The House is working on a five-year highway reauthorization bill that would authorize $580 billion ahead of the current law expiration on September 30.
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.
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.
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.