Featured Illinois Bill Proposes $1000/ Year EV Registration

Now the Gov. is behind it too. Uh oh!

Illinois governor eyes $41.5 billion plan to rebuild state's infrastructure - Reuters

 

Sounds a little like Pennsylvania who made a large hike in gaso taxes a few years ago.
We try to fuel up in MD now before we get to PA. And even though NJ raised it's gaso taxes, PA upped them even more than NJ so I guess NJ is still a relative bargain.

 

If the tax was a one time or only on cars of a s few years old, it could be said to be targeting the wealthy, but it's not. It also will be levied against a used Leaf that someone paid $10k for.

NJ is cheaper, but the difference is smaller than before either state increased their tax.
I don't fill up in NJ because I prefer pumping the gas myself, and I want the roads I drive 90% of the time in good repair.

 

Sigh ... and that, folks, is the nature of taxation. But back up for a quick minute. The tax is surrogate for gas taxes that serve as road use tax. The value of the car is not distinguished in the levy of gas taxes. Used crap cans don't pay a lower rate than a new Lambo. Taxes are never fully equitable.

 

You had just argued that this Illinois BEV fee was high because the higher relative cost(ignoring incentives and depreciation) of BEVs was higher so it targeted the wealthier. As a counter to the point that this flat fee is higher than what most ICE cars pay in fuel taxes over a year.

 

No; do not pass PHY101, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

P = F / A, where--
P is pressure
F is force
and A is area

In this case, F = mg, the mass of the vehicle multiplied by acceleration due to gravity, and A = size of the contact patch. Tire pressure has nothing to do with it; tire pressure exerts the same force per area upward (on the wheel rim) as downward (on the tire tread), and only serves to transmit the force of the vehicle mass to the road through the contact patch area. Change the mass of the vehicle or change the size of the contact patch, and you'll change the pressure exerted; change the tire pressure, and you won't except insofar as it changes the size of the contact patch.

If you don't believe me, then let all the air out of your Prius' tires and roll it over your foot. You'll learn really quickly that the tire pressure doesn't change the force that has to be transmitted to the road.;-)

 

(red added in quote) Ah, but I didn't say force, did I?

I really did mean to say "pressure on the road", which does change, insofar as it changes the size of the contact patch, which is the denominator in your formula for pressure.

Put the women walking on the hardwood floor in #93 in flats, and they will weigh the same amount, and transmit the same force to the floor. But they will not trash it.

 

the fee should be 3x as high so we can maybe drop the tax fees of the 10-ton big rigs.
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99% of drivers gotta pee - in ½ of that 500 mile range, so that's hardly a criteria.
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I don't like decisions like this.
And keep in mind, I currently own a regular ICE vehicle.

But IMO, we need to encourage the creation and embracing of new technology and new transportation options. That includes Hybrids and EV's.
For most, buying an EV comes at a higher price than one could probably buy a similar on the road serviceable regular ICE vehicle. So owners have already paid a premium to become a EV adopter.

How about encouraging this, instead of adding more cost, more financial penalty to being in what is still a minority of owners that want to embrace alternatives to full fossil fuel usage?

Just from a political standpoint, don't in one breath tell me how we must look towards alternatives, and develop new technologies, but with the next breath implement huge fee's for owning and operating these same vehicles.

 

Nobody wants to admit that the problem has less to do with the energy source/pollution output and more to do with the private ownership & individual usage model.

There, I said it.

 

yes - in days of yor that was true ........ but the most commonly dumped car when people buy a Tesla has been the Prius - for the past few years.
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Why not? All is fair in Politics.
I thiink you mean scientifically do not tell me one thing and do another.

 

the pendulum has swung both ways. Old enough here, do you remember when it was the power of Mayor Daley that kept you in a secure job, but if you are opposed, it was at your own peril. That's the problem when both sides are polarized & e/side describes the other side as either beleaving that everyone - one & all - should get stuff for free, no matter, & the other side is described by their opponents as, if they don't work, they don't eat.

Maybe
Most jurisdictions allow a tractor semi to exert as much as 10 tons per axle (so presum weigh is evenly dispersed among 4 tires - 2 pair of dual tires) ..... that's still 2½ tons per tire ..... yes ... 5,000Lbs, across each tires contact point ..... estimate liberally that contact patch is 2" wide by 12" - or 24²". Back of the napkin, that's easily 208Lbs per sq".
You'd have to have almost a 350 lb bike rider on a heavy 50 lb bike to exert a similar per square stress on the asphalt or concrete.
That's why tractor trailer Riggs pay the highest road taxes per mile, as they rightly should. Even so, those taxes ultimately get passed on to all of us, the consumer.
If every action has an equally significant reaction, and you don't charge Road tax to EV's, you have a greater quantity of gas left over for the other gassers to burn. That means gae prices drop supply & demand) & as you see now, Gas burning users are mostly in land barge SUV's & Pickups, which means the gas is still being burned, and they are still collecting road taxes. Yeah that's still not enough.
½ century old song still holds up. From the rock group, The Beatles for those too young to remember;

The psalmist, some 3,000 years ago wrote, "there's nothing new under the sun"
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No I mean politically.
Because it's not Scientists that are implementing, and/or promoting the laws that result in the fees and taxes.
It's the politicians.

 

politicians, like guns or attorneys, are neither intrinsically evil nor good, it's the motivation of the parties behind them.
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I'm not being that general.
I would say, a politician....is an individual, and therefore like any individual, can be evil, good, or most likely...mortal, and subject to all the strengths and weaknesses of any individual.

What I'm saying in this specific situation is that I don't like these implemented or advanced fee's or taxes that attach penalty to the ownership and usage of alternative technology vehicles.
And in every case that I know, the implementation of those fee's and taxes get's advanced by politicians NOT scientists.

As a generalization I would say we live in an age where specific science/pseudo science and masquerading opinion. is manipulated to promote general political agenda. But that's a entirely different can of worms, I'd rather not open today.

 

I agree with your complaint, but it likely isn't the same politicians backing these high EV fees as the ones that support the incentives.