<story><title>Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax</title><url>https://thedriven.io/2020/11/21/shameful-victoria-follows-south-australia-and-imposes-electric-car-road-tax/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ip26</author><text>One of the simplest arguments against it to me is basically to look at the landscape. For example, in the US, ballpark 1% of cars are electric. Meanwhile, the flat federal fuel tax is not indexed to inflation &amp;amp; hasn&amp;#x27;t been increased in almost thirty years. Yet everyone is in this panic about how EVs are going to cause a huge revenue shortfall!? I&amp;#x27;m not opposed to EVs paying their share, but something is rotten in Denmark.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, shifting fuel taxes onto tires might make sense. All cars use tires, no matter the fuel, it requires no odometer reading, and a tire has a designed application &amp;amp; load range which ought to translate reasonably well to anticipated road wear.</text></item><item><author>horsawlarway</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not really sure there&amp;#x27;s a good answer here.&lt;p&gt;Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre.  Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km.  So you&amp;#x27;re looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax.&lt;p&gt;This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric.&lt;p&gt;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 who can&amp;#x27;t. For electric, it was worse - because they do tend to be more expensive to purchase up front, and they paid no fuel tax at all.&lt;p&gt;And frankly, infrastructure is expensive, and governments need to plan on continuing to maintain it.&lt;p&gt;That said - I think the only real answer here is a more thorough overhaul of how you tax road usage.  Perhaps it&amp;#x27;s time to ditch the fuel excise tax entirely, and tax all drivers based on (vehicle weight * kms driven * some constant).&lt;p&gt;Encourage drivers to move to lighter vehicles which cause less wear and tear on the road, and drop the disparity between fuel and electric.  They both use the same tires.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>riversflow</author><text>2 things.
First, pretty sure it’s been discussed here previously(edit: and is down thread), but I believe the wear on the road is like the 4th power of the weight.[1] here’s a chart describing it. with that considered, I don’t think it makes sense to even really charge passenger vehicles in the US, when we have huge fleets of 80k pound big rigs on the road(and the limit is uncapped with overweight permits)—charge them.&lt;p&gt;Second, the problem with tires is that depending on what and where you drive you’ll use them considerably faster. I live a few miles down a very windy chip-sealed[2] road, that I have to drive down any time I go anywhere. As a result(best I can tell) my tires tend to go bald 10k-20k miles early. Chip seal is used because it is cheap, seems regressive that I’d be taxed at a higher rate for a poorer road.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;streets.mn&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;streets.mn&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Chipseal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Chipseal&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax</title><url>https://thedriven.io/2020/11/21/shameful-victoria-follows-south-australia-and-imposes-electric-car-road-tax/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ip26</author><text>One of the simplest arguments against it to me is basically to look at the landscape. For example, in the US, ballpark 1% of cars are electric. Meanwhile, the flat federal fuel tax is not indexed to inflation &amp;amp; hasn&amp;#x27;t been increased in almost thirty years. Yet everyone is in this panic about how EVs are going to cause a huge revenue shortfall!? I&amp;#x27;m not opposed to EVs paying their share, but something is rotten in Denmark.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, shifting fuel taxes onto tires might make sense. All cars use tires, no matter the fuel, it requires no odometer reading, and a tire has a designed application &amp;amp; load range which ought to translate reasonably well to anticipated road wear.</text></item><item><author>horsawlarway</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not really sure there&amp;#x27;s a good answer here.&lt;p&gt;Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre.  Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km.  So you&amp;#x27;re looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for fuel tax.&lt;p&gt;This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric.&lt;p&gt;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 who can&amp;#x27;t. For electric, it was worse - because they do tend to be more expensive to purchase up front, and they paid no fuel tax at all.&lt;p&gt;And frankly, infrastructure is expensive, and governments need to plan on continuing to maintain it.&lt;p&gt;That said - I think the only real answer here is a more thorough overhaul of how you tax road usage.  Perhaps it&amp;#x27;s time to ditch the fuel excise tax entirely, and tax all drivers based on (vehicle weight * kms driven * some constant).&lt;p&gt;Encourage drivers to move to lighter vehicles which cause less wear and tear on the road, and drop the disparity between fuel and electric.  They both use the same tires.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikeklaas</author><text>Good thought, but that might incentivize not replacing worn tires</text></comment>