Interesting to see where this goes and if the Clarity is treated as a hybrid or EV: https://www.wral.com/registration-fees-for-hybrids-electric-vehicles-could-be-going-up/18318162/ geo
I can't blame the states for trying to recover the fuel taxes that EV's and PHEV's aren't paying. Just hope it's not an unfair amount. Wish it was a graduated scale that gave drivers a break who do less than 15K miles per year. I barely do 10K a year right now.
While I believe we should all pay our fair share of taxes, the gasoline tax was an excellent way of incentivizing fuel efficiency, which is better for our environment and contributes to energy security. With ICE vehicles, the heavier it is, the more it tears up the roads so a gas tax per gallon was a good way for drivers to pay for that. BEVs, on the other hand, are heavy vehicles that pay no gas tax so it would make sense to recover some money from them. But overall, it would be a better idea to increase gas taxes significantly higher to better incentivize fuel efficiency at a time of low gas prices and lower other taxes.
Well, we all need to pay our fair share but I’m lobbying for a two tier system with BEVs paying more than PHEVs since we do use some gas and they use none. A per mile tax (perhaps tiered to GVW) would be more fair and better reflect actual wear and tear on the infrastructure but would be a costly system to introduce in states that don’t currently do annual inspections or emissions inspections that can easily monitor milage at the same time.
All this might be reasonable if EVs were then credited for the reduced environmental impacts they create. EV drivers are subsidizing fossil fuel production/consumption/environmental remediation out of proportion to their use via their income taxes. The petroleum industry is one of the biggest recipients of corporate welfare in this country. The federal tax credit is bullshit for those who do not qualify to receive it, the credit should be refundable. That would be a start. Until the tax burden is truly leveled, I advocate absolute resistance to penalizing EV ownership and support of any and all incentives in order to speed transition from fossil fuels. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
California in the last 3 years did something which I think is very fair. They doubled gas tax - state portion - 12 cents gas, 20 cents diesel; $100 registration fee on electric cars, 25-175 additional registration fee based on price of the car. if only they can fix other aspects like prop 13/ spending.
There are two of us driving Clarity's at my workplace and neither of us have a fundamental objection to the idea of a road use fee. We both have a bit of an issue with how it is being calculated based on 15k of driving a 20 mpg car which in his case is more than double the usage/mpg of the vehicle his Clarity replaced while my wife and I put 26k miles on our Clarity the first year so we have paid plenty of gas tax. I also have to point out that in NC we are already paying a 7% state tax on electricity usage so that could be backed out of the calculation. Since we do I have annual inspections in NC I think a weight/mileage calculation would be most fair in actually determining road wear for all vehicles. As we say at work when we're arguing "there are a lot of moving pieces" and I think these discussions will only get more numerous as technology moves on. geo
We pay taxes on the electric consumption that we occur; however, I realize that this money goes into a different "pot" and therefore things get a bit muddy when it comes to the distribution of said taxes. It's still paying taxes, just to a different entity.
Fairness is an elusive idea. Some taxes are designed strictly as revenue generators. Others are a form of social engineering designed to influence behavior. Often it’s a question of political clout. For example, politicians know that hotel taxes are generally paid by out-of-jurisdiction residents who can’t vote them out, so we end up paying 30% more than we were quoted for a room. One stated purpose of fuel taxes in many areas is to subsidize the public transportation system. That’s obviously unfair in terms of pay-as-you-use, but arguably fair as a way of making “good” transportation more attractive than “bad”. By that logic, if a government values the environmental benefits of non-ICE cars they should reward us for driving them.
