EV Owners Unfairly Targeted in New Gas Tax Bill

I was putting 24K miles a year on my Plug-in Prius. At an average of 50 MPG per tank, that's 480 gallons of gas. 480 x .12 = $57.60 in extra gas taxes, plus the $38 extra on my registration equals $95.60. Just $3.40 cheaper than what my Bolt will cost, which consumes no gas. Our Highlander Hybrid gets around 26 MPG, and we do about 20K miles a year in that vehicle. That comes out to 770 gallons per year, which is is an extra $92 in gas taxes, plus the $38 equals $130, which makes it more expensive than the Bolt.

Sure seems like a fair tax to me to help fix the roads.

Here in the Midwest we pay 10-12% sales tax on electricity. In my Plugin Prius I pay $1.02 in gas tax to go 100 miles. That same distance takes 10 charges (that is why I am joining the Bolt EV crowd as soon as I can, September they tell me) at 3.5 KWH each. The sales tax is about 50 cents. Though I contribute less, I am not completely mooching off of my neighbors.

sgt1372 said:

Found out about this via the Tesla forum. See: https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/proposing-extra-100-registration-evs-fix-pot-holes-preposterous

There's a new CA gas tax bill that would charge EV owners $100/year, ICE owners $38 extra registration each year and increase the gas tax by 12 cents per gallon.

There is general support for this bill "in principle" because the roads need t be fixed but EV owners are being unfairly targets for extra revenue by this bill.

See: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/06/would-higher-gas-tax-fill-our-spreading-potholes/

This is the comment that I posted to the article and to the Tesla forum:

"The roads need to be fixed but why should EV owners/lessees pay $100 -- $62 more than for an ICE vehicle? That makes no sense.

It's obvious that they can't get any gas tax $ from EV owners but to charge EV vehicles $68 more to make up for whatever the shortfall might be is unfair and speculative at best.

How many gallons of gas does that extra $68 represent? That equals 566.67 gallons ($68 divided by 12 cents) of gas that EV users are being charged for that they aren't going to ever use.

The EPA mileage equivalent for a Chevy Bolt is 119 MPGe. That would mean that a Bolt driver would be presumed to drive 67,434 miles (556.67x119) per year!!!!

That's ridiculous and demonstrates how much of an overcharge the additional EV tax really is".

If Bolt owners/lessees in CA want to complain about something (other than the seats), we should really complain about this.

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The most fair way to to raise funds for the highway infrastructure is to "TAX" each California light duty vehicle monthly or annually for the number of miles each vehicle is driven on California highways. One such evaluation program is the California Road Charge Pilot Project which ended a 9-month evaluation on 1 April 2017. 5000 vehicles from across California participated in the project including my 2 Spark EVs. I found the program to be fair to all drivers but there are still many questions to be answered.

The project used a charge of $0.018 per mile for the evaluation and all vehicles in the evaluation were charged at a rate of $0.018 per mile. The amount of gasoline used by gasoline powered vehicles was determined using the combined EPA average for each vehicle. The gasoline tax was determined by multiplying the number of gallons used by the current gasoline tax per gallon. If the amount of gasoline tax paid was greater than the number of miles driven X $0.018, the vehicle's driver would be credited for the difference. If the amount of gasoline tax paid was less than the number of miles driven X $0.018, the driver would be required to pay the difference so the driver's out-of-pocket cost would equal the road charge for the number of miles driven X $0.018 - same as an EV driver would pay for driving the same number of miles.

The account manager issued monthly statements summarizing the number of miles driven per day and the mileage costs. "Mock" payments were made monthly.

I think an easier way would be to require ALL light-duty vehicles to provide a certification of mileage every two years just like we currently do for a smog check certification in order to keep our registration active. Once the DMV received the mileage certification, and knowing the combined EPA mileage for the vehicle, the DMV could calculate the road charge tax and add it to the annual registration fee - the same amount for each of the next two years.

BikingManiac said:

Here in the Midwest we pay 10-12% sales tax on electricity. In my Plugin Prius I pay $1.02 in gas tax to go 100 miles. That same distance takes 10 charges (that is why I am joining the Bolt EV crowd as soon as I can, September they tell me) at 3.5 KWH each. The sales tax is about 50 cents. Though I contribute less, I am not completely mooching off of my neighbors.

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Where in Midwest, if you don't mind me asking.? I can attest as the first bolt owner in NE it's way cheaper even though they charged my 75.00 more on registration.

You're right, that's the word I meant...

Any my point is that EV owners pay similar amounts in another way, it works out pretty much the same.

And as I mentioned earlier, I fully agree that there will be a time when it is appropriate to charge road taxes. The time is not now when the government is simultaneously trying to encourage EV adoption with financial incentives and when adoption is so limited.

It would make far more sense, in my view, to reduce, for example, the $2500 to $2000. That way, potential EV buyers wouldn't have to deal with the fact that their registration fee goes up by $100 a year. Increased registration fees are just another argument to not try an EV

"Oh man, not only does it take 10 hours to recharge and goes only 200 miles, but my registration fees go up too. I'm getting another Camaro."

Does this make sense?

michael said:

It would make far more sense, in my view, to reduce, for example, the $2500 to $2000. That way, potential EV buyers wouldn't have to deal with the fact that their registration fee goes up by $100 a year.

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Far too logical. Totally misses the political nuance of trying to satisfy EV enthusiasts (here's $2500 to buy an EV) while at the same time trying to mollify EV opponents (look, we're charging them for road taxes too!).

