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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

#121

Post by perlgeek »

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…

> That said - I think the only real answer here is a more thorough overhaul of how you tax road usage. Perhaps it's time to ditch the fuel excise tax entirely, and tax all drivers based on (vehicle weight * kms driven * some constant).

If you want to tax fairly based on road wear, you have to tax by axle weight to the 4th power * distance driven.

That said, there's a pretty simple solution that doesn't send the same "we are punishing EV owners with an extra tax" message: have a road usage tax for everyone, and slightly decrease the fuel tax.

But please, PLEASE, keep most of the fuel tax. Climate change is a real, urgent issue, and everything that encourages change away from fossil fuel should be kept.

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

#122

Post by goatinaboat »

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.

This is true, but some portion of road maintenance costs is independent from vehicle-caused wear-and-tear on the actual road surface.

A lot it is caused (around here anyway) by water permeating and expanding as it freezes.

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

#123

Post by rconti »

ip26 wrote: post #115
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…

One of the simplest arguments against it to me is basically to look at the landscape. For example, in the US, ballpark 1% of cars are electric. Meanwhile, the flat federal fuel tax is not indexed to inflation & hasn't been increased in almost thirty years. Yet everyone is in this panic about how EVs are going to cause a huge revenue shortfall!? I'm not opposed to EVs paying their share, but something is rotten in Den…

yeah, once we get to 25% adoption (or something) we can talk about how badly EVs are hurting fuel tax revenue. in the meantime, jack up the fuel tax in a planned, regular way, and let the market decide :)

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

#124

Post by perlgeek »

adrianN wrote: post #71
zozbot234 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you pay for maintenance from the general budget, you are allowing shipping companies (for example) to externalize cost that they incur on society.

This is generally a bad thing, but very concretely it led to road traffic growing much faster than rail traffic (or canal ship traffic) even in countries with a very dense rail network.

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

#125

Post by rconti »

mcguire wrote: post #92
gambiting wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

For USians, that's 18 mpg. Low, but not horrible for some trucks and large SUVs.

can't be a fleet average though.

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

#126

Post by rconti »

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?

There's a huge gulf between not understanding opposition to a particular scheme, and thinking the existing scheme is unfair.

I didn't see anything in this article about how it's levied, for one. Are they doing vehicle tracking, as was proposed in places in the US? Certainly I can see opposition to that.

Maybe people driving a Renault Twizy don't think it's fair to pay the same tax per mile as an electric Hummer (whenever that comes out).

All kinds of reasons to be opposed to it.

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

#127

Post by donaltroddyn »

jdashg wrote: post #93
donaltroddyn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was being slightly facetious in referencing tyre size, although people regularly have to adjust speedo/odometers by 10% or more when fitting large tyres on off-roaders. Odometers can have their values changed at will, at least in ICE vehicles, often for valid reasons.

Fudging do numbers illicitly is already a huge no-no in the US.

It also is in Ireland, but there are valid reasons, such as as replacing an ECU or dash cluster.

Unless auto manufacturers are required to fit much more secure odometers, I can't see them in their current incarnation used as the basis for a tax.

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

#128

Post by riversflow »

ip26 wrote: post #115
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…

One of the simplest arguments against it to me is basically to look at the landscape. For example, in the US, ballpark 1% of cars are electric. Meanwhile, the flat federal fuel tax is not indexed to inflation & hasn't been increased in almost thirty years. Yet everyone is in this panic about how EVs are going to cause a huge revenue shortfall!? I'm not opposed to EVs paying their share, but something is rotten in Den…

2 things. First, pretty sure it’s been discussed here previously(edit: and is down thread), but I believe the wear on the road is like the 4th power of the weight.[1] here’s a chart describing it. with that considered, I don’t think it makes sense to even really charge passenger vehicles in the US, when we have huge fleets of 80k pound big rigs on the road(and the limit is uncapped with overweight permits)—charge them.

Second, the problem with tires is that depending on what and where you drive you’ll use them considerably faster. I live a few miles down a very windy chip-sealed[2] road, that I have to drive down any time I go anywhere. As a result(best I can tell) my tires tend to go bald 10k-20k miles early. Chip seal is used because it is cheap, seems regressive that I’d be taxed at a higher rate for a poorer road.

[1] https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipseal

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

#129

Post by Tiktaalik »

quicklime wrote: post #116
Tiktaalik wrote: post #112

Same issue is looming for many jurisdictions that have funded roads and public transit with gas taxes. As gas taxes decline, there becomes a hole in the budget. Yes EVs are better than ICE vehicles on CO2 emissions, so of course we should pivot to that, but beyond that cars are still harmful and need to go away as much as they can. EVs create toxic road dust (brake pads + tire wear), congest the roads and kill pedest…

I agree that EVs cause problems and should be taxed too. In addition to the issues you mention, I also worry that subsidies for luxury car brands like Tesla are funded by redistributing wealth from the poor to the rich. But the problem with funding roads from income/wealth taxes is that it moves it further away from being a user-pays system, which creates the wrong incentives. One way to avoid this would be a variabl…

I agree that there's advantages to the user pay system. People are enthusiastic to use a new bridge, less so when they find out that they have to pay a toll to drive over it. Various charges can be used to manage congestion.

In a system where road use is "free" there would need to be significant government discipline to not heed demands of road users for more roads.

Heavy taxes on the purchase of new cars may be a good strategy to dissuade vehicle congestion, with lesser taxes on new EVs and lesser still on used vehicles.

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

#130

Post by [deleted] »

xd wrote: post #114
zemvpferreira wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you and I think you bring a useful point to the discussion, but I also think you'd be better-received if you completed your argument. Please tell us, what is a good estimate for the impact of producing and EV on the planet? And how does it compare to a gas vehicle? If that's too much work I'd be glad to learn more about battery production, since that's the point of difference.

Not an argument, just a point of view for which I'm open to any and all. edit: but the cost of rare earth mining is huge and if you don't want to do your own research... that's your call.

[deleted]
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