This isn’t an air quality measure: it pay for roads, that EVs also use.
My proposal for this would to charge a tax on curb weight over miles driven: EVs are not lighter than ICEs so they would have to pay something. But I would also assess a sliding per-gallon tax on ICEs that is lowest on small fuel efficient cars and highest on the ubiquitous urban assault vehicles people seem to love so much.
Used to be (maybe still is?) a gas guzzler surcharge on low-mpg vehicles but the kind of folks who are paying $80k for glorified pickup truck are just rolling that into the purchase price. I’d like them to be reminded at every fillup that they are paying more for that choice. Call it paying their way… We need to reduce our dependence on cars, for sure, but for now, even EVs need roads.
I also think this needs to be looked at more holistically. We’re talking about states and cities that have aggressively recruited large businesses that have caused population booms in major cities like Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City. Not only was that done with tax incentives, it caused population increases that could not be supported by the existing infrastructure, caused rents and home prices to skyrocket, and reduced the livability for existing residents and very newcomers who were attracted by it.
Instead of trying to put that on a small group of road users, why isn’t this being funded more by the businesses who benefit from the transportation infrastructure and employees? Maybe couple it with an incentive to drive more telecommuting? Because I see a lot of businesses that still make people show up in person who can just as easily do their jobs from home or other office equivalent.
I don’t understand the tone of this story. It sounds like your suggesting EV’s shouldn’t pay for the roads they use like everyone else? I don’t have any idea what the solution is but it seems like the most fair solution should be one where what you pay is related to your road usage. Gas tax has been a convenient way to do that in the past but we obviously need a new solution that affects all users equally.
I get that it’s nice to be able to punish combustion engine drivers by making drive gas cars more expensive to drive. But gas prices don’t effect buying that much. And until the ungodly subsidies to the oil companies stop and the price at the pump is a real (ungodly expensive) price, nothing is going to change.
When I lived in England in the '80’s the annual registration was based on the engine size. That’s why it was unusual to see a car over 1.6 liters. And it wasnt a linear scale. A HMMWV with a 6.2liter diesel would probably have a registration that would exceed the GDP of a small country. Using a similar scale in the states would certainly be an eye opener.
Since EVs dont have engines (last time I checked) maybe a horsepower-based registration would be fairer. It wouldnt exclude the less well off from purchasing a horsepower, low price EV either.
I think the tone is that there should be a fair way to have drivers pay for road upkeep. The EVs are perceived not to be paying their fair share since they don’t pay gas taxes.
The disincentive to drive ICE vehicles is still insufficient to convert enough people to EV.
Your proposal still screws over poor people who can least afford to have yet another hit to their take home pay, and don’t have a lot of choice in what vehicle they drive. If they need a pickup or van for work, that’s what they need. They can’t afford a Rivian or Cybertruck. They can’t ditch the car they’ve had for 10 or 15 years that’s paid off to buy a new, small, efficient vehicle. And they can’t afford that nifty condo downtown conveniently near their workplace because the mortgage is 4x their take-home pay.
An annual fee based on vehicle weight and odometer reading would probably be the best measure of who was actually getting the most use out of/causing the most wear and tear to the roads, but that system wouldn’t be perfect either since it wouldn’t account for how much of that driving took place in the state where the car was registered.
Burning coal at a power plant to charge hundreds of EVs is far more efficient than a similar number of gas vehicles burning gasoline individually to drive around.
I’m more concerned about how we get to zero emissions in a short amount of time than I am in the long term of how roads are paid for. Let’s say you did what I said which is budget X dollars (i.e. whatever is needed) for road maintenance and divide it by the amount of petroleum fuel sold in order to compute the gas tax and therefore EV drivers all get a free ride - for a while. Well, that sucks for the poor sap who is driving a gas guzzler. Good. We want that person to have an incentive to either drive less or switch to an EV.
What you are saying is “how do we pay for roads in a zero emission world?”, and the answer is I don’t care so long as we get to the zero emission world as quickly as possible.
Of course! I don’t have a problem with it and i said as much in my post. One just has to be aware that currently there’s still an environmental impact, it’s just something that happens in the background without one noticing versus seeing a gas car drive down the road billowing smoke.
If the state of Utah is worrying about tax exemptions costing them money, I think there’s a large number of exemptions from property taxes that they might want to look at as well.
100%. As a bike commuter and EV driver, I’m more than happy to help pay for roadways.
That said, I live in Georgia, which got rid of all EV tax incentives several years back and instituted a flat EV tax isntead. My $200 flat fee is more than double the fuel taxes I would pay if I were driving a Nissan Versa instead of a Leaf. And while I DO use streets with my bike, Georgia dedicates 14% of fuel taxes to schools and almost nothing to bike infratructure.
In the mean time semis and heavy trucks do drastically more damage to roadways than passenger cars (and bikes are just laughable).
I’m in favor of incentivizing zero-emission vehicles over gasoline-powered vehicles but there are plenty of ways to do that without making everyone subsidize private vehicle use for those who can afford an electric car.
Conservation doesn’t just mean getting more people off gasoline, it means getting more people out of private cars (or at least paying the true cost of using them).
I don’t see any problem with decoupling the costs from usage. Quality roadways are a net good for everyone, even the people who don’t use them. There are very few (if any) people in the USA who don’t experience a positive impact on their life because of the existence of roads regardless of their personal miles driven.
I am generally in favor all methods of equitably spreading costs for all net-good services across all citizens. Fire departments, roadways, parks, schools etc. We all win when we all win.
Isn’t paying for roads that just anyone can use socialism? /s
I agree with the point that EV users aren’t contributing to the climate change that’s killing all of us, but I don’t get how that applies to building and maintaining the roads they also need to use to get around. It’s potatoes and tomatoes. If they were flying EVs that weren’t using the roads, then obviously they shouldn’t have to contribute to the repair of the roads. As it is, saying they shouldn’t have to pay for road upkeep/construction because they are better human beings that aren’t actively killing the planet through what they drive seems… wrongheaded.
But I also don’t think they should be hit for any more taxes than a gasoline vehicle driver has to pay, and should end up having to pay less as a perk for being energy conscious.
And while I’m near Utah, nobody there has asked me for my opinion. So…
I admit, I skimmed the article so I may not have caught all of the nuances, but they are collecting from the vehicle registration, and not at the charging station based on math wizardry. They are also offering an early buy-in option to install a device that tracks a driver’s actual mileage, and they would pay based on that likely lower amount.
Short term solution that again penalizes people who can’t afford to buy a new vehicle. Added to the fact that as more people who can switch to EVs do, the road usage doesn’t decrease, but the number of people paying tax on gasoline does, so the price has to go up even higher to maintain the roads at their current crappy level.
I don’t have a problem with it and i said as much in my post. One just has to be aware that currently there’s still an environmental impact, it’s just something that happens in the background without one noticing versus seeing a gas car drive down the road billowing smoke.