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

large doesn't necessarily have to be the enemy - there actually ARE some large vehicles that get over 100MPGe.



Our nearly 3 ton ride recently drove over 1,600 miles from Cali through Utah & back on the equivalent of 17 gallons of gasoline - some of our fuel supplied via PV, & a lot of it via renewables.

was this what was meant, by saying you were generalizing?

Cali just tacked on a fee to 'make-up' for "claimed" efficiency/lost road tax revenue, the ~ 1%- 4% who get blamed now for road tax revenue shortfalls. Nothing wrong for vehicles paying their fair share to maintain roads - however most efficient cars are lighter than ours, so the road damage is not necessarily being assigned to those doing the damage. But ...... since when do our regulations have to make sense.

Riddle me this - How are non-renewables to be conserved, while the push comes to use more of them because taxes are attached to them - & resellers reap profits from them, & national debts/economies similarly depend on using them up.
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i didn't come here for questions, i came for answers!

 

Oh !
ok . . . .



howz that ...

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Ha! I had a hunch that comment might 'offend' someone.

Ok...ok....large diesel-spewing pickup trucks and SUVs....Better?

 

Do registration fees pay for things like road maintenance? Don't heavier cars typically cause more wear & tear to roads? Shouldn't a vehicle's weight determine the registration fees? Even though there may be some logic to this idea, it seems just as punitive as requiring hybrid owners to pay more for registration. I think an extra gas tax is the only fair method: you want to drive more then you need to buy more gas - you don't like the cost per gallon then get a more efficient vehicle. Taxing hybrids will only repel people away from more efficient cars, which is not where we want to go regardless of the price of gas (environment, geo-politics, etc.). As plug-ins & BEVs become more prevalent this entire approach becomes flawed but we are far from that saturation point...

 

I don't want this to get into an entire debate on how the system should be changed.
Someone else can take up the mantle of changing the system.

Working within the current (dysfunctional) system will likely be the easier path.

 

This isn't true if you're ALEC/the Koch brothers/Big Oil and their allied Republicans.

It becomes easier to understand what's going on when you know that a very large fraction of the value of the oil companies is related to the amount of oil reserves that they own. If those oil reserves can't be burned, they are virtually worthless. And...the rest of the world is getting closer and closer to severely restricting how much oil can be burned, with a goal of near zero by about 2050 or so. If that happens, the reduction in their stock prices would be catastrophic.

So, with impending doom about 30 years away, they are focused on getting as much of their oil burned as possible, right now. That means they desperately need to strongly discourage anything fuel-efficient - hybrids, solar power, electric vehicles.

 

ok - well so much for respecting the op's freshly posted wishes ....

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Not talking about how to change anything - just about why Wisconsin, etc. is doing this. It really has nothing to do with state revenue.

 

In Massachusetts we have an excise tax which is based on the value of the vehicle (that value is determined by god knows who, but it's nothing like Blue book, etc.) and is levied by towns. Towns use that for roads, schools, etc. My 1993 and 1998 vehicles stayed at the $65/year for a long time as they do not depreciate for the sake of this tax below that. New cars are taxed the most (this is why it is way cheaper here to buy a practically new car of last MY), old the least. It makes no sense at all, but at least we have no penal system set up for efficient vehicles. We do have gas taxes, so the issue of gas being used less and less and needing to make up for it will eventually come up even in our fairly liberal state. I think the way it will go that makes more sense, is taxation based on mileage driven multiplied by some constant representing the duty the vehicle extracts from the road (trucks and buses more, passenger cars less). That would be almost fair unless you do a lot of out of state driving. It's a hard problem to solve and although this Wisconsin thing seems idiotic, something will have to be done to replace the gas tax revenues as the gas (for transportation) fades into history (which, IMO, is only a matter of time).

Hybrids, of course, should be looked at as fuel efficient gas powered cars, which they are. But I would hate for the penal action to include only EVs. That would completely de-motivate the public from adapting them.

 

I would say that if it hasn't passed yet, there could be benefit in reaching out to legislators, still, especially if they're on the fence?

