EV Tax Penalty

[NY_Rob]

I think some more progressive states like Colorado may never do it; fully recognizing the value of shifting towards EV.

Possibly, but they need to get $$$ for road maintenance from somewhere... currently that's coming from ICE only vehicles. Once more and more EV's start using those roadways and ICE registrations are down.. they'd likely levy some sort of charges against EV's.

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[Slowduck93]

I think the challenge is that we pay for road use but who pays for pollution and the impact of gas powered vehicles? By driving an EV we are benefiting everyone else by not polluting, needing gas, spills, etc. no benefit for us though -

 

[LevelHeaded]

It may take a while but all states will eventually follow suit once they find a way to streamline odometer readings. Politicians are experts at finding ways to increase taxes to match increased spending.

I’m in favor of paying my fair share for infrastructure. A mileage and weight formula accomplishes this. But it all goes back to your local/state fund. I expect the feds to get in on the action too.

If state and local governments need to collect mileage-based taxes, they’d not only need your odometer reading but precise location data the entire time to be able to determine the miles driven within/outside of the jurisdiction.

Of course, Rivian already has this data. So does Tesla. So does Hyundai. So does Ford. Etc etc etc.

Driving a new electric vehicle today (even a new ICE vehicle in most cases) requires being <=1 data breach away from your precise location data being available on the dark web.

Given that, seems fine.

 

[PappaBolt]

If state and local governments need to collect mileage-based taxes, they’d not only need your odometer reading but precise location data the entire time to be able to determine the miles driven within/outside of the jurisdiction.

You make an excellent point. I don’t plan on willingly giving my precise location data to the government. They probably already have it from my mobile phone though.

 

[SRO]

Yes, in WA it is a reasonable amount: With a gas tax of ~$0.50/gal, that equates to about 300 gallons of gas, or 5k/year of driving for the 4Runner I replaced with my R1T. I'm actually paying less than I did in gas taxes. And that's a good thing, because even if it's only a few hundred dollars that makes people feel good about deciding on an EV - the state spends FAR more than that trying to incentivize EV adoption in other ways, so this is a bargain from the state's point of view. And since EVs are more expensive, the state's 10%+ tax on motor vehicles ensures the state will make considerably more money from an EV sale.

(How things like roads and infrastructure are funded in our state is an entirely separate issue - long-term funding of ALL state services is dysfunctional here because we're not allowed an income tax and because a lot of funding is historically tied to unstable non-sustainable sources like timber sales and gas taxes.)

Using this same math in OK, a fee of $400/year with a gas tax of $0.19/gal means that an EV owner will be paying as much as someone who uses 2000 gal/year (~=32k miles of driving in my 4Runner). Which means that EVs will proportionately pay a substantially larger amount than ICE owners.

This is a disincentive to buying an EV in OK, and just the fact that this fee exists will discourage some number of people from considering an EV. A gas tax is hidden in the price of gas, and paid dollar by dollar over a period of a year, so no one really considers the amount of tax - they only worry about the price of gas. But a separate and fairly large fee to be paid all at once every year is something people try to avoid, even if it totals to the same amount.

If the whole purpose of a tax was just to charge in proportion to the amount of wear and tear to contribute to the roads, a gas tax is a poor way of doing that. And a flat fee is even worse. But tax policy is also used to influence behavior, hence "sin taxes" and credits for buying and owning a home, credits for being married and having kids, etc. If you have a policy that makes EV owners responsible for a larger share of road maintenance, that WILL act to slow down EV adoption. How much, I don't know.

I just hope the real impact of a vehicle will be weighed. The equivalent of a passenger vehicle to a tractor trailer rig based on ESALs (Equivalent Single Axle Loads is like 5000 to one. The front axle alone is usually 20,000#. Almost all road damage is due to big rigs, however highway taxes also pay for capacity improvements this is where passenger are a bigger factor. To meet adequate levels of service ( LOS) you may have to add travel lanes which are many times more expensive than structural road repair. Some states use vehicle miles travelled (VMT) within your state or in other states but that is hard to measure and encroach on individual liberties. (Big Brother Watching). Obviously it is not a simple calculation.

 

[SRO]

I meant passenger cars.

 

[Thedude]

I think some more progressive states like Colorado may never do it; fully recognizing the value of shifting towards EV.

There’s nothing progressive about it. Colorado will still tax you to get their money regardless of whether it’s a gas tax, mileage tax, property tax, etc.

 

[Thedude]

All taxes are extortion. But taxes that actually pay for roads annoy me the least.

