Bill to remove the EV tax credit, and actually add a tax for EVs

He is just stating something that is already a reality especially for working poor and people on the fringes of society.

In my state a very large percentage of cars are simply driven without registration, after insurance became mandatory and plates got more expensive the problem expanded.
Police have been victim of budget cuts and no longer sit on every highway corner like they used to, to catch everyone doing it and some even look the other way when they know the reason why.

My own uncle drove 10 years in Michigan without license plates, insurance or a valid license .
He said it was too expensive.

The solution is something less avoidable, automatic and monthly, large annual fees on folks driving $300 cars don’t work real well.

Gas tax is unavoidable and very cheap to collect, although not perfect a consistent reasonable consumption tax rolled into an EV owners existing monthly bill is best or topping it onto annual registration in the case they have none (but again likely to be abused in that case)

I already know a couple folks who cancelled their EV registration to protest the tax here and thus far are getting away with it, so I guess this needs to be well thought out.

But my question always is, why are we worrying about collecting tax from under 3000 cars out of 7 million on the road?

I don’t think taxing the under 3000 EVs out of 7 million cars is even needed or should even be discussed and I’m guessing this will continue to be the case in many areas for 10 or 20 years.
This is sort of a Koch conspiracy theory that EV owners aren’t paying their fair share, my electric bill some months is 80% taxes, so it’s not like I’m not already paying a fair amount of tax on electricity, the entire discussion to me is sort short sighted and stupid, divide and conquer at work making people believe we must pay more tax because we aren’t paying the right tax earmarked for a specific budget.

EVs in my area sell in single digits on a monthly basis, it costs more to specially tax these individuals than it makes in revenue and the BEV tax collapsed the local market, the same way Georgia killed its EV market.

Road Tax is sort a moot point now if no one buys any EVs because of it.

 

Drop the weight part, and just go with miles. The difference between a compact car and full size SUV in wear on a road is tiny when looking at a road designed to support 18ton tractor trailers. Freeze and thaw cycles do more damage than in that difference.

There are Sonic owners that are unplugging the OnStar GPS antenna to keep just GM from tracking them. At this time, I would bet on there being more tax cheats than plug ins on the road.

I favor a simple miles based tax for cars, but I have only owned cars in states with regular inspects, so odometer readings were already being recorded. I do think it is insane to simply trust the entire driving public to keep their cars in safe operating condition in regards to states that don't have inspections, but they might take odometer readings for property taxes. GPS systems being tested in some states have increased costs in monitoring, with some tax revenue going to a third party for profits.

Keep the fuel taxes. Lower the fuel price, and people just buy less efficient vehicles. I'd even support raising them. As pointed out, plug ins are paying taxes on the electricity they use from the grid. Perhaps we'll need a system for those with home solar, but that is far in the future. A tax just targeting plug ins with cause more harm than good at this point.

 

3,000 EVs?

People in this forum used to argue passionately that hybrids justified special tax breaks because of (insert notion reason here) but now the idea of giving tax kickbacks to a wireless car seems to be a little less worth fighting for - and that's only over the last 5 years or so!

Like I've always said....BEVs will have reached economic viability when you don't have to bribe people to buy them.
After that?
The honeymoon will be over with and they're going to start having to pay their fair share, and since the median income for BEV drivers places them firmly in the "top ten percent" of wage earners (probably closer to top 5-percent!!!) this is a complex socioeconomic equation.

As far as the road use tax?
There is no completely fair system.

A mileage tax collected by the state gets pretty close unless you're one of the people that live in one of those itty-bitty, county sized states in New England and you have to split the mileages.

 

...out of 7 million? Guessing that's a Wisconsin state total; can't vouch for accuracy in any case.

 

As of Dec 2017, there were 765,000 plug ins in the US.
There are 264 million cars.

 

Yes Wisconsin has very few EVs and about the same # of plug ins
Pluggable cars (in general) are still under 5000 statewide

Exact number below.

Wisconsin Electric Vehicle Tax - 300MPG.org

And Wisconsin is not unique
35 of the States of Union have no appreciable number of BEVs on the road.

Many of the states with no EV presence also have the most vocal support for BEV taxes.

