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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

#361

Post by lmilcin »

URSpider94 wrote: post #344
jholman wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s worth pointing out that fuel taxes were sufficient to keep the US highway trust fund self-sufficient for over 50 years. Recently, there’s been a shortfall that has required infusions of cash from the general fund.

Exactly. It doesn't matter where a dollar comes from when it has to be spent anyway.

Think about it.

Scenario a) X dollars from fuel tax are revenue for federal budget. Federal budget decides whatever it wants to do with the money, but roads require Y dollars for maintenance.

Scenario b) X dollars are earmarked for road maintenance. Federal budget can't do anything else with the money but spent them on road maintenance. Roads require Y dollars for maintenance. X is covered from earmarked revenue, and the difference comes from federal budget.

Did ANYTHING change between scenarios? In both cases taxpayers paid X dollars of fuel tax and Y dollars for road maintenance.

Earmarking tax revenue for a cause that requires greater amount of money and would be covered anyway is just PR mechanism to placate people / opposing party. Opposing party might know it is just illusion but still needs to placate their own constituents.

The goal of this is to create another tax revenue stream without angering your voters. And so we complicate what is relatively simple so that general population thinks the tax is for their benefit. It still is but for a different reasons.

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

#362

Post by moralsupply »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #353
moralsupply wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's entirely dependent on your ethical axioms, on which there is no universal consensus. There are certainly frameworks within which some taxation is justifiable. You're right in that there are multiple ethical systems that could justify the arbitrary nature of taxation. That doesn't mean those ethical systems can survive the scrutiny of philosophical razors. Being specific, from the perspective of the ethics of…

Individuals are an abstraction too, we're just a bunch of cells. Human beings evolved to live in a society. Exile from society being tantamount to a death sentence. And no society exist where there is no taxation, even if it's only in the very mild form of losing social credit if you didn't share food with others.

> Individuals are an abstraction too, we're just a bunch of cells.

A bunch of cells that collectively constitutes an organism that can perform arguments, therefore it has the ability to declare self-ownership. Ownership implies private property, with property being defined as something that is scarce, is delimitable, modifiable and which its owner can protect and defend.

Societies don't "exist" (within the self-ownership context) exactly because they can't perform arguments on their own, as they are just an idea, or abstraction, being composed of individuals that perform arguments and can never fully agree on all possible arguments collectively. Therefore, "societies" can't have self-ownership (and no private property, by consequence).

> And no society exist where there is no taxation

Groups of people have coexisted peacefully through history without a central government imposing taxation on them.

What you're calling "social credit" in the context of "societies" that didn't have a central government imposing taxation is nothing but a contract acquired voluntarily. If people in those "societies" decided to leave the groups and move to other groups, or just live on their own (which could be hard, but always a possibility), they could do so.

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

#363

Post by war1025 »

goodcanadian wrote: post #333
war1025 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe road wear is calculated as the 4th power of axle weight. Trucks have many axles to distribute the load, and are forced to stop at weigh stations to verify that they are within weight requirements. As far as road tax, the current system works pretty fairly for ICE engines, in my opinion. The larger the vehicle, the more powerful the engine, and thus the lower the efficiency. So semis are paying higher road t…

There is a similar issue with home solar panel installs. It is my impression that straight up net metering is very rare. It certainly isn't a thing in the UK where you will generally be paid much less for exporting to the grid than you will pay for importing from the grid. Moreover, as I recall, everywhere I've lived (several different countries) separated out a standing charge for grid maintenance from electricity u…

> It is my impression that straight up net metering is very rare.

Perhaps how it's done around here is different, but for instance this [1] caused a bit of an uproar among people we know with solar panels a few years ago.

I believe the way it works here is that if you install solar panels, you are allowed to net-meter an amount proportional to your annual electric usage in the period before you go solar panels. I think there is a bit of room for growth allowed, so something like 1.2x.

[1] https://www.midamericanenergy.com/nr-solaract

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

#364

Post by TulliusCicero »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #304
TulliusCicero wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere did they suggest that they want to get rid of all cars ever. The principle that shifting traffic from cars to bikes saves money for the government is a sound one. There'll always be a need for cars for some things -- probably not gonna have ambulance bikes, and of course deliveries for anything big needs a car/truck -- but you can certainly reduce the need. Especially with ebikes making biking more convenient…

I'll keep my car thanks

Americans moving to Tokyo largely give up cars and switch to public transport and walking. This isn't because there's a welcome committee of Japanese people shaming them out of driving; it's because driving works less well there, and public transit much better.

The point isn't to individually shame unwilling people out of their cars. The point is to make biking a real, viable transportation mode for short/medium distance trips for most people in urban or suburban areas. It's entirely possible to do this with the right infrastructure.

Once you do that, people will choose biking of their own accord, because it makes sense.

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

#365

Post by wiredfool »

kelnos wrote: post #226
Someone wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says all ? I’m just pointing out that there can be economic incentives for improving bicycle infrastructure. That isn’t an original idea. See for example https://www.vabike.org/vehicle-weight-and-road-damage/ (2009) Also, if in Google “50 ton 5-axle truck” I get trucks that I rarely see on roads in Europe. Reading https://www.jpisla.es/resources/Download+JPIsla+20130106+Pes... , that’s because t most countries do…

A quick search suggests that a semi truck without trailer weighs between 10 and 25 tons[0]. Those are usually 3-axle, so that's between about 125 and 4800 units of damage. That's still a massive amount when compared to the 1 unit of damage for a sedan. Add an empty trailer and you get 35 tons (5 axles, 2400 units of damage). US max allowed is 80 tons, for a whopping 65,536 units of damage. I don't know how full they…

No, a ton is 2000 lbs or 1000kg, you’re using ton as 1000 lbs.

