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There were something like 60,000 pure electric vehicles sold in the US last year. There were something like 16 million passenger vehicles sold overall. That's ~.3% market share for this year. In terms of cars on the road it's a smaller percentage than that. I get that they are trying to "level the playing field", but let's not pretend that missing out on gas taxes from vehicles comprising maybe .1% of all passenger vehicles is even a blip on the radar of the overall transportation budget.
Argument scapegoat. They are a small percentage of vehicles, so they don't matter.... No, They are still vehicles on the road and they are growing in numbers. This issue will need to be taken up at some point. Just because they are small in numbers, does not mean they shouldn't pay a fair share for the same resources they use as everyone else.
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Originally Posted by red92s
If all the gas taxes in GA actually went to the State Highway Trust, instead of pet projects via the general fund they'd have a lot stronger argument. You want to justify taxing EV's because they don't pay gas tax? Fine.
Scapegoat argument again. They deserve to pay their fair share. The rest of this argument is merely about where money should go overall, not about who should pay for it. This argument further doesn't matter, because ---you're ignoring all of the other parts of the new law--. In this new law they are sending all of the gas taxes to the GDOT and not the general fund, so they are making this change... you're criticizing the old system and not the new proposed one.
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Originally Posted by red92s
Is it?
Assume 250 miles per week (that's about the most you can do with the leases on EV's) in a car that gets 25 MPG. That's 10 gallons a week, 520 gallons per year. Figure $3.00 per gallon (being really generous here based on current prices). That's $1560 in gas per year.
GA fuel tax adds 7.5 centers per gallon. That's $39 in tax.
GA fuel sales tax adds 4%. That's another $62.
So GA fuel taxes on an average vehicle driving the same amount as an EV are roughly HALF the usage fee they want to stick to EV's.
Well a few issues.
A) You're calculating this off the old system and not the new proposed system for the gas tax.
B) You conveniently left off the extra 2-4% in sales tax gas consumers pay to local governments in the current system. That tax is also replaced under the new plan. The majority in the area will be paying 7% sales tax most of the time. A few exurban counties tax 6% and sometimes there is lapse between renewals of splost taxes that will have a county temporarily tax 1% less. The city of Atlanta proper will tax 8%. This is a big omission from your analysis. $31-$62 difference ($46.50 typical).
C)Your other assumptions aren't completely incorrect, but they are slightly wrong in your favor. You've also made the faulty assumption that the average car still on the road gets 25 mpg, especially when we factor in light trucks. This new law is designed to take fuel efficiency changes into account in the future. The Excise tax on fuel will automatically increase as gas cars become more fuel efficient. So for a proper comparison we need to go off that average rate, especially since it dictates the excise tax at a proportional rate in the future. But yes, newer cars are more fuel efficient than this and 25 mpg is not uncommon for some people...myself included. That does not change the older cars with less fuel efficiency still being on the roads. As older cars are removed out of service and replaced, the excise tax will naturally increase with the increase of average fuel efficiency.
D) Local governments are losing small bit of sales tax from this. The law allows local governments to have a local excise gas tax of up to 3 cents. Local governments are likely to eventually take this to replace the sales tax they lose. This brings the total excise tax to compare to 32.2 cents per gallon. Therefore we should use this rate, not the old one, for comparison.
At 520 gallons/year based on a 25 mpg assumption, which is an underestimate based on your fuel efficiency, that would come out to about $167. Once we got rid of the estimates we'd this amount rise. It isn't that far off, if at all. The law is designed to make the average driver pay close to $200/year.
The only real flaw to this system is electric vehicles are charged a flat rate, rather than how much they drive. Personal electric vehicles are also lighter in weight and lead to less wear and tear, but commercial versions, especially CNG, can be heavier and often drive far more miles.
With gas drivers, their personal habits can have them pay far less in yearly taxes or far more. They aren't charged the rate of the average driver, but a variable rate based on their personal use.
