Featured Wisconsin yet again moving to add a special tax for Prius hybrids and plug ins

Because when you shift road taxes from the fuel to registration of miles driven, plug ins could end up paying more than the gas burners since they are heavier. The Model S is around a half ton heavier than a Rav4. For roads and bridges designed to carry 10 ton and heavier vehicles, that extra weight between the two isn't going to wear the road out faster. So why give the public the impression that it does by higher taxes for heavier weight when it could disincentivize plug ins in the future?

 

Here is a thought exercise. Imagine a not so distant future (could be as soon as, say 2030) when gas burning vehicles have gone the way of the horse and buggy. How does a state/town/community fund the transportation departments responsible for road repair and maintenance? No gas is being sold, so no gas tax. This is not that far ahead of us, I am sure. The laws will have evolved somehow or we wouldn't have roads to drive on. Well, whatever you can think up in this exercise will have to have a continuum from now to then. If the primary fuel is electricity, then the gas taxes will shift there. This is most certainly where it will go. When the EVs and HEVs become predominant on the roads expect the electricity to go up in price significantly. Also expect the current oil lords to be owning some of that electricity (or perhaps they will go extinct, which I doubt).

 

One of us is confused. I'm saying leave the methodology alone, and let people who use more gas pay more tax. They can choose to continue in that vain, or move to higher mpg vehicles.

 

We could switch to a road tax now, but that will slow the ace of adoption. I doubt that the climate is willing to wait for us.

 

I tell you what though, there is a huge communication issue.
The term "Hybrid" has come to mean PHEV and EV.

I think I might have helped stop Tennessee's proposed hybrid fee in the early stages, I wrote the guy and simply explained that we have HYBRID, PHEV, and EV... and HYBRIDs ain't using no electric, just gasoline. And I explained why it is unfair to single out a car technology just because the word HYBRID is in the title.

In the case of PHEV and EV there is some agreement (Toyota etc say this) a fee is needed to compensate for the gaso. Failure to make this distinction will give unhappy voters with 25 MPG "hybrids" getting dinged for the crime of using the word "hybrid".

>>So the very first public relations step has got to be Definition of Hybrid, and then advise of Toyota et al guidance that hybrids should not be targeted unfairly.

 

Well, if they need extra income from lost gasoline taxes and actually wanted to make the whole thing more fair, they'd just make registration fees universally higher in proportion to the cost of the vehicle. No singling anybody out. Of course, this ruins the perception the politicians are trying to create. But it would be much fairer.

 

Even if Publishers & editors of the various media Outlets there actually wanted to agree with that kind of logic, there's a high probability their advertisers are on the opposite political side of the fence, & hey, why cut your own throat.
.

 

Actually I like the idea of the 'hippy tax' expanding to all vehicles and keep the gasoline tax.

Bob Wilson

 

I think Australia has it all lumped into registration, about $1000/yr per car. The effect this has is no one wants to keep an old car laying around unused, so car owners try get rid of old unused cars. But I don't think we'd see something big like that

 

Easy peasey

This is a tax the other way of thinking folks measure.

What political/philosophical thinking part of the political spectrum drives a other/mixed/electric powered vehicle stereotypically?

What political/philosophical thinking part of the political spectrum is opposed to raising taxes in general?

What political/philosophical thinking part of the political spectrum is proposing this tax on 'the others'?

 

massachusetts accomplishes this through insurance.

 

What do you mean?

 

high insurance rates keep us from 'keeping old cars laying around unused'.

 

Ok. Thanks

 

OK. I'll try this. But first, be realistic. The average car on the road is 11 years old. This means that cars last approximately 22 years. (let's use 20) If 100% of model year 2018 cars were 100% electric we would see a gradual decline of 5% in gas use per year for the next 20 years...UNTIL 2037. In reality this is NOT an emergency since gas usage won't drop that fast. It will be less than 2.5% drop per year until we get new car sales being 50% EV.

Moreover that is only taking into account small cars and trucks. When you consider semi trucks that consume a lot of fuel and drive many more miles per year and pay taxes on the diesel fuel we will see drops in revenue for gas taxes at way less than 5% (max once all new cars are EV) to less than 2.5% when we hit 50% EV. Most likely it will take until 2030 (optimistically) to get new car sales to 50% EV.

So, now that we understand that we only need to replace a ~2% drop in gas taxes per year due to the impact of EV sales (once they reach 50% of sales) we can act slowly and rationally act since this is not the main cause of road repair dollar shortfalls. I'll admit that high mpg HEV and PHEV will also cause a drop...but they still use some gas so their effect, per car is less.

My proposal is to raise gas taxes by 2% for every 2% drop caused by EV sales. (in other words, make up the loss with the tax) until EV sales hit 25% of new car sales. At that point we will have increased gas taxes by maybe 10-20%. Or put another way, if the taxes are 40 cents per gallon it will go up to 44 or 48.
Now you implement a per mile tax on all non-gas cars that is approximately revenue neutral on a per mile basis for what a similar EV and non-EV car would consume. At that point there will be enough data on EVs to compute this easily. Once a year you get your odometer read (or the DMV guesses for you) and you pay with your registration...maybe $100 or $150. When you sell the car your total miles paid and the odometer reading are verified and you pay a fine for being too far off.

Mike

 

According to Dr. Brian O'Leary, there is a future of new energy which is not extracted from the earth, or even from wind or solar. We live in a sea of energy that will eventually replace all of our current energy technologies. Dr. O'Leary has visited numerous people who have proof-of-concept level working devices.

The financial impact of new energy is such that the current suppliers are doing everything in their power to suppress such developments. Thus the technology is essentially blocked in areas that currently pay for conventional energy. Don't look for it in Europe or America. The most promising developed country that is interested is Japan. But it could come from anywhere with the ability to tinker with the technology.

When a new vehicle comes equipped with a "permanent battery", taxes based on periodic fuel purchases are not going to work. No gas, no hydrogen, not even electricity from the grid will be required. I suggest that roads be paid for on a usage basis. The odometer is a simple measure, but future technology will make much more accurate measurement of usage. A "billing ECU" could be developed that recorded miles traveled on various classes of roadway. The resulting data would be uploaded to the tax authorities, or perhaps billed directly to a FastTrak account.

More on Dr. O'Leary's work is available at Dr. Brian O'Leary

 

Great!
If he has this, then start by making some small "permanent batteries" for power tools, phones, laptops etc.
Imagine how much Apple could sell an iPhone for if it never had to be recharged. Probably $2000.
If someone really had this "magical" technology, think if the bidding war between Apple and Samsung.
It would be worth billions, just for this, today.

Mike

 

Ford actually showed a concept car in the 1950s based on what I guess you could call a "permanent battery"...



Of course, that "permanent battery" was a nuclear reactor, and you'd be batshit insane to actually put that into a actual car on the road. Or, put that into the hands of just anyone, really. "Permanent batteries" are a pipe dream.