[jaredwiener]

Zeroing out the gas tax aside, the EV tax makes _some_ sense.

Gas taxes provide the revenue that help pay for road maintenance and the rest of the infrastructure that cars use. Gas taxes made sense -- the more you drive, the more you chip in to keep the road system going.

That infrastructure still needs to exist, and will still cost money to maintain -- but if fewer people are buying gas, then the funds will dry up, even as usage stays relatively the same.

[onesociety2022]

Most of the states already have an EV tax. For instance, WA charges $225/yr for registering an EV. The issue is unlike gas tax, it’s not based on actual usage. And the flat fee they’re charging is way higher than the gas tax anyone driving a gas car with avg fuel consumption would pay for driving the national average of annual mileage.

[tedd4u]

I pulled some numbers and I get $239 for the average car and average use based on [1], [2], [3]. Using the same numbers the Federal part would be an additional $79. Do you have different numbers for Washington state? Like, do people drive less than 10,952 / year or have more efficient gas vehicles?

[1] WA gas tax $0.554 (Federal gas tax is an additional $0.184. California is $0.7092.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...

[2] Average fuel efficiency 25.4 mpg. https://gocarlife.com/average-gas-mileage-for-a-car/

[3] 10,952 average passenger + light duty miles driven per year. https://truedrivingcost.com/articles/how-many-miles-american...

[quickthrowman]

The math doesn’t work out very well for Washington, and I’m leaving out federal gas tax in the math below.

Washington has a gas tax of 55.6 cents per gallon. The tax on 405 gallons of gas in Washington is $225

Average mileage driven in US looks to be around 14,000 miles (plus or minus 500 miles), which means you’d need a car that averages 34.5 miles per gallon to pay less in gasoline tax than you’d pay in EV tax.

[seanmcdirmid]

I drive around 5000 miles a year and still pay $225/year for my EV. However, Washington is moving to a mileage based system for EVs, hybrids, and high economy cars. They are just going to go by odometer readings, which is about the only way it will work in the USA.

[odysseus]

And they’re planning to charge 2.6 cents per mile, per https://wstc.wa.gov/studies-surveys/road-usage-charge/

So that’s $364 per year for 14k miles. Vs. the $225 currently paid as an electrification fee.

[seanmcdirmid]

It’s capped at $225, at least during the pilot.

[tedd4u]

Do you know how they plan to get the odometer data? Thanks.

[cwmoore]

Some states require annual vehicle inspections.

[seanmcdirmid]

The honor system I think, Washington doesn’t require annual inspections.

[loeg]

Washington doesn't.

[mjevans]

Offhand, the maintenance costs are something similar to a scalar that is the square of a vehicle's weight.

Rather than indirectly taxing via fuel it would be more proper to do so by said maintenance scalar (weight based) and the distance driven as the inputs. Presumably paid at the time of registration renewal or at vehicle inspections.

That sounds like a lot of infra change to setup, so there should be plenty of planning and cutover time.

[delichon]

That shifts the costs onto shipping companies, a more concentrated and coordinated interest with better lobbyists than the general public.

[entropicdrifter]

Sounds like it's a fairer system that would be harder to corrupt. You're right, it'll never be implemented because we're totally infested by regulatory capture.

[back7co]

This unfortunately is flawed logic if it's intended to tax EV's as it would target semi trucks and heavy duty trucks more than EV's. https://ctr.utk.edu/electric-vehicles-damage-roads/

[nostrademons]

It seems like the point isn't that it's intended to tax EVs, it's intended to shift the cost of road maintenance onto the vehicles that cause most of the road maintenance needs. Basically, it's aligning incentives so that firms bear the true cost of their actions.

If that results in taxing semi and heavy duty trucks, that may be a good thing. A lot of the wear & tear on highways comes from trucking; if it shifts a lot of that truck traffic to rail, it likely would significantly reduce the total cost to society.

[marssaxman]

Why shouldn't the vehicles which do the most damage pay the most tax?

[nayuki]

It's not flawed logic though. If, say, a mile of highway costs $1 million and it needs some expensive repaving/reconstruction every 20 years, who should bear the cost?

