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Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax

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

#71

Post by adrianN »

zozbot234 wrote: post #34
recursive wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere that road damage caused by vehicles is not linear with weight. Heavy vehicles do much more damage. I can't cite a source, but I recall an exponent between 3 and 4 on the leading term. With that in mind, everything but heavy freight is basically negligible. And then it's generally for businesses where privacy isn't so much of an issue.

This is true, but some portion of road maintenance costs is independent from vehicle-caused wear-and-tear on the actual road surface. You would want this portion to be paid also by standard, non-commercial vehicles since these users are clearly receiving some value from the existence of a well-maintained road.

Everybody is receiving benefits from well maintained roads, just like everyone is receiving benefits from schools. Why special taxes for users unless you want to discourage use? Just pay for maintenance from the general budget.

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

#72

Post by xd »

adrianN wrote: post #58
xd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I never said anything that implied gas wasn't an issue .. simply stating a truth bomb about EV's environmental and human costs; lithium mining being the biggest one.

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

#73

Post by jeffbee »

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…

Your analysis is fine but the first step, or a concurrent step, needs to be tripling that motor fuel tax. That would only just barely bring it up to the necessary level of carbon taxation, nevermind the roads.

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

#74

Post by bigbubba »

stouset wrote: post #63
bigbubba wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Taxing mileage (and gas) also has the unfortunate property of being generally regressive. Roads benefit us all, but those who drive the furthest are often the poorest who live far from city centers. In my (admittedly uneducated) opinion, road taxes should be overwhelmingly be paid by commercial vehicles since they contribute much more to road damage, their costs will be passed on to consumers, and the largest consume…

This seems like a pretty good solution; the infrastructure is already in place for weighing trucks at borders. Raising taxes for trucks to replace gas taxes for cars would also incentivize the use of trains, which would be nice.

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

#75

Post by gambiting »

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…

"Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km"

Wait, that can't be true. That's an insane number if correct. Here in EU a car that averages 7-8L/100km is considered to have poor fuel economy. My previous car was a Mercedes AMG that over 4 years averaged 12L/100km and that was considered absolutely abysmal by everyone, people were wondering how I can afford the fuel for it. And you're telling me that the average for Australian cars is higher than that??

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

#76

Post by xd »

adrianN wrote: post #64
xd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, because road damage is proportional to axle weight to the fourth power.

And axle weight comes from the weight of the cargo be it human or goods...

edit: just looked up what you said, really interesting, but makes me wonder if the transport of goods in smaller lorries for instance would ultimately be beneficial when you factor in cost of fuel, maintenance etc

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

#77

Post by adrianN »

dmurray wrote: post #68
zozbot234 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's likely most electricity for EVs will be consumed at home, though.

In Germany, water used for watering your lawn is taxed differently from water you use to fill your tub. I'm sure we could mandate a separate meter for recharging cars.

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

#78

Post by BlueTemplar »

moralsupply wrote: post #27
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.

Also: taxes are arbitrarily imposed through coercion, therefore they are not legitimate under an ethical standpoint, no matter how one wants to cut it. The idea of a "social contract" to justify taxation is absurd, to say the least (did you ever sign it voluntarily?). If the government can print its own money (which you're forced to use), why does it need to make you work and pay taxes to get that money back? The mon…

Because inflation is considered to be bad (not sure whether it's worse than the tax system though), but more importantly, an inflation tax is regressive in that richer people can afford to store their wealth in things that do not inflate away (and even deflate due to this kind of speculation).

Also, taxes are probably a smarter way to deal with negative externalities than regulation.

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

#79

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

adrianN wrote: post #64
xd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

No, because road damage is proportional to axle weight to the fourth power.

But EVs themselves are very heavy compared to similar gas powered cars.

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

#80

Post by adrianN »

xd wrote: post #76
adrianN wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because road damage is proportional to axle weight to the fourth power.

And axle weight comes from the weight of the cargo be it human or goods... edit: just looked up what you said, really interesting, but makes me wonder if the transport of goods in smaller lorries for instance would ultimately be beneficial when you factor in cost of fuel, maintenance etc

Yes, but note the "to the fourth power".
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