Lost fuel excise (tax) revenue, so they find another way

[Futuresystem]

Here in Australia there are virtually ZERO tax incentives for EV's, which is pretty bloody pathetic.
Also, currently if I buy a Model X or S, even a basic bottom end one, I would also pay an extra 15% "luxury car tax" at purchase.
Although we don't have pricing yet, the Model 3 might hopefully just stay under this threshold.... for the basic model. However option it up (eg: big battery) and bingo, slap an extra 15% tax on thank you.

Now they're concerned about the lost revenue because EV's don't consume fuel, and therefore don't pay a lot of extra tax in the form of fuel excise. (Read fuel TAX).

Thus it seems that long before there a even a tiny fraction of "clean" cars on our roads, they are trying to work out how to tax us more!

Electric cars are breaking our roads, here's how

How does this compare with other countries including the U.S. and Canada, and Europe?

 

[Shock-On-T]

Unbelievably amateur of Paul Fletcher.
They are losing far more revenue simply by the increasing efficiency of all petrol/diesel cars.
If they want to switch to a distance-based fee then do so, don't blame cars for being too efficient and not burning enough of the taxed liquid.

While I'm ranting, I paid several tens of thousands of dollars in tax when I bought my Model S. My former car would have been raising them about $1000/yr in fuel excise.

And finally, what of the cost of pollution? My tolls pay for the extractor fans in the Lane Cove tunnel that my car doesn't need. My tax pays for the hospital treatment of pollution-triggered lung problems that my car didn't cause. My tax funds our military, who for some reason seem to spend a lot of time in the middle east. I don't think they're there for the lithium...

 

[Futuresystem]

Unbelievably amateur of Paul Fletcher.
They are losing far more revenue simply by the increasing efficiency of all petrol/diesel cars.
If they want to switch to a distance-based fee then do so, don't blame cars for being too efficient and not burning enough of the taxed liquid.

While I'm ranting, I paid several tens of thousands of dollars in tax when I bought my Model S. My former car would have been raising them about $1000/yr in fuel excise.

And finally, what of the cost of pollution? My tolls pay for the extractor fans in the Lane Cove tunnel that my car doesn't need. My tax pays for the hospital treatment of pollution-triggered lung problems that my car didn't cause. My tax funds our military, who for some reason seem to spend a lot of time in the middle east. I don't think they're there for the lithium...

Totally agree!
You'll also regularly hear the "anti EV brigade" whinging about EV's not being cleaner than petrol cars, if charged from dirty coal fired power, which is partly correct.
However, what they very conveniently ignore is that that only applies to an EV on the highway. As soon as you add in heavy traffic, stop start traffic lights etc., the equation is then hugely in favour of EV's even if charged by dirty power, (not to mention that there are no "local" tail pipe emissions, where our city air quality is often so poor.)

Of course though, a petrol (or worse, ... diesel) engine will only become even more polluting as it ages, with worn seals and piston rings, inaccurate and dirty mass air flow and multiple other sensors, worn and dirty fuel injectors, tired catalytic converter etc. etc.
An EV on the other hand gets cleaner throughout it's very long life as the grid gets cleaner, which it is doing rapidly world wide with solar (and battery storage) rolling out at ever increasing rates. Solar/battery is rapidly getting to the point that its becoming cheaper than just the cost of transmission alone, ignoring generation costs.

In our case for example, thanks to solar, we export nearly double the electricity that we consume, and that includes charging our plug in hybrid- which averages under 2 litres/100 klms for our driving pattern. (It would be even better on fuel if not for a weekly 180 kilometre /112 mile round trip from Brisbane to the Gold Coast which means that we need the ICE for some of the journey. We also get charged -usually totally by solar unless its very cloudy - at the destination, before returning.)

But governments only look at the revenue stream, and no doubt will do that for EV's, which is exactly why they took so long to tackle smoking with any real passion, despite it's absolutely massive cost in the health care system. They were only looking at tobacco tax revenue, not the true cost, which was (and still remains) absolutely horrendous despite reducing rates of smoking. (Sadly, don't expect any thanks whatsoever for driving clean vehicles in Australia!)

Are we the worst developed country in the world in this, (and Norway and California perhaps among the best?)

I'd love to hear the story of other countries and states with EV policy.

