[pink_dinner]

The only way it will grow is if it's actually cheaper for the average consumer to use solar. It will most likely never be cheaper, because as soon as it it, the government adds a tax for lost revenue from standard electricity.

The same thing is happening with the electric car: Some states are now proposing a per/mile car usage tax (where a mandatory black box needs to be installed in your car to track it) to make up for the lost gas tax revenue.

[maxerickson]

What mechanism of paying for roads would you propose?

Light vehicles don't do a lot of damage to roads, but in many areas weathering takes quite a toll, so it can make sense to charge all users rather than push it all on shippers or whatever.

Also, do you have an example of governments taxing solar? The trend I'm more aware of is net metering, which is a great deal for the homeowner (the wholesale value of electricity is lower than household metering, on an open market the power company would not purchase power for the retail rate).

[csense]

> What mechanism of paying for roads would you propose?

There are two purposes of the gas tax: (1) To pay for roads and (2) to provide incentives to conserve a valuable, limited resource (gas).

If we switch over to electric cars, taxing electricity makes sense from the standpoint of (2) because it's the valuable, limited resource that's being consumed by driving.

From the standpoint of (1), literally any source of government revenue will do. You can tax electricity. Or you can tax property (a lot of land's value, especially commercial / industrial, goes away if it isn't connected to a good road system). Or you can just use the general fund (basically everybody benefits from the enormous cross-industry economic gains of having functioning transportation infrastructure, so everybody should pay for it).

[pink_dinner]

If there is no fee decrease for the average consumer, electric cars will never be fully adopted. Unchecked government greed is a big problem. There needs to be more government accountability in terms of spending.

Hawaii is putting a stop to solar. Taxing the panels and making it more cost effective to use standard electricity.

[maxerickson]

I don't see that Hawaii is taxing panels. They aren't forcing power companies to buy solar power, but that isn't a tax on panels.

It's also the case that Hawaii is a really special case. I wouldn't look to it being the beginning of a trend.

(Of course net metering will probably decline over time elsewhere, but this is not really a tax.)