Featured NC to add hybrid fee

Now is the time to act.
First of all, make sure you are correct that gasoline hybrids are the target. if Plugins are the target, that is harder argument because they do use an alternate fuel.
Make sure your democrats/Gov understand the differences in these vehicles, and give them the hybrid Highlander example.
Let me know if I can help.
You can point out Virginia killed the hybrid portion of the tax, but we do have a small fee for EV's.

 

Tdi, something to reconsider? I thought they were put off the market, for the worse reasons.

 

I’m in the NC PIEDMONT TRIAD. I’ve heard rumors, but nothing definitive.

At issue is that more efficient cars reduce total gas tax revenue available for roads. As we transition to alternative energy sources, a completely different funding model will need to emerge.

IMHO, that model needs to be factored to include annual mileage and gross vehicle weight per axel, but HOW is a matter for policy wonks.


— Bill Burkholder

 

In general Republicans nationally are asking for change to miles-driven road tax.
They do not feel it is fair to punish for example rural drivers who need pick-up trucks with higher gaso taxes per gallon basis. Also they do not agree with taxing lower MPG SUV's more, which per gallon taxation does.

I have no fairness problem with miles driven tax, but selectively penalizing hybrids in the meantime is not a valid or fair work-around. Penalizng hybrids means killing off sales of hybrids and that is bad thing for USA.

Dems do not like miles driven tax so much, so they may be OK with sending hybrids to the wolves as a sacrifice to the political gods, but Dems are your best hope.

 

I would probably recommend something like Prius, I mean aside from fuel savings I have never replaced brakes at 185k miles.
But you could get a Corolla or a Corolla Hybrid. Hybrids is going to cost you $3000 more, and if you have $100/yr tax that's another +$1000 hybrid penalty after 10-years. So to pay off that extra $4000 it helps if you put on a lot miles per year and hold for 10-years. My 2006 is 13-years old and paid off like a slot machine. YMMV.

 

A big question for a per mile tax is in how are the miles tracked. An odometer reading is simple, and some states are already doing this on a regular schedule, but many per mile tax propositions want to put a GPS tracker in the car. That adds to the cost of collecting the tax, and in many cases, perhaps all, the system would be run by a private company, so could be corporate welfare. So a politician could be against it based on implementation.

 

That's part of the reason why Virginia (repubs) wanted to keep gaso taxes low, and go instead to higher sales taxes instead of gasoline taxes, to pay for roads. And the repubs also had an opinion on which parts of the state should be charged more sales tax (my part, which is blue, of course). As a sacrifice to the politcal gods, the blue side accepted this compromise. At the same time, we also taxed hybrids but later killed that part of the plan.

It was a tax increase under repub leadership, not well done, but pretty big repub tax increase. Which is hard to do. These were their terms for agreeing to increase road taxes.

 

Yep it is death to used hybrid market, if they do it, which is not a slam dunk I assume.
I guess repubs hate hybrids because they sip gasoline and cheat on taxes, and dems hate hybrids because they sip gasoline and gasoline is the public enemy No.1. We are the Rodney Dangerfield of car technology (in America).

 

You sound confused.
There are hybrids "HEV" like Prius that do not plug in. There is no tax credit except Wash DC.
There are plug-in hybrids "PHEV" like Toyota Prime (Prius Plug-in) those get $4500-$7500 federal tax credit (new) and may qualify for state incentives.
Then of course full EV is $7500 fed credit, except Tesla and GM may be hitting the credit phase-out number of sales.

So normally people are buying plug-in if they want to get the tax credits. I am not sure about the Hyundai models, being more a Prius expert myself.

 

There are other ways to raise revenue for road funding besides just the gas tax. Slapping a "registration fee" penalty on hybrids is less about fairness than an easy target for revenue.

The truth is that there is a whole lot more room to raise the gas tax. Legislatures are trying to penalize hybrids because they don't want to do the most obvious solution and keep raising the gas tax till they get to Canada/Europe prices.

 

I would better stick with a hybrid with twice the mileage, considering shop costs of repairing a tdi, which is less reliable, even with manual gearbox.
And pollution side, win-win.

Regarding taxes, do make calculations properly, lower running costs can easily absorb the difference.

 

Could also be a serious privacy/data leak. At best, an outside party could hack the administering company. The data could be redistributed, destroyed or taken hostage, endangering significant tax revenue to the state. And chances are that company would never have any liability for such a breach, so there would be little motivation to harden their systems to such an attack. At worst, the administering company could have something in their contract with the state to allow them to resell the data themselves.

 

I don't live in WI or NC so for me these new tax laws are not effecting me per se. But, I believe it is tantamount to criminal that governments should be penalizing early adopters of the gasoline high mileage vehicles and non gasoline using vehicles. I myself wouldn't even call new owners early adopters any longer.
Even so, adding extra expense to ownership of low and non gasoline vehicles is a huge waste of every taxpayers money and time by our governments. (of and for the people)
Instead these governments should be reducing the costs of ownership of these types of vehicles.

These types of regulations are pandering to the gasoline lobbies at best. The gasoline lobbies should be curtailed and or outlawed like a lot of other industrial entertainment military economic lobbies.

Granted there isn't anything perfect in this world, except perhaps nature itself and civili-nation has come up with some real dueses in the name of human habit-ation.

 

Unfort, elected officials can tax whatever they want to, so it is not criminal.

but I feel US Govt should establish guidelines, including no extra state taxes on vehicles that only use gasoline.
Non-discrimination policy of some type.
Then highway funds could be held back from the states that insist on penalizing hybrids.

Re: Plug-ins: Also the US govt should also develop policy for plug-in taxation by states, which up to now includes a little extra fee to make up for the taxes normally placed on gasoline. Many plug-in advocates are opposed to equal taxation, but let Plug-In Amefica come to compromise with Congress on fair policy, and states have to stick with it and not go over it.

 

I would be careful what you wish for as to getting the Federal Government involved. Many in the Federal Government would have no problem putting their hands in your wallet or your wife's purse to redistribute your money to people who they feel deserve it more. With free college for all and free medical care for all the government will have to institute massive tax burdens on its citizens to pay for these "free" benefits if they become a a reality . This isn't even considering what you and I will have to pay if the Federal Government forgives ( passes the loans values on as a tax burden to others) for student loans!

 

I still can't wrap my head around this whole tax the hybrid idea. Hybrid owners already pay more sales tax because of the higher cost for a hybrid. If it's a plug-in, they're paying tax for electricity usage as well. Now don't tell me that none of those taxes go toward road maintenance; where does the gas tax go? It does not fund only road repairs.

Taxing hybrids/PHEVs/BEVs is penalizing people for trying to be efficient/environmentally conscious and is just wrong. Why not add a tax to ICE only cars to fight terrorism?

There has to be a better way. But I don't trust our lobbied politicians to figure out a fair deal.

 

Here is Toyota USA recommendation to legislators (old info, so I am not sure if it still holds)
(1) Hybrids using 100% gaso should not be taxed extra (which is strictly discrimimnation against the hardware design choice)
(2) Plug-ins OK to charge a small fee if desired to compensate for road taxes avoided

I realize some plug-in advoctaes dispute Item (2)