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

Agreed.

I was sighting what was mentioned on this historical look back documentary video.

 

Tesla also gets a lot of sales from those that had a BMW, Mercedes, etc., so I don't see it as having the green car mantle like the Prius. I think the early adopter segment of Prius sales moved on to Tesla, but those aren't necessarily green car buyers, and they may have moved on to a Leaf, Volt, PiP, or one of the plug in choices available on the West Coast before the Tesla. They also may have really wanted a BEV from the beginning, and the Prius was the closest option at the time.

Going back to your previous post, those that bought a Prius during the time of high gas prices very may well have gone back to the less efficient car they really wanted when fuel prices dropped.

 

I guess I just look at this too simply....
SC has a $60 fee every other year for hybrids like the Prius. $120 for all-electric.
I've averaged slightly under 20k miles annually the last couple years. My Prius is saving me from purchasing about 740 gallons of gas each year compared to the 17mpg vehicle I was driving previously.

That $60 fee has a LONG way to go before it causes me any heartache.

 

Rmay,

Tell me how the liability insurance is twice the price. Twice the price of what?

My liability only premium for my 05 Prius is $118 (6 mo) my 13 Volt is $119 (6 mo) both are 250/500/250 coverage. The only difference in the policy premiums is Comprehensive premium ($100) deductible Prius $78 Vs Volt $161. AM FAM

Fwiw, I’m about to drop the Comp on the Prius 320k mi. Rust is showing in front of the rear wheels. The HV pack is Original and showing signs of degradation.

 

I share your view. The fact that there are some gasoline hybrids that get *worse* MPG than some ICE-only vehicles just goes to show you that that this system is extremely unfair. And it drives me nuts. Why should a drivetrain that is totally gasoline powered (but happens to use it's own generated electricity) be penalized vs. a more traditional gasoline-only drivetrain? Makes no sense...at all...and it is not hard at all to understand. This is what leads me down the road of things like this being politically motivated in one way or another.

BEVs and PHEVs are another story altogether ( i.e. - external electricity source )...and this system 'kind of' makes sense. However, the system as a whole is flawed and needs to be fixed ( and I have no idea how to do it ).

Luckily, my state (MN) has done the right thing (for now) and has left gasoline hybrids alone. I'm not hopeful for the future though.

 

Many red states have enacted punitive fees against ICE/hybrids (Prii) just last couple of years.
That hurts sales, we just gotta be honest, and is unfair. These new fees are recent years, so I do not think it orginally caused the decline of Prius sales, but it is a new drag on sales. A few states the hybrid fee is as low as $10/year which is wrong-headed but not too bad.

Electric car fees are not quite so bad in most cases (depending on amount of the fee) , because there you get a lot of subsidy money from the gov't and also clearly we lack a mechanism to put road tax on electric cars. Agreed that many BEV advicates have strong resentment but that is politics not unfairness argument.

Wow our elected officials have nothing better to do than think of unfair punitive mandates they want to force on people.to demonstrate their partisan political attitudes. Looks ugly going forward,.

 

Fair is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
Fair would mean that every car of the same size/class pays about the same, for example.
But even with EVs, they are generally much more expensive, thus already have higher sales tax and higher registration fees based on the price of the car. And it could be argued that the big rebates inflate the car prices and thus the registration fees are higher every year due to this. My Model 3 cost at least twice as much as my Prius to register per year in CA.

I'm not complaining; I got triple rebated...federal, state and utility. And I get free fuel at work. But there is no way that any of these EV of hybrid taxes have been enacted in order to try and be "fair" no matter how you define it.

When all cars were gas/diesel it could be argued that the taxes were fair because generally bigger and/or less efficient and/or more driving meant you polluted more and paid more.

Mike

 

OMG those who buy more expensive vehicles deserve discount on road taxes due to higher sales taxes paid?
If you want to see a punitive high annual registration fee based on car value, come see northern Virginia, but I agree that is bad policy I think it terrible for green cars and new car sales. Ca. is mild there but your sales tax is high..

 

No. I'm not arguing "for" that. I'm just saying to the politicians that think it is important to put an extra tax on EVs because their budget is in trouble and want to (wrongly) just say the solution is we need to tax those road-using tax-dodging EV owners; that the loss in gas taxes is small and the gains in other taxes probably more than make up for it (by the math).
So they ought to go back and do their jobs and figure out how to budget better...or get another job where math isn't needed.

Mike

 

I see there are parallel discussions on this topic. And I some of my screeds were quoted at the beginning of this one. Just to keep everyone on the same page, please reference the other discussion "Wisconsin Hybrid Tax- is it legal?" in this same forum "Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News" for some additional current and critical (at least in my opinion) information. I don't think either of these discussions get tons of traffic, but every bit helps...

B

 

Now that I can put in links...please consider continuing this discussion in that parallel thread at Wisconsin Hybrid Tax- is it legal?

B