Just seeing this. I agree. Me saying that the EV fee is "tolerable" should not come as a ringing endorsement of it. If I buy a next car it will be an EV so I am sympathetic to those costs for sure. As stated in other comments, I really think we should get to a powertrain-agnostic funding mechanism for roads.
It also sort of ignores the fact that vehicles with any gasoline engine are exempt. The whole point of cars like the Volt, i3, and all the other "plug-ins" is that you use them in electric only mode a bulk of the time, and get the occasional range-extension of having a small combustion engine. I think for a lot of people, those are a much more practical solution than a pure EV. Those folks may buy a tank of gas a every 4-6 weeks, but don't have a "usage fee" like a pure EV does.
Agreed that all vehicles should be paying for roads they are using. And I think this imperfect flat fee is tolerable for the time being.
But I think we should be working towards a permanent solution that will apply to all vehicles regardless of fuel type. I think charging based on annual odometer readings is one solution but I am curious why you "don't ever want to rely on just toll roads"? Do you not think electronic tolling will be possible to implement for all state roads?
On all roads it would be extremely expensive.
Also, consider that that close to 50% of our state does not live in Atlanta and expensive parts of our road network are in rural areas with low usage over a given mile, but far more miles state-wide. Collectively these roads account for a whole lot of driving, it just takes place over a much more expansive area and at a higher cost to the GDOT per capita I will add. It would be extremely cost-prohibitive to toll those. In many cases the cost of tolling would exceed the revenue generated.
It would also be costly to electronic toll anything that isn't optional or a single 'choke point,' like a bridge with fewer parallel routes. The moment it isn't a HOT lane or an alternative freeway, you have to factor many more things into account that raise costs and you start to need to have manned toll booths. There are too many cars passing through, from out of state, and various other problems that pop up. Enforcement, even if done by photo, will get much more expensive trying to monitor that much.
Implementing the system on I-85 in Gwinnett was fairly expensive as it was. The benefits are that it is purely optional, so there are no manned booths and no concerns about out of state motorists and enforcement is easier electronically monitoring one lane. It is also much higher capacity lane, so more cars use it than the average road, at least during peak hours. We also wouldn't be able to toll near the same amount as in the HOT lane.
If we tolled the arterial road network we'd have higher costs for less revenue. It is far simpler to gauge how much people drive overall via other methods.
Singapore does congestion tolling, but they also put a bunch of money into it too. They have a series of electronic overhead toll barriers. Price rises with congestion, but they only do it in cars entering a singular high-congestion area. For example all cars from all directions local or freeway entering downtown would pay a toll. Entering Midtown would pay a toll. Entering Downtown, driving through to Midtown, you'd pay two tolls. But they have two major things to their favor: 1) they are an island nation with very specific and some harsh laws 2) few out of country drivers. Everyone has what is needed to make payments 3) They made it easy for out of towners, like me, to get what is needed. That network is expensive too 4) even they gave up taxing everybody and just focused on key areas. It was more of an entrance fee into key areas, rather than a mileage fee for people throughout the region. Many go without paying these fees at all if they aren't commuting into the heart of town. They also have the benefit of not needing to worry about getting fair revenue from rural areas too.
Argument scapegoat. They are a small percentage of vehicles, so they don't matter....
Nobody is making that argument. I'm saying that collecting these usage fees and holding them up as a transit funding mechanism does nothing to create meaningful velocity towards solutions. Should EV's be paying for wear and tear on roads? Sure. So should government agencies that are exempt from federal fuel taxes. So should drivers of plug in hybrids who can run in pure EV mode a bulk of the time, who avoid usage fees and gas taxes. Lets at least be honest that the presence of EV's on our roads has essentially no bearing on the fact that the infrastructure in this state is pretty raw. Neither the federal or state fuel taxes have been adjusted in two decades, and we siphon off several hundred dollars a year to pay for general ledger items.
It also sort of ignores the fact that vehicles with any gasoline engine are exempt.
