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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

#231

Post by Sabinus »

adrianN wrote: post #55
ajmurmann wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You know what else will lead to unrest? Unmitigated climate change.

Yeah in 10-50 years. Not now. People that aren't part of the intelligentsia don't see it a threat yet.

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

#232

Post by jholman »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #218
lmilcin wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstand what the road tax (or any other tax) is for. There are three main reasons for a tax to exist: 1. To bring revenue 2. To create incentive 3. Social justice (or illusion of it) Revenue from a specific tax is almost never used for a specific purpose. All revenue goes into a large bin from which the government takes to finance everything. Revenue from fuel/road tax is not used to finance buildin…

I'm not sure how it works in your country, but in the US fuel taxes don't go to the general pot, they end up in a specific fund called the Highway Trust Fund that's specifically earmarked for transportation infrastructure and maintenance.

Even if it does, the amount of money allocated from the general fund toward transportation maintenance is surely lower than it would be if those fuel taxes were not there.

Unless an earmark pays 100% of the costs of something, the earmark is totally an illusion. Even if it does pay 100% of the costs, it is often mostly an illusion.

In practice, most earmarks fall into the former category, and thus are entirely about manipulating the public. Not that I'm necessarily objecting to manipulating the public.

===

worked example:

If fuel taxes bring in $100, which is spent on road maintenance, and then topped up by $40 of money from general revenue, that implies that the government thinks that $140 is the point at which marginal benefit drops below marginal cost. In other words, if there was no fuel tax, they'd probably still try to spend $140, or thereabouts. The earmark is entirely illusory.

If fuel taxes bring in $100, which is spent on road maintenance, and is not topped up, then that implies that the government thinks that the point at which marginal benefit drops below marginal cost is some number below $100. If there was no fuel tax, their spending on road maintenance would go down. Go down to what? Let us suppose that it would go down to $60. Then the fuel tax earmark is 40% reality, 60% illusion.

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

#233

Post by _-___________-_ »

URSpider94 wrote: post #182
rconti wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

That might be rational, but it’s highly unpopular with the 99% of people who don’t drive electric cars. This is virtue signaling,

Incentivising some behaviour is basically always unpopular with the group currently doing the opposite behaviour.

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

#234

Post by jackvalentine »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #193
Someone wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

13.1 includes buses and trucks. Actual for passenger vehicles is 10.6. https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/is_091.pdf : “The average rate of fuel consumption across all Australian vehicles in 2016 was 13.1 l/100km. However, this includes buses and trucks which are overwhelmingly used for business purposes. Given that this study is focused on the vehicle costs of Australian households (and not businesses), Fi…

That's still surprisingly high.

I think it's likely that the average Australian vehicle is heavier, since the average European/Australian passenger vehicle is the same age (10.x years).

Maybe our sulferous crap fuel has something to do with it too. I don't know.

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

#235

Post by _-___________-_ »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #193
Someone wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

13.1 includes buses and trucks. Actual for passenger vehicles is 10.6. https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/is_091.pdf : “The average rate of fuel consumption across all Australian vehicles in 2016 was 13.1 l/100km. However, this includes buses and trucks which are overwhelmingly used for business purposes. Given that this study is focused on the vehicle costs of Australian households (and not businesses), Fi…

That's still surprisingly high.

Many of the cars you see on European streets would seem a bit... small... to many Australians.

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

#236

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

b112 wrote: post #230
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…

With respect to road damage via heavier vehicles, as other posts discuss, I won't. Not because it isn't real, but because the debate has been going on for, oh, 50+ years. Thus, conflating that issue with this, will result in an utter and relentless logjam. So back to your post, one thing I'm utterly against is taxing per distance driven. Why? Privacy . There are already talks all over the place, discussions in govern…

There is a way to charge for distance without gps tracking or such levels of privacy invasion.

For example, tolls where you pay cash is a solution. Obviously, that is adding a transaction cost, which is not desirable.

But let's think of a more privacy secure way to create an easy pass like system.

The obvious problem of easypass systems is they track cars by license plates and thus create a massive database of which car went through when.

But it could be legally required to purge the license plate data of cars that paid.

You could get a signal when going through the tollway that indicates the amount to pay. You could send a transaction via a cryptocurrency with a signed message on the transaction and then a separate API call to the state tollway system telling them which license plate was just paid for by the transaction.

Then any vehicles that had paid would be converted into effectively cash records with the license plate number purged.

Thus, data is only retained on those who broke the law and didn't pay.

While obviously this requires a government to see privacy as enough of a concern to adopt such data purge policies, it is totally possible.

If anyone else can think of a way to allow pay for road usage solutions that are more privacy secure, I'd love to hear them.

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

#237

Post by topkeks »

Lammy wrote: post #59
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: 3010lb…

"Full EVs do more damage to the road than ICE vehicles since they’re a lot heavier."

You have to be literally retarded to actually believe in this Trump propaganda.

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

#238

Post by lotsofpulp »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #218
lmilcin wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstand what the road tax (or any other tax) is for. There are three main reasons for a tax to exist: 1. To bring revenue 2. To create incentive 3. Social justice (or illusion of it) Revenue from a specific tax is almost never used for a specific purpose. All revenue goes into a large bin from which the government takes to finance everything. Revenue from fuel/road tax is not used to finance buildin…

I'm not sure how it works in your country, but in the US fuel taxes don't go to the general pot, they end up in a specific fund called the Highway Trust Fund that's specifically earmarked for transportation infrastructure and maintenance.

I don’t see what difference it makes if certain taxes are earmarked for certain expenses. Any shortfall is made up by increasing taxes and/or increasing taxpayer debt, any surplus will result in less assistance from other taxes or get directed elsewhere.

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

#239

Post by Wowfunhappy »

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…

> Encourage drivers to move to lighter vehicles which cause less wear and tear on the road, and drop the disparity between fuel and electric. They both use the same tires.

And what of the damage that non-electric vehicles do to the environment? Shouldn't we be accounting for that?

At least roads can be easily repaired.

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

#240

Post by AnthonyMouse »

recursive wrote: post #24
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…

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.

You can also sidestep the privacy issue there, because large electric vehicles are likely to need special chargers. (How many kW do you need to charge a 1MWh battery in a reasonable amount of time?) And then you can levy road tax on large trucks per kWh at the charging point in the traditional way without even having to track everywhere they go.
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