Here’s a bad idea that just won’t die: a road-use tax that creates a disincentive for consumers driving electric cars and other fuel-efficient vehicles.
Oregon's legislators are leading the way, but there are similar proposals in Virginia and Texas. And in the State of Washington, starting last month, electric car owners began paying an additional $100 annual fee when they renew their annual vehicle registration. It has been referred to as a "treehugger tax."
The underlying desire in Oregon is to supplement the state's gas tax, which currently provides only about 60 percent of funding needed to repair deteriorating roads. The proposed answer is a road-use fee, which is assessed based on the number of miles driven. The first red flag is that the road-use fee would only be applied to electric vehicles or to any automobile with a combined EPA rating of 55 miles per gallon or higher.
“You have folks in pickups who are paying far more than their fair share and you have folks in hybrids or electric vehicles who are paying nothing to the roads systems,” said AAA lobbyist Craig Campbell.
That’s the same argument made by Oregon legislators, who want owners of high-mpg vehicles to pony up. The legislation tentatively sets a rate of 1.56 cents per mile for any vehicle that returns 55 mpg or higher. At 15,000 miles per year, that would amount to an annual fee of $234 for owners of high-mpg and electric vehicles. The road use tax would go into effect in 2015.
"Gasoline taxes have been, traditionally, a very good stand-in for how many miles you drive," said Salem, Oregon Republican Vicki Berger. "That dynamic is changing." 9Adding taxes to EV owners is an exception to conventional Republican views on the need to lower taxes.)
The net result of this law: a penalty for efficiency. In the case of high-mpg vehicles that use some amount of gasoline, such as plug-in hybrids, owners would essentially be taxed twice—once at the pump and then again in road-use tax.
But as we argued two years ago, there aren’t enough electric cars out there to really make a difference, especially considering the privacy implications of the state tracking your movements. Unlike a gas tax, a per-mile fee require either tracking a vehicle's movement via GPS or monitoring its annual mileage—either of which would not fly with privacy advocates. There are currently about 2,000 EVs on Oregon roads.
One other option includes the installation of a device that tracks miles driven, but has no ability to monitor location. The problem with this approach is that drivers would be taxed even when they exit the state. It would be unfair to tax Oregon residents for miles driven on roads outside of the state's border.
You can follow the ongoing saga of Oregon’s attempt to charge EVs by the mile at the state’s Department of Transportation website. As indicate there, Oregon’s “Road User Fee Task Force” has been trying to figure out how to extract money from hybrid and EV drivers since 2001. The info is one click away from a page on the state's site that promotes electric cars and charging infrastructure as "reducing the state's reliance on imported petroleum and reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
I live in Oregon. I think this is stupid, and not because I support EVs.
I agree that we need to pay for roads. I disagree with the strategies they are looking at for this.
I would prefer to see a simple "penny per pound" annual tax added to all vehicles (and adjusting for inflation every 5 years hereafter). Heavier vehicles do more damage to roads. This scheme would also collect from registered trailers, scooters and motorcycles. Admin would be low, DMV already has curb weight for most vehicles and for those they don't they could require a certified scale weighing to register the odd vehicle. My motorcycles would cost $8 and $6 a year, my car $40 a year and my truck $60 a year.
Also - they should tax studded tires, which do massive amounts of damage.
The link to the DOT page includes some cool charts of hybrid and EV registrations.
Also some interesting comments like this one:
"Written comment from fourth OEVA member: “For reference, a 54 MPG vehicle would not be required to pay the per-mile tax. At Oregon's current rate of $0.30 per gallon of fuel, that is the equivalent of $0.0055 per mile. In May, the proposal tentatively looked at a rate of $0.0156 per mile. For a 55 MPG vehicle, they would be paying the equivalent of $0.858 per gallon of fuel or a 286% increase of tax for 1 additional mile per gallon. Assuming someone drives 12,000 miles per year, this is the difference of an annual tax of $66.66 per year for the 54 MPG vehicle, and $187.20 for the 55 MPG vehicle. This is all assuming that they adopt the same $0.0156 proposed rate."
I am not opposed to paying for roads.
I should not be punished because I choose a more responsible vehicle.