So I talked to my local assemblyman, and he said the EV fee was Jerry Brown's idea. I told him to shut it down, he mumbled a bit and agreed it was stupid, but I didn't get the feeling he was optimistic about it getting taken out. But he's trying (this is Jimmy Gomez, an EV driver, vote for him tomorrow, BTW for Congress if you're in LA)

It seems like a dumb way to do it, especially since they JUST wrapped up the California road charge pilot program three days ago to bill by the mile, so study of the concept isn't even remotely complete.

SeanNelson said:

michael said:

It would make far more sense, in my view, to reduce, for example, the $2500 to $2000. That way, potential EV buyers wouldn't have to deal with the fact that their registration fee goes up by $100 a year.

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Far too logical. Totally misses the political nuance of trying to satisfy EV enthusiasts (here's $2500 to buy an EV) while at the same time trying to mollify EV opponents (look, we're charging them for road taxes too!).

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You're right! I didn't see that....

Maybe increase the $2500 to $5000 and add $500 a year to registration!! The Diesel truck crowd will love that! :lol:

michael said:

It would make far more sense, in my view, to reduce, for example, the $2500 to $2000. That way, potential EV buyers wouldn't have to deal with the fact that their registration fee goes up by $100 a year. Increased registration fees are just another argument to not try an EV

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Households earning over $300,000 don't get that $2500 anyway. Just let those people (who already pay 44% in taxes) subsidize everybody else? $2500 is a lot of years or cars worth $100 a year.

The flat fee is a poor instrument to accomplish the goal of getting EV drivers to pay for road usage. It must not come to pass. Once this flawed method becomes law, it will never go back.

I'm not advocating that approach. As I've said several times before: for the moment EV's should continue to receive preferential treatment until they get some decent level of acceptance.

I was trying to say that one shouldn't pile an additional specific tax (100/year) that is visible because it provides an additional identifiable disincentive to get an EV. But as another poster pointed out, it's a bone that can be tossed to the ICE crowd.

michael said:

I'm not advocating that approach. As I've said several times before: for the moment EV's should continue to receive preferential treatment until they get some decent level of acceptance.

I was trying to say that one shouldn't pile an additional specific tax (100/year) that is visible because it provides an additional identifiable disincentive to get an EV. But as another poster pointed out, it's a bone that can be tossed to the ICE crowd.

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All vehicle owners are getting hit with an additional tax under this proposal. ICE owners will also get hit with an additional amount on their registration, and they have to pay more at the pump on top of that. A driver who owns an ICE vehicle that gets 25 MPG and puts 15K miles a year on the car will pay an extra $110 in taxes. If you get 30 MPG, drive 10K miles a year, it's $78 extra.

Here is some of the text from California Senate Bill 1:

"This bill would create the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Program to address deferred maintenance on the state highway system and the local street and road system. The bill would require the California Transportation Commission to adopt performance criteria, consistent with a specified asset management plan, to ensure efficient use of certain funds available for the program. The bill would provide for the deposit of various funds for the program in the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account, which the bill would create in the State Transportation Fund, including revenues attributable to a $0.12 per gallon increase in the motor vehicle fuel (gasoline) tax imposed by the bill with an inflation adjustment, as provided, 50% of a $0.20 per gallon increase in the diesel excise tax, with an inflation adjustment, as provided, a portion of a new transportation improvement fee imposed under the Vehicle License Fee Law with a varying fee between $25 and $175 based on vehicle value and with an inflation adjustment, as provided, and a new $100 annual vehicle registration fee applicable only to zero-emission vehicles model year 2020 and later, with an inflation adjustment, as provided. The bill would provide that the fuel excise tax increases take effect on November 1, 2017, the transportation improvement fee takes effect on January 1, 2018, and the zero-emission vehicle registration fee takes effect on July 1, 2020."

The annual $100 EV registration fee would not apply until model year 2020 but it does look like the Vehicle License Fee would go up January 1, 2018.

michael said:

Any my point is that EV owners pay similar amounts in another way, it works out pretty much the same.

And as I mentioned earlier, I fully agree that there will be a time when it is appropriate to charge road taxes. The time is not now when the government is simultaneously trying to encourage EV adoption with financial incentives and when adoption is so limited.

It would make far more sense, in my view, to reduce, for example, the $2500 to $2000. That way, potential EV buyers wouldn't have to deal with the fact that their registration fee goes up by $100 a year. Increased registration fees are just another argument to not try an EV

"Oh man, not only does it take 10 hours to recharge and goes only 200 miles, but my registration fees go up too. I'm getting another Camaro."

Does this make sense?

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That's a pretty thin argument, Michael. We can rant about taxes though I doubt that people buying an EV care much about coughing up a hundred bucks per year towards road maintenance (which does make sense). However, they DO care about front end subsidies. Reducing one of the subsidies from $2500 to $2000 just made the car cost $500 more.

To your point about paying taxes through your power utility, those taxes are consumption based in the same way gasoline is taxed at the pump. Use more, pay more. Use less, pay less. Homeowners that choose to pay for electricity for their EV are no different than other home owners with A/C, electric dryers, and other appliances. The number of kWh's you buy each month is your choice.

Posatronic said:

BikingManiac said:

Here in the Midwest we pay 10-12% sales tax on electricity. In my Plugin Prius I pay $1.02 in gas tax to go 100 miles. That same distance takes 10 charges (that is why I am joining the Bolt EV crowd as soon as I can, September they tell me) at 3.5 KWH each. The sales tax is about 50 cents. Though I contribute less, I am not completely mooching off of my neighbors.

Click to expand...

Where in Midwest, if you don't mind me asking.? I can attest as the first bolt owner in NE it's way cheaper even though they charged my 75.00 more on registration.

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Wisconsin. Waiting patiently to buy locally from our Chevy dealer. Seeing the discounts on the west coast is intriguing though.