Very true. I wonder how they will write the fine print of that part of the legislation. Can an automaker just strap a old gas lawnmower engine onto the trunk to get a exemption from this fee?
"Republican leaders in the Georgia House of Representatives said Wednesday they've figured out a way to raise more than $1 billion a year in additional transportation funding without raising taxes."
They are "not raising taxes" . . . but they are increasing the excise tax 400%? How can they even say that with a straight face? They are eliminating a 4% tax that costs consumers 12 centers per gallon (@ $3/gal prices) and replacing it with a tax that costs consumers 22 cents additional per gallon, and it's not a tax increase? Gas would need to be over $5/gal before the consumer has "not seen a tax increase" in what they pay at the pump.
You're all over the place and hard to understand.
You're assuming the typical driver is taxed at 12 cents/gallon now and this represents a 22 cents/gallon increase.
No sales tax
Per gallon excise tax: 29.2
potential local excise tax: up to 3 cents
Likely to be typical: 32.2/gallon
Under the old system @ $3/gallon the sales tax paid is 21 cents. Add the excise tax and that is 28.5 cents.
This is hardly the large increase you're making it sound. Until recently $3/gallon was a bit below average. Gas is cheap now, but our state legislatures years back decreased the tax to make it cheaper with increase in costs. If prices stayed low, they would need to increase the rates again to reflect the market shift.
Yeah but the bad thing about this is atlanta will get most of the money for transportation projects. The other cities in georgia hardly won't get anything.Augusta Columbus Macon Savannah are growing cities too may not be a fast as atlanta but were still growing.
As also noted in my replies on Page 3, I agree there would be tough challenges today. Annual odometer readings are probably the next best step. But I don't think it will be hard to imagine a few years down the road where something like just a camera network can track licenses plates and exactly how many feet of road was used by a given car and automatically bill for it.
Nobody is making that argument. I'm saying that collecting these usage fees and holding them up as a transit funding mechanism does nothing to create meaningful velocity towards solutions. Should EV's be paying for wear and tear on roads? Sure. So should government agencies that are exempt from federal fuel taxes. So should drivers of plug in hybrids who can run in pure EV mode a bulk of the time, who avoid usage fees and gas taxes. Lets at least be honest that the presence of EV's on our roads has essentially no bearing on the fact that the infrastructure in this state is pretty raw. Neither the federal or state fuel taxes have been adjusted in two decades, and we siphon off several hundred dollars a year to pay for general ledger items.
Red, you're continuing to argue some points the new law is already addressing, so I don't understand why you are making some of the complaints you do.
You bring up a few good points, which is why I suggested we need to do electric charger metering or yearly odometer measurements for such cars.
I don't think you understand the difference in meaning of various terms in all your posts: general fund, highway trusts, GDOT funds, pet projects, general ledger items....
You're using them extremely loosely, confusing the arguments, and getting various things wrong.
The issue about public transit is there is a link between future transit implementation and roadway capacity, sometimes very directly. In some small ways we need to fund seeder money into new services. The Republican legislatures likely did that through the EV tax to keep it small without having a headline that says something like only .01% of this new tax goes to transit. If they hadn't done this, they would have sent all the money to the GDOT and simply said 0.01% of this revenue should go to transit, so this is a semantics thing to believe that EVs are truly only paying for transit and not roadways too.
But we do have 15,000+ commuting on express buses on the highways. That is 15,000 added capacity to the freeways at peak hours that is cheaper than paying for the roadway additions needed for the equivalent traffic. (FYI, the typical freeway lane running at peak capacity without too much traffic or merging handles 1,800 cars/hour. So each freeway lane width moves a little bit over 5,000 cars one-way during a typical rush hour and that is with max. efficiency, which traffic often harms. So the Xpress capacity is close to a additional 2-3 lane highway going to mostly Downtown during during peak hours and this is long-range capacity and added capacity at exit ramps downtown.
The GDOT does need a funding stream to take this into account somehow.
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