Road Use by E.V. Drivers: To Tax or Not to Tax? Drivers of purely electric vehicles avoid paying the gas taxes included in the cost of a petro-product fill-up. Consequently, if E.V."s were to become widely adopted, less money could flow into accounts that pay to build and maintain roads. That possibility is the impetus behind the efforts of some states to impose alternative forms of taxation on E.V. drivers, like flat annual fees or levies based on the miles traveled. On Feb. 11, Washington, which taxes gasoline at 37.5 cents per gallon, passed a bill that would impose a $100 annual fee on electric car users. The bill also passed the State Senate in 2011 but died in the House. Legislation introduced in Oregon in 2011 would have taxed E.V."s based on how far they traveled, at a rate of 0.6 cents per mile. Bills that would impose fees on E.V. drivers have also been introduced in Kansas and Arizona, and the issue has undergone study in Utah. State Senator Mary Margaret Haugen, who sponsored the bill in Washington, was not available for comment, but in a press statement issued after the successful Senate vote, she noted that the bill was introduced in the interest of fairness. "We think the purchase of electric vehicles is great for the environment, but we also need to maintain our roads, which is why we have the gas tax," she said. Electric vehicles put just as much wear and tear on our roads as gas vehicles. This simply ensures that they contribute their fair share to the upkeep of our roads. Some E.V. advocates who favor a form of fair-use payment are not pleased by the notion of a flat tax. "The issue has been discussed quite a bit up here in Washington, and almost everyone agrees that paying some form of road tax is fair," Chad Schwitters, president of the E.V. advocacy nonprofit Plug In America, said in a telephone interview. But flat fees are problematic for much the same reasons they'd be a problem for gas cars. Because the tax is the same no matter how much you drive, they don't encourage conservation or reduce wear and tear on the roads. The tax proposal introduced in Washington would not necessarily remain a flat levy. According to Ms. Haugen's office, the $100 fee would be automatically repealed if Washington replaced its state gas tax with a system based on vehicle miles traveled. Drivers would then be charged based on their cars" odometer readings rather than the gallons of gas they consumed. General Motors has been a vocal opponent of the Washington state bill and any other proposed tax on E.V."s as the vehicles fight to find market share. "We strongly oppose a tax on E.V."s," Shad Balch, a company spokesman, wrote in an e-mail message. "We can't provide customers an incentive from one hand and then take it back with the other," he added, referring to federal and state tax incentives currently extended to accelerate the adoption of E.V."s. "At some point, E.V."s will need to pay their fair share for road maintenance, but it's too early, and any cost increase to the consumer will hurt sales and slow market adoption." Brian Wynne, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association in the nation's capital, said that the federal Highway Trust Fund, also financed through gas taxes, was increasingly challenged by declining revenues as the nation moved to more fuel-efficient vehicles. "We aren't going to make up the funding gap by taxing electric vehicles, given how many are likely to be sold with even the most optimistic projections and the size of the trust fund deficits," he said. We have made it a national priority to make vehicles more fuel efficient, and reducing gas tax revenue is one effect of that.