Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

thedriven.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 388 posts

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#51

Post by xd »

adrianN wrote: post #43
jdhn wrote: post #9

I don't understand the opposition to this. These vehicles continue to use roads but don't pay any taxes that would help maintain roads if they were gas or diesel cars. How is that fair?

Gas and diesel cars don't pay for the damage they cause to the climate, or for the local air pollution. How is that fair?

What's the cost of mining lithium for starters.. before talking about fair.

edit: down voted for stating facts.. I've noticed this place is becoming very ideological.. or maybe I'm getting old.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#52

Post by ajmurmann »

adrianN wrote: post #43
jdhn wrote: post #9

I don't understand the opposition to this. These vehicles continue to use roads but don't pay any taxes that would help maintain roads if they were gas or diesel cars. How is that fair?

Gas and diesel cars don't pay for the damage they cause to the climate, or for the local air pollution. How is that fair?

That is the real problem. We need to properly price in the negative externality. However, that would mean that driving (and even more so flying) becomes almost prohibitively expensive for many. We already saw with the yellow jackets in France that this would lead to unrest.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#53

Post by mytailorisrich »

dsq wrote: post #2

Governments that have fuel excise taxes will do anything to keep their income flowing, including sabotaging EVs and public transport. This is why I would always snicker when reading Tom Friedman's harping on a fuel excise tax: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20friedman.html Every new tax always leads to increased spending then to more tax ad nauseum.

The problem with all these taxes is one of 'pain' and political cost.

If fuel taxes and, say, VAT, were abolished and personal income tax adjusted to make up the revenue that would create a political shitstorm and public outrage even if people end up paying exactly the same amount per year.

Governments like relatively "stealthy" taxes. At the same time people want public spending so it's a political game of giving people what they ask for without making them feel too much that they need to pay for it...

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#54

Post by zozbot234 »

bigbubba wrote: post #42
horsawlarway wrote: post #6

I'm not really sure there's a good answer here. Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax. This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric. Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those…

Taxing milage directly seems to have worse distribution properties than taxing gas. Here is what I mean: Suppose I am driving from New York to Alaska; I fill up my car with gas then drive into Ontario. I have now paid New York a gas tax but I'm driving on Ontario roads; Ontario gets paid nothing for this wear and tear.. until I run out of gas inside Ontario. Then Ontario gets their cut. This continues all the way unt…

You could tax electricity at public EV charging stations. That would have the same desirable distribution properties as the existing gas tax.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#55

Post by adrianN »

ajmurmann wrote: post #52
adrianN wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas and diesel cars don't pay for the damage they cause to the climate, or for the local air pollution. How is that fair?

That is the real problem. We need to properly price in the negative externality. However, that would mean that driving (and even more so flying) becomes almost prohibitively expensive for many. We already saw with the yellow jackets in France that this would lead to unrest.

You know what else will lead to unrest? Unmitigated climate change. We need to drastically reduce driving. Making it more expensive is just one of the measures to take here. We also need to alternatives easier to use. Better city planning and better infrastructure need to go hand in hand with price signals.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#56

Post by xd »

mtgx wrote: post #10
jdhn wrote: post #9

I don't understand the opposition to this. These vehicles continue to use roads but don't pay any taxes that would help maintain roads if they were gas or diesel cars. How is that fair?

Trucks do...wait for it...1,400x more damage to roads than standard passenger vehicles do.

Probably because they transport 1,400x more economic goods?

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#57

Post by Zigurd »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #40
Zigurd wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While maintaining pavement is not all of road maintenance, it is the central aspect. Trucks wear out roads orders of magnitude more than cars. In the US trucks pay much less than cars, in total, for road maintenance. It is likely the same in Australia. Simply rebalancing the taxation to the amount of road wear would eliminate the need to tax EV road use without it being a significant subsidy of EVs. Diesel trucks are…

Actually Diesel engines are the most efficient ICE in mass production, modern engines respecting the latest emission standards (ex: EURO 6) are some of the least dirty vehicles on the road. If you compare fuel efficiency per ton per kilometer and what is the pollution caused, they become quite clean. Yes, older Diesel trucks are dirty and also the ones with improper maintenance, but hitting at all trucks because of s…

In the real world, diesels should be taken off the road as quickly as possible due to the impracticality of controlling particulate emissions and the damage to human health caused by those emissions.

Also, euro 6 emission standards are for diesel passenger cars. Diesel cars, even with strict emission controls, still emit too much dangerous particulates.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#58

Post by adrianN »

xd wrote: post #51
adrianN wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas and diesel cars don't pay for the damage they cause to the climate, or for the local air pollution. How is that fair?

What's the cost of mining lithium for starters.. before talking about fair. edit: down voted for stating facts.. I've noticed this place is becoming very ideological.. or maybe I'm getting old.

What's the cost of oil spills? It's not like gas and diesel magically flow out of the pump either.

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#59

Post by Lammy »

jdhn wrote: post #9

I don't understand the opposition to this. These vehicles continue to use roads but don't pay any taxes that would help maintain roads if they were gas or diesel cars. How is that fair?

Probably a lot of Tesla owners on here upset at the thought of losing any of the privilege it brings.

Full EVs do more damage to the road than ICE vehicles since they’re a lot heavier. I’m totally pro-EV, but we should definitely pay some part of the tax necessary to maintain the roads we drive on.

Some quick searches show:

Mazda MX-5 Miata MY2020 base curb weight: 2403lbs

Toyota Prius MY2020 base curb weight: 3010lbs

Tesla model 3 base curb weight: 4072lbs

Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

#60

Post by adrianN »

bnt wrote: post #49
adrianN wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also needs to be removed for bicycles and pedestrians, who don't pay special taxes for that.

But bicycles don’t cause air pollution nor do they damage the roads. So you got me puzzled why they should be taxes. Pedestrians are taxed too much anyway

I was making an argument against taxing EVs. Or I tried to.
Post reply on HN