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.
Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
281–290 of 388 posts
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia says damage is proportional to axle weight to the 4th power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_weight#cite_ref-13
I remember my dad telling me that when I was in my late teens. That it’s the fourth power startled me. To give an idea of what this means: For a 50 tonne semi-trailer with five axles, (⁵⁰⁄₅)⁴ = 10,000 units of damage. 2 tonne vehicle with two axles, 1 unit of damage. That one truck, only 25 times as heavy as a pretty heavy car, is doing 10,000 times as much damage to the road. Thus indeed if you have basically any he…
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#283I think that road users should pay to use the road. Fuel excise, or electricity surcharge tax or whatever, is a tiny fraction of the subsidy that road users get from regular tax payers. I'm a blind Aussie taxpayer. Consider my tax situation. If I take an Uber to my local pub, that's about A$10. Of that $10: $0.90 in Goods and Services Tax $1 to the taxi compensation scheme That's 19% tax - or $1.90/$10. In Australia,…
I think we should have pay to use parks. And schools.
What's the point of having government funded infrastructure if not to make it equally available to all regardless of means?
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#284I 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?
My opinion: The transition from ICE vehicles to EVs is a very large net benefit to society, so during this period when new ICE vehicles are still legal, we should be giving EVs special ("unfair") benefits to encourage people to switch. If this new tax results in people choosing to buy an ICE vehicle who would have bought an EV without it, that's a very bad outcome. As for the loss of revenue from the gas tax, I think…
Sure, but at least in the US, electric vehicles already get numerous other benefits include tax rebates, lower registration fees, HOV lane access, etc.
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
They spy where they are not allowed, play tricks with the letter of the law. For example, 5-eyes, where Canada is not allowed to spy on Canadians, and the UK on UK citizens, so each spy on the other's citizens, then hand the data over.
Or recent stories in the US, of the government buying data from the private sector. They can't spy, so they pay the private sector to spy.
I have zero faith that any scenario where data is harvested, that it won't be illegally/immorally/sneakily used. And history, that all important metric, 100% backs up that this sort of thing happens again, and again, and again.
So point #1? There's no scenario where we can ever trust 'track and delete'. Nor, can we ever trust any 'black box' in a car. EG, if we cannot open it, examine it (something highly unlikely in a metering device), no way will I ever trust it.
Number 2? Tolls are beyond impossible. I think you must live in a population dense area, to believe they are viable.
Yet think of rural routes, side roads, or just normal non-freeway roads. There are many 100s of millions of miles of these, and they greatly outnumber freeways. They cost upkeep too.
I often go 6 months without driving on a freeway, where I live. I know many people who drive thousands of km a month, yet are entirely on rural roads.
There isn't even network connectivity, including cell, in some of these areas. Phones. Loads of roads have no power lines, are just 'connect this dirt road to this dirt road', yet see a thousand cars a day.
As a side note, right now, we aren't paying per km. People driving a sports car, get 1/2 or 1/4 the gas mileage of a little smart car or some such. Yet, they both pay the same for gas.
Two things bother me here:
1) The whole reason most jurisdictions have 'tax people when paid', is because many people cannot save, and even if they could, literally have no money left at the end of the year.
If there is some 'pay later' or 'show up yearly, be tolled, and pay' scenario, this won't work well. Not at all. Collections alone is a horrible cost on any service, which costs immensely.
2) We already have odometers, which are theoretically sealed, illegal to monkey with, tied to car value, and with a HUGE history of laws / court action wrapped around them.
Anything can be monkeyed with or hacked, ANYTHING, so my point here is that odometers are already in the car, show distance, and have laws protecting them. And even, already, mechanics fully aware of the punishment for tampering with them.
(Odometer replacement even legally requires setting the replacement to the same as the old, etc, etc, or making an indelible note of it.)
But I also take objection to the government knowing how much I drive. Or when.
Really, I don't think this is much of a problem though. The whole reason Tesla went with electric, is because Musk wanted reliable gear for Mars. Can't use O2 burners there, so H2 was out.
With the recycling costs, slow charging of batteries, this is only a stopgap.
H2 is where we're going, over the next decade. Once that happens, taxation will be back where it was anyhow.
At the pump.
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#286Earlier 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 would say that 60% of taxes might be raised for health and education this way.
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#287I think that road users should pay to use the road. Fuel excise, or electricity surcharge tax or whatever, is a tiny fraction of the subsidy that road users get from regular tax payers. I'm a blind Aussie taxpayer. Consider my tax situation. If I take an Uber to my local pub, that's about A$10. Of that $10: $0.90 in Goods and Services Tax $1 to the taxi compensation scheme That's 19% tax - or $1.90/$10. In Australia,…
>I think that road users should pay to use the road. I think we should have pay to use parks. And schools. What's the point of having government funded infrastructure if not to make it equally available to all regardless of means?
(Yes I know bicycles and buses use the road too, but if that's all we built roads for we wouldn't need so many!)
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#288In many countries, fuel taxes don't go into general revenues, they are ring-fenced and allocated for road maintenance. Even if they aren't, a reduction in revenue must be offset. The fact that they aren't charged taxes for use of the roads was the incentive. This is removing it in recognition that electric vehicles are now enough of a percentage of the fleet to affect tax revenue. New Zealand does the same, with dies…
This approach makes sense, but with Australia, EV sales are not close to 2% and are still 0.6% [0], and they are still really expensive upfront to buy. Also in Australia, the fuel tax isn’t isolated for use only for roads, it is a federal tax that can be (and has been), used for other more general expenses. In a time of “money printer goes brrr” and tax cuts disproportionately benefiting the wealthy, nickel and dimin…
As you say there's probably a better way to tax it though (it doesn't make sense someone with a Tesla Model X pays the same as someone with a Renault Zoe). If you drive 100,000km over the lifetime of your car (this is just a nice round number for examples sake) that's only €1500 in tax revenue. Higher taxes on the sale of large and luxury cars could generate the same revenue with little impact on the overall price (if you are already planning to spend €50k+ on a new car).
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#289I'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…
Also congestion. Charging based on how much congestion is on a roadway while a car uses it will reduce traffic during peak times and increase how much economic value the road transportation network contributes by making the most valuable use-cases get priority access to roads during peak demand periods, while spreading out driving across a larger range of hours to reduce overall delays to traffic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing
Traffic is basically due to a scarce economic resource - road space during peak times - having no pricing to prioritize its use. People thereby pay for road space during rush hour by paying in time stuck in traffic, which is a very inefficient economic mechanism for determining the allocation of scarce resources.
Re: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember my dad telling me that when I was in my late teens. That it’s the fourth power startled me. To give an idea of what this means: For a 50 tonne semi-trailer with five axles, (⁵⁰⁄₅)⁴ = 10,000 units of damage. 2 tonne vehicle with two axles, 1 unit of damage. That one truck, only 25 times as heavy as a pretty heavy car, is doing 10,000 times as much damage to the road. Thus indeed if you have basically any he…
The last time this was posted I dug in to this and it appeared as though 2 vs 4 tires per axle was not tested, in the original or follow up paper usually referenced. They were testing trucks vs trucks with the same axle type, but different numbers of axles (hence axle weight instead of vehicle weight). It could be that four tires on a truck axle are much more effective at spreading the weight than two car tires. Or i…