax the megacorporations that force us to use public roads that they don’t pay for to get to work is it?
Good ol corporate socialism. Privatize the gains and socialize the losses.
Tax the megacorps more and use that to maintain roads and expand public transit providing an actual choice for people rather than forcing the individual to buy a car, pay for maintenance, for registration, for fuel, for a license, for tolls, all just to get to work.
Interesting points to me are the fact that this 130 fee is:
- more than what the average fuel consuming car pay (70-90)
- Is on top of what many people already pay in state taxes to drive their car
As pissed as I get at fees, electric cars don’t typically pay a gas tax, the taxes we levy on fuel pay for road maintenance so that fee should be for road repairs. In my very small car I pay around $1.80 or so each week in federal fuel tax (not sure what I pay to the state, but those combined is very likely over $130/yr).
The gullible part is thinking the federal government fixes the roads with your money at all. More than likely it’ll go to Israel.
I bet the pick ups will pay less than an EV driver and are one of the main causes of road damages
I mean, I can point to specific projects and show you the federal funding if you really want, but like we’re not here to argue. We both know you’re right, just like those cones get paid for by someone.
Almost all the road work around me is state, not federal.
These particular feds are scheming on privatizing the interstates.
Electric cars pay electricity tax. Gas cars pay gasoline tax. We don’t need to tax electric cars even more.
Which portion of the electricity tax is used to repair the roads they use? Not trying to be too defensive but if we all switched and didn’t pay more, the roads would be even worse than they already are.
Well that sounds like they should implement a tax on energy used to power EV.
Easy enough to implement at paid charge stations. Both homes I’ve had chargers installed at are on programs where the utility knows exactly how much energy my EV charger uses.
As of now, a flat amount charged by the state doesn’t account for actual usage, even if it is a straight forward implementation. the down side to your suggestion is that it requires each state to implement, and it increases EV ownership (cost of installing meters in existing homes without one) also enforcement is another thing that would increase costs probably significantly.
I kinda think updating registration laws/procedures would be a better method. have EV drivers record their odometer every year or whatever time schedule and set it that your registration fees is based on mileage. Have sales require that odo mileage listed with the old owner paying that last bit of mileage owed in taxes. This way, a new owner has a reason to help enforce the odo mileage. No i dont want to say you drove 20k miles than listed, cuz then next time i have to pay for those 20k on next registration.
Whatever % of the general budget goes toward roads. Money is fungible, this has the same answer as: What portion of sales tax pays for roads, what portion of income tax pays for roads, what portion of land tax pays for roads?
The important part here is that you do pay taxes when you charge your EV. We don’t need to double tax EVs.
When they tried this last year it was scrapped because there was no practical way to collect it. Are we going to have a national car registry? That would take more money than it would collect. If they just ask a question on tax filing, I’m just going to lie.
How are you Americans doing car registration? As someone from another country it sounds a little bit crazy to not have a national car registry. Is this on the state level? And if someone from Texas is caught speeding in Arizona, police has to as there for the ID of the owner? Or is there no registry at all? And why shouldn’t states be able to collect a tax from their citizens?
Cars and drivers are registered on the state level, yes. There’s an agreement that licenses from every state are valid in every other state, and infractions in any state are prosecuted by the jurisdiction in which it happens. There is no national registry, no. States can (and do) collect taxes and registration fees from drivers who reside in that state, but they don’t typically collect on behalf of the federal government.
There’s a reason cops ask for license and registration.
The US is a fake country. States have a massive amount of power, they control vehicle registration, sales tax, school programs… the federal government might as well not exist. The same applies to other so-called countries like Germany.
Germany btw has a central car and driving permit registration.
That really has nothing to do with the physical size of a country
Oh, I know. Different places have different factors. The point of me putting the image up was just another example of comparing Germany to the US that doesnt have any contextual similarity.
What’s the population density like chief? Based on online stats Germany is 6x more dense than the US as a whole (mostly due to those big states you’re comparing it to being < 100/mi².)
Hey there Captain!
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If you combined Texas and California, you would have around the same population.
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There are around six times more licensed drivers in the US than in Germany.
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I dunno how this works, but I’d assume this national car registry already exists at the DMV because you have to register your car to drive it, no?
No. The registries are all state-level, though many states do allow other states to query their systems.
Oh I forgot they were state level, I’d guess Congress could either tell states to give them the list of electric cars or ask the states to do the deed for them. I guess that could be a hard task if every system is very different. Not sure.
In theory, constitutionally-speaking, Congress doesn’t have jurisdiction to command that, and trying would cause a judicial battle that could last long enough for grown-ups to take back over.
And each state would “interpret” congress’ direction differently.
My understanding is that this time they want to force the states to collect the fee on behalf of the federal government, with the threat that they’ll withhold federal funding if the states don’t do it. I don’t see how they could possibly enforce that either, though.
It’s the same way they raised the drinking age to 21 despite there being no national drinking age laws nor a theoretically legal/constitutional method for enacting one. The latter was, obviously, successful.
Yeah, but with drinking ages, states keep records of births and it’s easy to add 21 to those, and the federal government can easily subpoena the records to see whether they’re telling the truth. Plus, there wasn’t a whole ton of political will to resist the drinking age change. But with EVs, there’s a ton of political will to keep this from happening (including, notably, from the richest man in the world), which means that EV-friendly states like California have all the motivation in the world to find creative ways around such a law.