We all have to re-register the vehicle every year. Report actual mileage each year under penalty of perjury. Really paranoid states can require a photo of the old registration slip and odometer in the same shot to be uploaded or presented to the teller at the DMV.

Mileage x weight (exponential scale to account for actual road damage) directly to a road fund that politicians can't raid for other purposes

+

mileage x pollution surcharge that goes directly to fund cleaning up the superfund sites, fugitive emissions and flaring monitoring, zombie wells left by fossil fuel bankruptcies, etc. I.e., oil users supplement the costs of undoing the mess big oil is making. Ratchet up these charges a little bit every year, until it's simply uneconomical to run fossil fuels.

See how easy. No go do it politicians.

That darn big oil again. Damn those guys for making it possible for this country to be what it is today.

 

[Zoidz]

...
Almost all road damage is due to big rigs, however highway taxes also pay for capacity improvements this is where passenger are a bigger factor.
...

In the northern states with cold weather and snow, a good portion of the road damage is also due to wide seasonal temperature changes and the resulting expansion/contraction stresses, as well as water getting into cracks and freezing, which fractures the road surface.

 

[Dark-Fx]

That darn big oil again. Damn those guys for making it possible for this country to be what it is today.

Hotter than ever recorded?

 

[Thedude]

Hotter than ever recorded?

Among other things. Also wealthy and developed enough to drive expensive resource intensive luxury EVs while forgetting that they are only possible because of oil powered industry.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Among other things. Also wealthy and developed enough to drive expensive resource intensive luxury EVs while forgetting that they are only possible because of oil powered industry.

I've got a lotta cool things thanks to humanity selling it's future away, that's for sure.

 

[rivpop]

Hotter than ever recorded?

Like most things, this is not "A or B" but "A and B". We still need fossil fuel production for many reasons including for our Rivians ("vegan leather", tires which wear more quickly than ICE vehicles, plastics) and given the immaturity of most renewables (whether or not you put nuclear in that category), we still heavily rely on fossil fuels for electricity powering our society including our EVs. Also, in use cases such as long haul driving, EVs still are in the shadow of ICE practically speaking.

That said, I'm guessing most on this forum want to leave the world in better shape than we received it which played x% in our decision to get a Rivian. Whether you believe one climate prediction vs another, taking actions that reduce our impacts on this planet can't be a bad thing, even if that reduction is very small.

As for subsidies or government picking winners and losers... well, that's a whole nuther can o' worms.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Like most things, this is not "A or B" but "A and B". We still need fossil fuel production for many reasons including for our Rivians ("vegan leather", tires which wear more quickly than ICE vehicles, plastics) and given the immaturity of most renewables (whether or not you put nuclear in that category), we still heavily rely on fossil fuels for electricity powering our society including our EVs. Also, in use cases such as long haul driving, EVs still are in the shadow of ICE practically speaking.

So your argument is "Because X, why not Y"? My power comes from 100% renewable sources, and Rivian is doing the same whenever I stop at a RAN station, so the vast majority of the energy I use for propulsion is from renewable sources.

Some people think the renewable sources thing is just a greenwashing scam but I don't. If those programs didn't exist, there wouldn't be as much encouragement to build the renewables infrastructure. I plan on putting solar in at our next house that will regularly exceed the amount of energy we use.

Anyway, this doesn't need to turn into another one of those threads, so I'm going to stop responding to continued comments here. If you want to take it to a particular thread I will do so.

 

[rivpop]

So your argument is "Because X, why not Y"? My power comes from 100% renewable sources, and Rivian is doing the same whenever I stop at a RAN station, so the vast majority of the energy I use for propulsion is from renewable sources.

Some people think the renewable sources thing is just a greenwashing scam but I don't. If those programs didn't exist, there wouldn't be as much encouragement to build the renewables infrastructure. I plan on putting solar in at our next house that will regularly exceed the amount of energy we use.

Anyway, this doesn't need to turn into another one of those threads, so I'm going to stop responding to continued comments here. If you want to take it to a particular thread I will do so.

I'll end mine here -
I get it and happy to see that you're taking these steps. However, to get to renewables at present requires a lot of legacy energy. The mining of the lithium for the batteries, the manufacture of all the components of the vehicle, let alone the solar panels, the RAN chargers, the roads you drive on, etc, was all possible, likely (an likely in large part) due to non-renewables. It's a journey that will take time and we'll hopefully continue to learn more as we move forward. That's what I meant by A&B. You wouldn't have a Rivian without fossil fuels. I'd love to be 100% zero emission off the grid power-wise myself, but living in an apartment that isn't in the cards for the time being.

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