Keyboard courage I guess and good politics

 

You need to make sure to qualify that number also,

That number has always included PIPs and NEVs which in many cases don’t really belong in that metric

 

I thought the term plug in included them, or at least the PHEVs.

 

Ha, thanks for this post. I was just starting to get curious if the count included everything with a plug? Yellow excavators with block heaters, airport tugs, houseboats with shore power... Somebody could get creative there.

 

Emissions free, baby!!! (**)



(**) Except when on shore power.....and NOT actually SUPPLYING power to shore!

OK.....and except for some "emissions" not covered by the recruiting posters......

 

It actually is a creative metric as “cumulative EV sales” is starting to become somewhat meaningless in 2018.

When I investigated the previous version of that metric (circa 2015) I found it was wildly off.

My guess without wasting a week of my life is the number of “registered and driving “ EVs is around 400,000 you can argue I’m wrong but that is much closer to reality.

This number is similar to the 10,000 EVs sold number used by the GOP in my state when only a tad north of 2000 are registered on the road here.

 

Part of the gas tax goes to a fund to help gas station owners clean up leaking gas tanks. Should EV drivers be forced to help pay those costs? Should gas drivers only pay a miles tax and not pay for environmental ruin? It's complicated, and I don't trust our politicians to come up with a fair plan.

 

Pay fixed tax for road usage is not reflecting how many miles you drive per year.

 

Are you saying 765,000 plug-ins on the road still or just sold?
We do not hear too much about how many plug-ins are no longer alive and kicking, but one stat I heard had me thinking quite a few now off the road.

Wow that's a stretch, isn't it? I think you are saying some states, probably including Virginia, have a very small element of the state gaso tax that goes to environmental clean-up. I share your concern that our political system often does not arrives at the ideal solution, but we are stuck with that outcome. We can be vocal concerned citizens to help a little. That small fee is a very fine point but you could make the argument locally that you feel plug-ins should not be assessed for clean-up fees. But also most of those clean-up issues probably originate from years ago.

 

Notice any boarded-up gas stations lately?
Not-so-lately?

There was a seismic shift in EPA regs for UST's or underground storage tanks sometime back in the 2000's that required significant upgrades to USTs for monitoring. Unfortunately, this left many mom and pop gas stations with the option of placing new tanks above ground with diking, or doing a bunch of diggy-dirt work on their old tanks.
I run 7 sites (currently) with 5 stationary diesel generators and the level of paperwork required to keep these sites in compliance is non-trivial.
I thank a kind and benevolent GOD every time I have to perform routine maintenance checks none of my sites have UST's.
Some of my co-workers are not so lucky!!!

As I said.....these costs are VERY non-trivial, and my company happily has spent whatever sum is required to stay in compliance because it's just the right thing to do.
OK.....and because having a 10,000 gallon petrol tank leaking can be rather expensive.
We have a 1-800-number for any environmental (or safety, or regulatory, or legal....) issue that I had to call once for a very minor fuel issue that I felt required a response that was outside my depth band, and the response was immediate and robust!!!
No employee to my knowledge has EVER been questioned in the least for popping a flare for ANY problem no matter how trivial it might seem at the time.
The line forms on ME when it comes to criticizing my beloved employer, but they're scrupulously honest when it comes to environmental compliance.
Since our national communications infrastructure REQUIRES power security, it's not AT ALL a stretch to say that a portion of your phone/cable/internet bills pay for UST management.

Fortunately or unfortunately, regulations require monitoring.
This means that a portion of state and federal tax money goes into compliance.
ALL of it.
The idea that the BEV community considers themselves to be exempt from that portion of keeping all of our ground water clean is probably not widely held.....ESPECIALLY by the BEV community, which always takes justifiable pride in being out on the sharp end of the stick, both environmentally and social-economically.

 

One time, I went to a plug-in event in North Jersey. 38 miles round trip, $10.30 toll. Parking was $7.00 and there was another $22.75 to get into the building where the facilities were, since no port-a-johns provided for the event. I think government's getting plenty of money out of us, as it is.

 

why doesn't a pip qualify as a plug in?

 

All the plug-ins were charged the fees, that's why we don't go there anymore.

 

That is incredibly lame and disappointing.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Considering small normal economy cars sometimes pay $38 a year road tax and
start stop equipt cars are considered mild hybrids it is even more so.