[kiernanmcgowan]

It’s also a direct usage tax to support road maintenance. Heavier users of the road ways end up contributing more to the maintenance of the public good.

We had a proxy for that via gasoline taxes but with EV becoming more common we need to find a replacement for that revenue.

[haskellandrust]

The gas tax hasn’t kept up with inflation, EVs are only a secondary contributor to the shortfall. Most states have been leeching from their general funds to keep up with highway maintenance. California has raised theres fair aggressively, though.

[seanmcdirmid]

Most states include higher tag fees for EVs. I pay way more in the EV fee than I would have paid in gas taxes considering I don’t drive that much. Trucks and other heavy users dwarf car traffic by far though, and those extra logistic costs (if charged by weight) would show up as increased cost of goods.

[pclmulqdq]

There are several states that have an EV registration surcharge that replaces gas tax. It's not popular with the pro-EV crowd.

[vel0city]

I'm fine with a decently fair registration tax to offset the gas taxes, but the one in my state is the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gas for the state gas taxes. If the car was a 35mpg hybrid that would be 35,000mi of equivalent driving. This is incredibly unfair.

[pclmulqdq]

35,000 mi of driving is not anywhere near out of the question if you're a daily commuter who takes road trips once in a while. If you're driving a truck or a non-hybrid, it's also a lot less mileage. It sounds like this is actually close to what you would be expected to use.

[mikestew]

Just because a small percentage of drivers drive that much each year doesn’t make it a reasonable number for the general case.

It sounds like this is actually close to what you would be expected to use.

Not even close to what the average driver drives.

[pclmulqdq]

The average American driver gets about 25 mpg and drives about 15-20k miles. That's exactly in line with the tax rate here.

[vel0city]

The average American car does not drive 20k miles. 12,500 is the average yearly mileage.

And it's an EV, a closer comparison should be something more like a hybrid. It's not a giant truck.

[rjrjrjrj]

Seems unlikely.

55 miles/day, 365 days a year? Also, look at lease mileage limits.

[mikestew]

Now you've moved the goal posts to about half of your original claim. And it's still not accurate (links have already been provided elsewhere in this thread). And the only thing I've owned in the last 30 years that gets 25 mpg is a camper van (and, no, that thing doesn't move anywhere near 15K miles/year).

[vel0city]

It's far away from the average of around 12,000. Few cars drive 35,000mi.

[caseysoftware]

> With that information, the British newspaper calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars.

If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off.

Ref: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-damage-ro...

[pclmulqdq]

The average driver also doesn't get 35 mpg driving regularly. The average driver probably gets around 20 mpg, and that would make this distance about 15000 mi.

[vel0city]

The kind of people choosing an EV wouldn't get a 20mpg car, it's an unfair comparison.

[caseysoftware]

> With that information, the British newspaper calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars.

If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off.

Ref: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-damage-ro...

[Loughla]

If I owned an ev for 3 years, the tax means I save money.

[vel0city]

This is a yearly tax. So that would be the same as 105,000mi in three years meanwhile the average car probably only drove ~37,500 in that time period.

[caseysoftware]

The EV tax applies to people who a) casue a disproportionate amount of wear & tear on the roads vs ICE vehicles and b) are generally higher income in the state.

When you look at taxation from a "charge the people who use it" or the "the rich should pay more" perspective, this appears to address both.

Is the problem simply that you want to pay less taxes?

[gs17]

> casue a disproportionate amount of wear & tear on the roads vs ICE vehicles

If it was, it would be based on vehicle weight and distance driven. Where I am, at least, it's simply a tax on efficiency.

[vel0city]

No, I just want to pay a fair amount of taxes. Honestly the gas taxes should be increased or we should move to a tax structure where it's mileage, weight, and emissions based.

Paying 3x the same taxes while having less externalities isn't fair.

[caseysoftware]

As I've cited elsewhere on this thread:

> With that information, the British newspaper calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars.

Ref: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/bevs-could-also-damage-ro...

If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car in the externalities of road wear & tear.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" is at most 25% higher in a "damage per mile equivalent" but could be as little as 6% using the averages.

If your actual mileage is over 15625/year, then you're paying less than the equivalent.

What's your annual mileage?

[vel0city]

27 isn't 35 no matter how many times you say it is.

> If your actual mileage is over 15625/year, then you're paying less than the equivalent.

The average is less than that by a decent bit, so more than half of US cars are paying more even with your unproven, contorted math based on some estimates done once in the 70s and never really looked into closely again.

It's also assuming the difference in weight. The closest hybrid I would have bought instead is only like 100kg lighter than my EV. And it gets like 40mpg, better than 35mpg.

It would also mean semi trucks should pay like 20,000x more in registration fees. Does this make sense?

> What's your annual mileage?

Less than 15k on that car (like most people), so even with your assumed math it's overpaying.

[rjrjrjrj]

12-15k miles in a Ford SuperDuty is equivalent to how far in a gas Civic? I suspect that driver isn't being charged accordingly.

[loeg]

You keep repeating it, but it's reductive at best and incorrect as a general assumption.

[notatoad]

it's pretty silly to have a tax that incentivizes the opposite behaviour to what you want. registration surcharges benefit the people who drive the most, at the expense of the people who drive the least.

if you're trying to pay for wear and tear on the roads, or reduce congestion, making people feel like they have to "get their moneys worth" on the registration surcharge really isn't helping.

[bestnameever]

> Heavier users of the road ways end up contributing more to the maintenance of the public good.

Heavier users aren't causing the damage though. Heavy vehicles like busses and semi's cause the most damage.

[analog31]

I'm not sure that use taxes really support road maintenance, at least in my state. The reason is that money is fungible, and the income from use taxes can be offset by a reduction in support from the general fund.

[tpm]

The UK is creating a new pay-per-mile EV duty from 2028 to fix this.

[jabl]

How are they gathering data about how much you drive?

[tpm]

Apparently there is a yearly car check during which the odometer can be read, and there are other options like entering the data yourself, but the legislation is not yet completely finalised.