The current model is roughly that all of society shoulders the cost roughly equally per person, regardless of how much they use that road or how much they drive in general. But clearly, some people derive more benefit from the road than others. The guy who doesn't drive derives 0 units of benefit. The gal who drives on it once a year derives 1 unit of benefit. The daily commuter gets 100 units of benefit. For the trucker moving $10M of goods a year on that road, their company gets 3000 units of benefit. So in a sense, the people who drive less are subsidizing the people who drive more - kind of like going to a fixed-price buffet dinner (people who eat more are subsidized by people who eat less).

Targeting more of the cost burden on heavy goods vehicles isn't an issue in my opinion. The thing is, that highway costs $1M no matter what. The only thing we can decide as a society is how to split that cost among the people. In the current way, I think the truck is underpriced and is doing more than its fair share of damage. If we change the prices so that car drivers pay less (not zero) and the truck driver pays more, that's okay. The truck's costs get passed onto consumer, such that people who buy more goods pay more road tax - exactly as intended.

Taking a step back, I think a lot of (not all) problems in society are a result of mispricing - often for political, special-interest, and/or "feel-good" reasons. When people pay less than the true cost, they over-consume. When people pay more than the true cost, they under-consume.

[seanmcdirmid]

Done that way, personal vehicles are barely going to be a blip on maintenance, but keep in mind this also pays for new construction as well as other non-pavement traffic infrastructure.

[turtlebits]

States already charge EV registration fees for lost gas tax revenue.

[stavros]

Are EVs that widespread in the US already that you're at the stage where you need to move from incentivising EV purchases to normalising their taxation?

[Steltek]

Absolutely not. I'm in a deep blue state, in a dense urban area well served by charging infra. EV registration is like 10% here.

[BobaFloutist]

I think future proofing taxation now rather than waiting until enough people have EVs to try to resist it isn't a bad call, and can easily live in parallel with wanting to subsidize broader adoption.

[stavros]

But then if it's that, why isn't it a general road tax per vehicle weight/class, and an extra EV subsidy on top?

[seanmcdirmid]

Yes, and they have been for a few years now. I don’t know of a state that doesn’t charge higher tab fees for EVs in 2026. Maybe Alaska?

[stavros]

> Are EVs that widespread in the US already

> Yes, and they have been for a few years now.

Apparently they're 1.9% of all vehicles currently on the road, do you consider that to be "that widespread"? I was aiming for 51%.

> I don’t know of a state that doesn’t charge higher tab fees for EVs in 2026

That doesn't mean EVs are widespread, it just means states want to favor ICEs more than EVs.

[seanmcdirmid]

I’m pretty sure the “every other car is a Tesla” phenomena is localized, but still widespread in the sense that it was 0% not too long ago.

[angoragoats]

I own an EV in Massachusetts and I’m not aware of any extra EV fees of any sort here. The only EV-specific thing the DMV even offers is an EV-only license plate, and the bi-annual registration fee for that plate is the same as a standard passenger vehicle plate ($60).

There’s a map here: https://www.ncsl.org/transportation/special-registration-fee...

Looks like most of the northeast, plus AK, FL, AZ, NM, and NV are in the same boat.

[bediger4000]

No, but the oil companies don't want EVs, so Republicans don't want EVs.

[jerlam]

The EV tax was only implemented because it's easy to implement both politically and practically, not because it's the best solution.

A better tax like others are suggesting based on mileage, weight, or usage (tolls) would have to apply to all road users, and require more rules and enforcement and be more difficult.

[cherry_tree]

Why not tax tires?

[TurdF3rguson]

A disincentive to replace your tires? What could go wrong.

[cherry_tree]

Yeah because today tires are free for anyone with a tread depth of less 3mm, of course.

Realistically tires and brakes are already subject to sales taxes and are not subject to review at annual vehicle inspections. We probably should enforce that cars on the roads have working brakes and tires but that’s seemingly beside the point of how we pay for the maintenance of the roads.

[dzhiurgis]

Can't save them all.

[xethos]

We're discussing a country that bases "Safety ratings" by how well they protect the driver, and ignore every other person outside the vehicle - meaning the people least likely to be hurt here are the ones trying to cheat the tax