As they suspend the gas tax… Hmmm
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They don’t even pick up their blown tires anymore because they are on such tight schedules they can’t stop, I had to avoid two in the middle of the damn highway yesterday. I contend we need a separate system for trucks, or go back to rail, there are just way too many trucks on the road today tearing up everything.
Big fuckin trucks provide a valuable service to society, though. Even if we had better rail, big fuckin trucks would still be a massive contributor to moving goods
If only these stupid fucks would do something GOOD for us.
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Which sounds reasonable until you think about what costs we refuse to externalize (road repair) and which costs we happily externalize (pollution).
It’s an interesting discussion I’ve had with coworkers recently where there’s a strong sentiment with some people that renewable energy needs to stand on its own, but the same argument could be made for fossil fuels and needing to account for environmental damage in pricing. Subsidizing renewable energy (tax credits, avoiding gasoline tax, etc) is an indirect way to compensate for the externalized costs of fossil fuels, which wouldn’t be palatable or popular if done directly.
Money needs to come from somewhere for roads, but it’s very hard to decouple infrastructure funding concerns from environmental concerns since no one is willing to tackle the problem head on with something like a carbon tax.
Burning fossil fuels kills more than 250,000 people a year in the US. What is the value of a human life? Tax that shit before penalizing the non polluters.
Which sounds reasonable until you think about what costs we refuse to externalize (road repair) and which costs we happily externalize (pollution).
The fact is that road maintenance is funded in part by a gas tax and we’re increasingly adding vehicles to the road that do not pay gas tax. The road maintenance is still there and I’m sure EV drivers will want it to be done as well. Go over to a /c/bicycles forum and ask them how willing they are to subsidize any road maintenance and you’ll figure out quickly why we do something akin to a “use tax” on roads using gasoline as a proxy.
Pay for your fucking pollution first and then maybe we’ll consider it.
Also, fuck off about bicycles. We’re saving you road maintenance costs by not being in a car! If everyone paid their fair share proportional to the amount of damage they do (which scales by the fourth power of vehicle weight) and cyclists were charged 1¢, car drivers would owe tens of thousands of dollars.
Your comment is entirely entitled, ignorant bullshit.
This is simply an attack on Republicans’ mortal enemy: environmentalists. It is nothing more. There are already EV road usage fees paid to states.
Why not tax on weight and milage. Then it doesn’t matter the type of engine you have or how efficient it is. Only how far you go and how much you damage the road as a result?
Agreed. Kill the gas tax, assess the fee on registration and record the mileage at that time.
It’s not a bad idea - though it does add the overhead of some new bureaucracy. Somebody will need to gather that data yearly. Maybe could be done as part of auto inspections though.
That’s what I’m thinking. They’re already doing inspections in most places or emissions tests, just add it as a line item.
Yeah - it “makes sense” but getting from logical to legislation is a bitch. People don’t like “new taxes” and working out the details would be tricky. Do you apply it to ICE automobiles as well? If so do you reduce the gas tax? If so you’ll be giving a potential benefit to gas guzzlers. etc.
You apply it to all vehicles. The intention of the gas tax was to help offset road maintenance. The biggest damage is based on weight and the more miles you drive, the more you cause that damage.
The efficiency of the engine isn’t at play here, if it was, then this “EV” tax should also be targeting hybrids and PHEVs since they’re utilizing less gas too by being more efficient.
They’re getting rid of gas tax now. What’s your excuse now?
My excuse for what?
I would much prefer additional carbon taxes. Ev drivers are trying to save lives.
Fine, but can I get only partial tax for driving a PHEV? I feel like I get the worst of both worlds.
I do understand the internal logic of an EV tax to compensate for lost gas taxes for road maintenance. But making electric vehicles less cost effective speeds up our increasingly likely impending ecocide. So I kinda feel like you can make up the tax deficit elsewhere.
It’s a shame that we don’t treat deaths from political violence the same way we treat other deaths.
If they want to steal a bunch of money from the populace why don’t they just fucking make it a car tax. Well, another one, cars are already insanely expensive and require you to pay all kinds of recurring fees.
We get raped enough by car-related expenses, it’s absurd.
Gas, Insurance, Registration, Annual Inspections, Repair bills .etc Why not a tax just for simply running the fucking thing or even owning/leasing one? christ.
Most revenue for federally funded road repairs is collected through diesel and gasoline taxes, which EVs do not pay.
TIL gas is taxed at both the state and federal level. It makes sense for EVs I suppose, but I’m not sure a flat fee is the best approach. The article seems to indicate there were a lot of higher options being thrown around. I wonder how many gallons of gas would $130 equate to.
There is a pretty easy middle ground: remove all gas taxes and tax every vehicle at $130/yr.
They won’t do that because that affects “their” voters in an obvious way and doesnt apply a screw to their enemies.
So I did a quick look at the gas tax – it’s $0.184/gallon (a bit more for diesel).
The math says a driver would need to buy around 707 gallons of gas to pay the federal government$130. If we assume you’re filing 15 gallons of gas each time, this would mean you would need to fill up the car about 47 times. Basically, you need to fill up on an almost weekly basis.
So yeah if you own an EV and work from home or are retired, this is definitely unfair. A tiered system would make more sense (e.g., annual miles driven), but you would need some evidence to prove what you owed.
In #Arkansas, I have a Volt, so I get to pay at the pump and I have a surcharge each time I renew my tags (AND my power bill went up a little bit). :(
I understand the theory behind these fees, but I still think that with the current reality, where the government should be doing everything possible to electrify everything, “free” road repairs should be a benefit of EV ownership. After electrification is fait accompli then we can up registration fees (nearly universally) to pay for road repairs.
