Tough day for EVs and PHEVs in Alabama...

Oh snap. I find this to be a kinda funny thread. We can't even come to a consensus on how to resolve this very focused singular political issue, among a very small microcosm of presumably somewhat-similiar-minded PHEV owners.

And we expect the States/Feds/governments/general public to come to some sort of consensus on this, and implement a change to the system that's "fair" for all?

Keep waiting folks.

This is why I choose to be at peace with an annual surcharge on my license plates...whether it's "fair" or not. IMO there are thousands of far larger issues to become activist about...so I'll choose to sit back and apathetically take my lumps on this little one. With that, I'm stepping outta the fray. Lemme know if y'all get it resolved!

 

The Texas Legislature is (in its current 86th Regular session) also considering several different approaches to this issue, ranging from a flat fee that would apply only to BEVs (not PHEVs), to flat fees applicable to both BEVs and PHEVs, to a fee calculated annually by the state's Comptroller that would equal
" ...the average annual amount of taxes imposed ... that an electric vehicle or hybrid vehicle would pay if the vehicle operated only on gasoline or diesel fuel." Additionally, these bills vary as to how to allocate the additional fees, some allocating all of it to the local county "road and bridge fund" and some allocating all of it to the state highway fund.

To my knowledge, no committee action has yet to take place on any of these proposals, and unless you are a real insider in the Legislature, nobody knows whether any of these proposals will have legs enough to make it into state law or just die in committee (as happens with most bills proposed on any subject but especially bills proposing tax or fee increases).

If anyone has a further interest in the Texas proposals, go to https://capitol.texas.gov/ and search further for S.B. 1471, H.B. 1971 and H.B. 2513. (There may be other proposals too that I do not know about.)

That said, like @craze1cars, I could be at peace with any of these "solutions" for now, at least until the EV landscape is more populated. Still, this same legislature in its last Regular session proposed and passed cash ($2,500) incentives to purchasers of (non-Tesla) BEV and most PHEV vehicles, and it would seem to be quite inconsistent for the Texas state government to pay cash incentives to get more EVs on the roads on the one hand, only then on the other hand to "claw" some of it back via higher registration fees on the same vehicles. (Then again, I am really certain that the Texas Legislature has never before had inconsistent policies on anything!)