I support mileage-based registration fees for all vehicles in lieu of the existing gas tax structure, in combination with an emissions based gas tax. Adding an EV specific registration fee complicates things too much, in my view.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
No EV rebate on Model X if you're rich in California or live in Georgia
- Thread starter Blastphemy
- Start date
-
- Tags
- Model X
I support mileage-based registration fees for all vehicles in lieu of the existing gas tax structure, in combination with an emissions based gas tax. Adding an EV specific registration fee complicates things too much, in my view.
TomServo
Active Member
Illinois ended their EV cash rebate program a few months ago. It was $4000, sent as a check after purchase. So we get NADA, ZILCH, ZERO EV incentives.
cschock
Member
Even if you count Solar City, SpaceX and Tesla together as employees of Elon Musk, he still would not be the largest employer in California. Not counting goverment agencies, I believe Disneyland is the top employer at about 26000 people.
mknox
Well-Known Member
I agree. I think this is the only fair way. Back when pretty much all cars were gasoline powered, gas taxes were a kind of mileage based charge anyway (the more you drove, the more gas you'd use and the more tax you'd pay). With gas, electric, hydrogen, propane, LNG etc. coming on line, a mileage based fee seems reasonable. I think the emissions-based component could really just be a surcharge on the price of carbon-based fuels like gasoline or diesel.
But how do you properly allocate the funds to the appropriate jurisdiction?
For example, I know lots of people who live in NH just over the MA/NH boarder, but work in MA. Much of their annual mileage is commuting within MA. How is their annual mileage tax collected? By NH, at registration renewal? How it that fair to MA? NH gets all the revenue, but MA deserves maybe 90% of it.
The only way to do it equitably is to install GPS tracking in every car so "they" can tell which jurisdiction deserves the tax revenue. Good luck getting that one through.
hockeythug
Active Member
Hopefully this ends the thinking by some that people are only buying the car because of incentives.
The flaw with this thinking is focusing on individual drivers, rather than a large group of drivers. Sure, you'll have NH drivers with mostly MA mileage, but you will also get the opposite too. The average across all drivers should balance that out. An easier solution would be levy the tax at the federal level and then distribute the money according to real mileage to the individual states, and keep some for the interstate roads as well.
mknox
Well-Known Member
That's an interesting point. I suppose gas taxes were, for the most part, collected in the area where most of the driving was done. Although in your MA/NH example, folks still may have purchased the majority of their fuel, and paid the tax, in their home state even though driving elsewhere.
On the grand scheme, maybe, but not in my example. There are far more people living in NH and working in MA then vice versa, as evidenced by rush hour traffic on Rt 3 and Rt 93 (main N/S arteries)
There will always be some outliers, where the average will be skewed (e.g. high density business areas) but it will generally sort itself out. You can't ever reach 100% fairness and shouldn't try to.
With regards to NH/MA, I'm sure there are a lot of people from MA commuting to NY or CT, so its probably not as unfair as you think it is. Only a proper nation-wide study can verify that. Humans are terrible at measuring this sort of thing, due to our narrow vision.
I suspect a lot of people don't plan their fuel stops very well, since gas stations are everywhere. "Oops, the light just came on - I need to stop for gas." In my case, they probably buy more gas in MA, since that's where most of the miles are driven, and where they are more likely to run low.
Then their are cheap bastards like me, who buy gas in NH at any opportunity, to save a nickle a gallon on the tax. Plus MA gets enough tax revenue from me, anyway. :tongue:
Right. Additionally, growing up in Delaware, I knew people who would drive over to NJ to fill up because gas was cheaper - and full service!
I do find the location-based argument interesting, though. This is especially true for commercial vehicles driving coast to coast or over long distances, anyway. One thing the argument does overlook is that our current gas tax structure (in the US) includes a federal portion in combination with statewide and local portions. My example of a mileage-based registration fee would certainly include some feedback to the federal government to replace the revenues raised by the current gas tax. So in some way, this "spreads it around."
It is used in big transport rigs - e.g. in Europe there are incentives for limited horsepower engines as a way to indirectly improve efficiency. I worked with Volvo on a project around 2005 to have telemetry and remote control. The fleet manager could reduce the fleet engine max power. The driver could, from the cab, 'activate' a temporary request for more HP to, say, go up a mountain road. The effect of the feature of reducing miles driven at max power availability saved the fleet owners a ton of money. The notion of individual rights and privacy of vehicle location is different for fleet drivers than for individuals, of course.