PS "Frosty", looking at your signature, you beat me by quite some time with your Model 3 reservation. However mine still says "Early 2019"....... though I suspect that's optimistic.

 

[nwdiver]

Once they add a ~$10/gal carbon tax I'll fully support paying ~$0.10/mi to help with road maintenance.

 

[Knightowl]

In colorado usa I pay an extra $100 fee every year to drive full electric, gas cars and hybrids don't pay it, the excuse was the same lost tax revenue from gas sales.

 

[Shock-On-T]

In the UK the annual road tax is based on how much CO2 your car emits.

In Australia we need to get the revenue some other way. As it stands our government is incentivised against emission reduction.

 

[ASUComputerGuy]

In North Carolina, our "EV" fee was increased to $130/yr. Unlike the Personal Property tax, this is a fee, so it's not deductible from fed/state tax at the end of the year. As Knightowl and others have said, its justified by the fact that we don't pay the "Highway use" Tax at the fuel pump. I don't mind paying for my part of the road maintenance, but there's got be a better way to do it than to tax the fuel and slap on more fees to selected vehicles only. Every car in NC (and many other states, I would say all, but I'm not sure its all states) has to be inspected and mileage officially recorded, in my opinion, the Highway use tax should be based on that and every state should go to it, so it is a bit more fair. Oh well, back to reality...

 

[ccdisce]

In Georgia, USA the 'Alternative Fuel Fee' for my S100D for 2018 was $208.13 and currently there is no state tax credits on the purchase of a new EV.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Now they're concerned about the lost revenue because EV's don't consume fuel,

Bound to come here too, but I assume the current thinking is "too few EVs to have to worry about", and government happy to subsidise them, for now, to help the uptake. In EU we are setting about banning Diesel from cities (Copenhagen THIS year I think?), and congestion charge in London is exempt for EVs (but you have to pay £10 p.a. to register your EV ... the paperwork takes about 3 weeks to ahve processed so I've done that for two years running and have yet to drive into London ...).

I expect a road-use tax will come in at some point, which seems fair enough (we currently have a fuel tax, and also an annual road tax; wasn't so long ago that it cost more to collect than it raised, but they increased that for higher polluting cars, and did away with a windscreen sticker, which has enabled them to issue more fine (as no longer any physical reminder to renew it ...) so now apparently raising a decent amount in fines ...

and then we have daftness like a toll crossing of the Thames (on the main orbital highway around London) where the toll booths have been removed and can now only pay online which raises more fines for people who forget / can't figure out the online, etc. ... but stupidly the system cannot fine any cars with foreign number plates, so there is no need for them to pay at all. We have a direct-debit for our cars, but when that falls to £10 they debit another £20 from my account, rather than debit in arrears, so I am acting as their banker on average £15 ... its all based on ripping the consumer off.

whinging about EV's not being cleaner than petrol cars, if charged from dirty coal fired power, which is partly correct

I've read reports which say that even dirty coal power stations make EVs cleaner than Diesels ... so at best its an argument with very very little weight.

Shocking that AU government is not getting on with doing their bit and replacing the coal power stations with renewables at a brisk rate. By the time the politicians' grandchildren say "Granddad you knew there was a problem, why did you not do anything?" its going to need a hugely expensive volte-face. Depressing.

 

[david_42]

Oregon has been working on a mileage tax. The first couple programs used GPS to track "miles". Guess they never heard of odometers. Since we have to re-register our vehicles every two years, it might be possible to "read" these devices and record miles driven. Granted, it would be a large bite, as opposed to spreading the tax over two years of fuel burning, but details.

There is always the option to let people spread the tax over the following six months, with the full amount coming due if the vehicle is sold.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Since we have to re-register our vehicles every two years, it might be possible to "read" these devices and record miles drive

Hadn't thought of that, thanks. Here in the UK all vehicles over three years old have to be tested (the MOT test) annually for road-worthiness, emissions, etc. The mileage is recorded at that time to help prevent fraudulent, subsequent, changes to the milometer prior to the car being sold. So that would work for us (although something would be needed for first three years; perhaps by then all new cars will be able to do OTA GPS reporting ...)

We can also pay some utilities a flat monthly fee, based on expected usage, which they then adjust when the actual amount is calculated (e.g. from meter reading) so I guess that could be done too.