Defeatism before it's passed, because action hasn't been taken yet, is harmful and pointless. Defeatism after action's been taken, if it failed, OK, that's at least understandable.

 

In Virginia, it was the rural repubs with pick-up trucks and covering many miles per day, kind of pissed that gasoline taxes hit them the hardest. So we have very low gaso taxes in the rural areas of Virginia. And some resentment of the hybrids for free HOV (which Va. invented but was mostly stopped by 2006) and also for escaping the higher cost of gasoline. We also have higher sales taxes now in the non-rural areas instead of higher gaso taxes. We are bifurcated 50/50 with Dem/developed areas "agreeing" to extra taxes, rural Repubs believing the developed areas SHOULD be paying the taxes.

 

When it comes to personal vehicles, the extra damage that a heavier might do could be a rounding error. For roads designed to carry commercial trucks, most of the damage done by personal cars is just in them passing over the road to begin with.

 

maybe, maybe not, but what's the harm in letting gas burners pay more taxes for more gallons consumed?

 

As a prius and volt owner, I will be impacted twice. The question will be by how much depending on how they classify the Volt , EV or PHEV. The current legislation is tacking on $75 for hybrids and $100 for EV.

Someone suggested a registration fee be formula based on an Average 25 MPG base rate vehicle using the vehicle EPA estimated mileage in a table formula or calculation rate. This would be a reasonable way to go in order to compensate for higher efficiency standards.

Here are some calculations.

In WI the current standard vehicle registration fee is $75 for autos and light trucks. Special license plates are optional add-on fees.

Using the standard 12,000 mile annual rate at 25 Mpg = 480 gallon of taxed fuel @ $0.309. Which comes to $148.26

If you use $148.26 as the minimum amount of money the state needs to collect per automobile to keep the transportation fund solvent.

Lets see how my current 2005 prius would fair under this formula.

12,000 / 46 mpg = 260.86 gal fuel. x $0.309 = $80.60 fuel tax

$148.26 - $80.60 = $67.65 of fuel tax They didn't collect.

So now they are going to surcharge me. $75 to get that uncollected gas tax due to high efficiency standards.

Thats just for my case. The poor sole that drives a less efficient hybrid will be paying even more overall.

Using the formula calculation I Would just pay $67.65 on top of my registration fee the net base rate difference.

The formula fee would be applicable to All vehicles with EPA fuel mileage over 25 mpg but the added amount would only be the difference between the collected gas tax of vehicle and the base rate $148.26

A vehicle with a 32 mpg average. 12,000 / 32 = 375 gal
x $0.309 = $115.87

148.26 - 115.87 = $32.38

Reg fee would be $75 + $32.38
= $107.38

Keep in mind you don't have the added cost of fuel itself. Thats a positive.

Vehicles with less than 25 mpg would not be surcharged due the fact they pay more fuel tax due to higher consumption.

Hybrids and EVs are unfairly targeted when we now have several Non-hybrids achieving low 40's mpgs

A base mpg formula would spread the cost more evenly.

However it would not capture transient travelers unless the actual gas tax was raised.

That proposed EV fee of $100
Would cheaper than using the base Mpg rate of $148.26 since BEVs by zero gasoline

 

Yes an approach like this was once proposed by a New Hampshire politician, which is "fair" because it does not specifically attack just hybrids. I don't think it was ever adopted, but I am not sure.

 

I'd think the reason something like the Wisconsin law can pass is that there are (comparatively) so few hybrid and electric cars on the road right now. It's a classic "not in my backyard" law, like where new power plants should go. Everyone wants new power plants, but nobody wants them next door. And in this case, the state reps all agreed the state transportation department needs more money, but they don't want too many of their voters getting mad because they have to pay for it. So they pick a relatively small group that is unlikely to lose them the next election and get them to pay, which allows them to say they're increasing highway funding without most of their voters needing to pay for it. It's a political win-win, and the only losers are hybrid and electric owners and the transportation department, since added revenues from the law aren't going to bring in enough to fund what they need.

 

I just look at the bright

I agree. Lets just hope that Wisconsin voters wake up.