Washington [state] proposes $100 fee on electric cars (gas, costs, charge)

[d4g4m]

The state of Washington is proposing adding a fee of $100 to annual registrations of electric vehicles. Reason given is that owner/drivers will not be paying fuel taxes for using the states' roads. They want the $100 to make up the difference in lost tax revenue.
Seems they are more interested in making up lost tax revenue than the carbon footprint you will no longer cause while driving on a highway.
My county kept telling us to 'save water'. Lawn watering only once a week after 6PM, take shorter showers, 1.6 gal toilet bowls, don't wash your car, etc. Seems that we saved too much water. Per gallon water usage fee was increased to make up the difference in lost revenue.

[PacificFlights]

The car will still cause wear and tear on the roads, so why souldn;t they pay for that? Just cause the car is green doesn't mean it's not causing damage to roads. AFV's that use fuels that do not have road taxes on the fuel pay set road taxes in their registration, electric cars are no different.

[bradykp]

pacific flights is right. they have to tax people to pay for the roads somehow. what they should do then is lower the gas tax, and charge all residents who register a car the same "road maintenance fee" so as to not make it seem like discouraging EVs? i dunno....but EV drivers have to pay for road wear and tear somehow.

[thecoalman]

$100 is paltry sum, it should be more. Average fuel tax is about $0.50 a gallon or the equivalent tax on 200 gallons. Average person driving a gasoline car will surpass that easily in 4 or 5 months.

Originally Posted by bradykp

.......charge all residents who register a car the same "road maintenance fee"

Fairest way to do this is use a formula that factors the max weight of the car/truck/van and how many miles it's driven. I know they have been tossing around the idea of using GPS for this but I don't like that idea at all. A reading each inspection and final reading upon sales should suffice...

[PanTerra]

Originally Posted by d4g4m

The state of Washington is proposing adding a fee of $100 to annual registrations of electric vehicles. Reason given is that owner/drivers will not be paying fuel taxes for using the states' roads. They want the $100 to make up the difference in lost tax revenue.
Seems they are more interested in making up lost tax revenue than the carbon footprint you will no longer cause while driving on a highway.
My county kept telling us to 'save water'. Lawn watering only once a week after 6PM, take shorter showers, 1.6 gal toilet bowls, don't wash your car, etc. Seems that we saved too much water. Per gallon water usage fee was increased to make up the difference in lost revenue.

Of course pay the tax and be proud about it. After all, isn't it more about feeling good at being more green among your fellow hydrocarbon burning drivers. But then you're gonna have to burn more coal to make up for the drain on the grid.

[texdav]

Yep;puus metors at theose docking station.

[PanTerra]

Checking dictionary.

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

$100 is paltry sum, it should be more. Average fuel tax is about $0.50 a gallon or the equivalent tax on 200 gallons. Average person driving a gasoline car will surpass that easily in 4 or 5 months.



Fairest way to do this is use a formula that factors the max weight of the car/truck/van and how many miles it's driven. I know they have been tossing around the idea of using GPS for this but I don't like that idea at all. A reading each inspection and final reading upon sales should suffice...

where is the fuel tax 50 cents? let alone the average?

[bradykp]

Originally Posted by PanTerra

Of course pay the tax and be proud about it. After all, isn't it more about feeling good at being more green among your fellow hydrocarbon burning drivers. But then you're gonna have to burn more coal to make up for the drain on the grid.

missing the bigger picture entirely.

[thecoalman]

That is the combined federal and state tax... to be exact the US average is 47.7 cents. Highest is California at 67 cents:


USA Gasoline Tax Map - Pennsylvania Gas Prices





If the orange states were blue and we reversed the colors we have very familiar map. This map is a bit odd because the ones in red are all above the national average, those in orange and blue are below.

National average on diesel is about 10 or 15 cents more.





----edit-------

Actually that's from April last year, now its 48.1 cents average, diesel is 53.1 cents.

http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/


FYI other than the costs for the raw product taxes are the biggest expense associated with gasoline.