I could see them levying the tax, but also offering an EV registration fee credit that offsets it exactly, or not keeping records on the number of electric vehicles registered (that seems like it would be tricky, since it’s easy to identify Rivians and Teslas), or finding some other clever way to tie this up in court until an adult gets into office and cancels it.
Arkansas already charges an extra $200 annual registration fee for electric vehicles.
That’s usually the case, as electric vehicles don’t pay taxes on gas which is used for roads. Basically a system to make people who drive pay for the roads (and people who drive more will pay more as well).
I would be happy to pay for that purpose, but it’s way more tax than I would pay in fuel for the number of miles I drive.
Plus they’ve been waiving gas tax to make themselves look better on gas prices. So, right now, I’m subsidizing gas drivers.
Fuck the petroloids they can and should pay for my roads
If you’re not paying for it, it’s not yours.
True, though paying for it is no guarantee of ownership in this modern era, either.
Just paid $500 for the privilege in PA ($250/yr, paid upfront).
What about all the subsidies we pay on gas? Maybe get rid of those if you want some revenue?
This. Countries around the world could save SO much money if they stopped subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. But no, better increase the tax on the middle class…
But if we stopped subsidizing the richest corporations in the world then the Chinese would win. Is that what you want? /s
I don’t know the correct answer to this exactly, but given that I’ve only driven my car (hybrid) about 4k miles total over the last 2 years since I got it (April '24), and paid less (but not $0) in gas tax, but still got hit with the full $130 extra fee is absolutely infuriating. I hadn’t even owned it a full year yet but still had to pay a non pro-rated amount (my previous car was a regular gas car).
I’m basically paying almost 6x the rate per mile since I drive so little. I’m the one stuck paying extra because I can’t afford to drive enough to justify the full amount, and subsidizing some high mileage driver out there.
I realize tracking mileage has privacy implications, so I don’t know a perfect solution, but it fucking SUCKS to get ripped off this hard. While being on disability due to injury and other surgeries, too. I mean I’m still building strength and endurance back to be capable of working again, preferably this year, but I’m the meantime, taxes are fucking killing me.
At least with an EV I would have 0 in gas taxes instead of paying the “not paying gas tax” fee on top of the gas tax- while gas is almost $5 a gallon.
So much bullshit.
Edit- I just noticed that my state does offer a mileage based option, but you have to plug a doodad plugged in the ol Ob2 port or whatever it’s called. And then use an app to upload your mileage information, which I believe happens more than once a year, which is weird and more privacy breaking, given that registration is only assessed once a year (or less, if you pay 2 or 3 years ahead). That gives them not only your total mileage for the year, but which month you got those miles in.
I assume per month, but I don’t actually know. I assume it’s once per year, because they added that in addition to using that device and the app, that you have to annually send a photo of your odometer to what they actually called “true up” your info.
If they’re relying on that photo to be the most reliable part, then that should be the only part needed. It’s basically screaming in our face that the device and app is definitely just for “spying purposes that we actually make money on”.
Personally I don’t want to even give them the photo, especially since it’s about a $150 fee a year. So given that I drive less than a quarter of whatever is normal now (I’ve heard “normal” is 10-15k miles per year, but I’ve only heard it from my parents, so I don’t actually know- and again I’ve gotten about 5k over 2 years), I see this as being assessed it to be a little under $40 for the actual fee, and a little over $100 for the “keep your nose out of my business” fee.
I saw someone suggest taxing tires instead of gas, which does seem more equitable, but it would be a big hit on an already expensive purchase.
Does tracking mileage have any privacy implications if it was just a self-report type dealio or would that be too easy to lie on?
I’m guessing the privacy implications come in only if it’s the car doing it for you, where it might be taking that data for itself too to add to your ad network profile or whatever.
My current thoughts would be I’d rather report my mileage difference each year or whatever.
Obviously everyone will suddenly magically drive 100 miles a year if it’s self reported.
And even reporting the difference each year is a problem. Not so much with digital data, but with the government.
Your car is already selling all the other information already if it’s less than 10 or so years old (disclaimer- I don’t know the specific number, but that’s gotta be close).
Do not adjust the gas tax for 33 years, do not listen to all the civil engineers telling you heavy vehicles do almost all road damage, and propose a tax with no method of enforcement. Brilliant leadership out of DC.
Give us cross country high speed rail and you got a deal.
They want BEV owners to feel the same financial shit as those who made bad decisions buying massive gas guzzlers. It’s a ploy to get people avoid buying BEVs now that they’re seeing them gain popularity. They won’t be able stop the transition that’s coming, BEVs are the future, more efficient, cleaner, resilient to global geopolitical shit.
Fuck Congress
Miles driven * vehicle weight makes way more sense.
Gas tax should cover the federal subsidies (include military/security costs…) and a carbon tax based on the percentage of total estimated cost of climate change recovery,mitigation, and damage control.
If I remember right, road damage goes up by either the square or the cube of vehicle weight. I like billwashere’s suggestion of taxing tire sales - and tax the very heavy tires that semis need proportionally to the damage they cause.
American economy can’t run without oil
