This is more than the average fossil car owner pays in gas taxes, and really bad policy during a world fuel shortage.

  • blitzen@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    I’m not against an annual fee for electric cars, but it should be going to the state and not the federal government. The problems have with this are:

    • goes to the feds instead of the states
    • too high, even when using the averages
    • averages are unfair to those who drive under the average
    • money likely not fully going to road upkeep, and most certainly not to funding public transportation

    Address those, and make it ten cents per mile driven for all I care.

    • NABDad@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Make it a fee based on vehicle mass and miles driven, have it apply to all vehicles and eliminate the gas tax.

      • Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Or don’t eliminate the gas tax, charge ICE vehicles for both, and then use all that money to fund the infrastructure for people to not literally need a car to live.

      • blitzen@lemmy.ca
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        4 days ago

        That would be a logical and fair way to do it. Which is why it’ll never happen.

    • ramble81@lemmy.zip
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      4 days ago

      And what about states that already charge? Texas charges $200/yr for EVs for the same reason. Will we be double taxed?

      • blitzen@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        Well, ICE cars already are. I don’t know about Texas but certainly here in California there’s federal taxes on gasoline and state taxes. The state taxes are always explicitly paying for road maintenance, and the federal taxes pay for “infrastructure” in a vague but probably reasonable manner.

        We’re all getting lost on the weeds on this one, but in general both the states and the feds are looking to make up the revenue needed to support road infrastructure lost when someone doesn’t buy gas.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          And a reasonable person realizes that probably has to happen, but would look for a fair way to do it. A magat looks for a way to hold back any technology that doesn’t enrich their buddies

      • Badabinski@kbin.earth
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        4 days ago

        Gas taxes pay for road construction in most/all states. No gas means no gas tax, which means the funding for infrastructure goes away.

        I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with the proposal, but that’s the idea anyways.

        • godsammitdam@lemmy.zip
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          3 days ago

          Hmm

          Sounds like a great idea to tax the wealthy in those areas and use it to fund the public services like roads that they force their employees to use to drive to work.

          And maybe some public transit too so you don’t need to use a road. Or a car. Freedom of choice and all that.

          But yeah, they’re gonna try to tax them more and more because we certainly couldn’t gain energy independence, oh no no.

          Wonder when the solar tax comes in. Gotta tax the sun for giving the plebians free energy. Damn commie sun.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        We do NOT want an electric car tax, but it would be fair to treat EVs fairly, especially if it goes toward transportation infrastructure fairly.

        Some of the problems with current funding

        • gas tax is insufficient. If we truly want to cover transportation infrastructure, we need to double or triple
        • gas tax is unfair, even before we get to EVs. A more efficient vehicle does not need less infrastructure spending
        • goes toward roads, almost exclusively, new projects almost entirely. I know maintenance is boring but it needs to be done, and should be what we need to solve the problem, not just default to road
        • most transportation options have been starved of funding for a century. We need to fix that. We need choices. We need more scalable support, both up and down
        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          IDK what the fee is for ICE cars, but here (Denmark) all cars have a yearly fee, but EV is generally cheaper, because the fee is based on fuel economy, and the fuel economy of an EV is way better than ICE.

          • blitzen@lemmy.ca
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            4 days ago

            In the US, every car has an annual registration fee (proportional to its value) paid to a state agency. In addition, there are federal and state taxes on each gallon of gas sold meant to be used for maintenance of the roads.

            • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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              3 days ago

              Not exactly, the registration fee is proportional to value too a point, so wealthy people pay less.

              • blitzen@lemmy.ca
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                4 days ago

                Well, the idea of the $130 is it would be changed to EV drivers who are not currently paying the 18.5 cents per gallon federal gas tax. If it’s more or less than that depends on how many miles the ICE cars are driving, but on average it looks like the $130 would be higher than the about $90 most ICE drivers pay in federal gas tax.

                • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                  4 days ago

                  Thanks. 👍

                  would be changed to EV drivers who are not currently paying the 18.5 cents per gallon federal gas tax.

                  That’s bullshit IMO. That’s like punishing people for buying a car that uses renewable energy, over an ICE stinker that ruins the environment both locally and globally.

                  So they continue more than half a century of bad practices.
                  My god American law makers are idiots. 😡

        • silence7@slrpnk.netOP
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          3 days ago

          Not that much compared with the national average which fluctuates a bit, but is around 13,500 miles per year

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            No one ever wants to hear that. They complain about EVs being so much heavier, doing so much more damage to the road ……

            But don’t like hearing that road wear varies to the fourth power of axle weight so all cars are essentially the same and insignificant compared to trucks.

            And especially don’t like hearing that I completely agree on varying by weight, for both fairness and that my EV is much lighter than their effing full sized pickup truck

  • fira@lemmy.today
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    3 days ago

    They’re so busy fighting the culture war, maybe they’ll stop fighting the Iran war

  • Rekhyt@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This is more than the average fossil car owner pays in gas taxes

    I try to drive my ICE car less these days since we have a short-range EV I can use for local runs, but when I was having to fill up my car about once a week, I’d be filling up about 10 gallons, and in CT the gas tax is 25¢/gallon, which works out to exactly $130 annually. Unfortunately that’s state tax and not the federal 18.4¢/gallon, which works out to just under $100 annually.