Max US ordinary large truck loading is 80k lbs, or 40 tons.

(Source, I trained as a civil engineer. Units in us practice were all over the place, but kip was generally the one that got used the most.)

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

#366

Post by koheripbal »

mullingitover wrote: post #306
war1025 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe road wear is calculated as the 4th power of axle weight. Trucks have many axles to distribute the load, and are forced to stop at weigh stations to verify that they are within weight requirements. As far as road tax, the current system works pretty fairly for ICE engines, in my opinion. The larger the vehicle, the more powerful the engine, and thus the lower the efficiency. So semis are paying higher road t…

> As far as road tax, the current system works pretty fairly for ICE engines, in my opinion. The larger the vehicle, the more powerful the engine, and thus the lower the efficiency. I'm skeptical about that claim. "Freight trucks cause 99% of wear-and-tear on US roads, but only pay for 35% of the maintenance. This $60B subsidy causes extra congestion and pollution, and taxpayers pay the bill."[1] [1] https://truecost…

Clicking through to sources in you source finds most are based on individual opinions, not studies.

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

#367

Post by FpUser »

URSpider94 wrote: post #338
FpUser wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"This, and it also subsidizes people’s decisions to live far away from where they work and commute by car every day." Hence greatly increasing chances of finding better or any employment and at least partially reducing pressure employers can come up with. ... You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store…

That’s an interesting take. I mostly think of it in terms of urban sprawl - if it weren’t for the massive multi-lane freeways leading out to the countryside, people would live in higher-density housing close to city centers and transit hubs, and businesses would locate there as well. You’d still have a lot of choice about where to work, you’d just get there by bike, or train, or bus, or on foot. That’s how it is in J…

>"That’s how it is in Japan, Korea and most places in Europe I’ve been."

To each their own.

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

#368

Post by AnthonyMouse »

berkes wrote: post #330
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now you're making a statement which is too general. There is no benefit to discouraging use of highways at night, or uncongested suburban/rural roads. The thing you really want to prevent is congestion. And even that is not inherently best solved through punitive fees. If you can reduce congestion by e.g. building more housing near where people work so they don't have to commute as far, that's preferable to levyi…

The amount of NOx and CO2 emission is a direct product of use, and not (or hardly) congestion. The world doesn't heat up slower if we manage to use roads 100% during nighttime too. Same for wear and tear.

> The amount of NOx and CO2 emission is a direct product of use, and not (or hardly) congestion.

We're talking about electric vehicles which don't have that. That issue can obviously be solved for gasoline and diesel vehicles via fuel taxes (which encourage people to buy electric vehicles).

> Same for wear and tear.

As discussed, nearly all of the wear and tear is a result of large heavy vehicles and the amount caused by passenger vehicles is negligible.

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

#369

Post by AnthonyMouse »

URSpider94 wrote: post #340
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now you're making a statement which is too general. There is no benefit to discouraging use of highways at night, or uncongested suburban/rural roads. The thing you really want to prevent is congestion. And even that is not inherently best solved through punitive fees. If you can reduce congestion by e.g. building more housing near where people work so they don't have to commute as far, that's preferable to levyi…

I don’t have good citations handy, but it’s generally accepted that the construction of the American interstate freeway system after WWII was the primary enabler of the mass exodus of the white middle class to the suburbs, and the subsequent abandonment of people of color in inner cities for several generations. Furthermore, continuing to build more travel lanes to alleviate congestion has been shown to simply lead t…

> I don’t have good citations handy, but it’s generally accepted that the construction of the American interstate freeway system after WWII was the primary enabler of the mass exodus of the white middle class to the suburbs, and the subsequent abandonment of people of color in inner cities for several generations.

This is like arguing against rope because it was the primary enabler of lynchings.

> Furthermore, continuing to build more travel lanes to alleviate congestion has been shown to simply lead to more traffic. It’s a circular problem.

It isn't. What those studies are showing is that congestion suppresses demand, so if you relieve some of the congestion, some of the demand comes back. So to relieve congestion you'd need enough lanes to carry not the existing level of traffic, but the amount there would be if there wasn't any congestion suppressing it.

This is clearly demonstrated in China where they build multi-lane highways to nowhere as a jobs program and then traffic does not magically appear to fill them.

The problem is that in some places, satisfying all of the demand by only increasing the number of travel lanes would require like twenty travel lanes, which isn't ideal. But that doesn't mean you can't reduce congestion there by adding travel lanes, only that you need other solutions there too. Add a travel lane or two but not ten, build more housing closer to businesses so people don't have to commute as far, stop charging user fees for mass transit etc. By doing these things together you can alleviate congestion without needing twenty lane highways.

> We are finally seeing this turn around in a very painful way in Silicon Valley.

The problem there is totally unambiguously not "insufficient highways" and is in fact "insufficient housing" which induces those long commutes for whoever can't afford the existing housing close to the city where the jobs are (and also outrageous housing costs for the housing that is, because nobody wants that commute). Build more housing.

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

#370

Post by angry_octet »

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.

I object to this being framed in terms of vehicle mass, because what counts most is mass/area = ground pressure. Many big fat tires distribute the weight.

It is also much more relevant in places with sub-zero nights, i.e. a thaw/frost cycle. In relatively warm places like Australia this effect does not occur. Roads are much cheaper per km than in places with snow/ice, even with heavy vehicles.

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