Not with the strides we've been making in fuel efficiency.
An EV pays no gasoline taxes, but has similar impact on the roads to any other car. Now, EVs are a good thing... but they do expose issues with paying for transport via gas taxes.
An EV pays no gasoline taxes, but has similar impact on the roads to any other car. Now, EVs are a good thing... but they do expose issues with paying for transport via gas taxes.
In the future though it probably will be a bigger problem. I suppose you could add similar sales taxes to public paid charging stations, but without separately metering home charging you'll probably still miss the bulk of EV users. Either the separate metering or a mileage reporting/road tax seem like they could fairly account for EV usage though.
In 1987, US average fuel economy was 22.0mpg. In 2018, it was 24.9mpg [2]. A 13% improvement in 31 years.
The idea that the US as a whole has made "great strides" in improving fuel economy, and that we therefore need to rethink the gas tax, is ludicrous. Even in California, it is mostly wishful thinking, and it is definitely not the case in New York.
[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/wisniewski/ct...
[2] Table 3.1 in the 2018 report Excel file, https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/download-data-automoti...
If there are eventually too many EV's to generate any road repair revenue, we can re-assess then. For now, the incentive structure makes sense, and should be increased if anything.
EV's already have plenty of tax incentives. Taxes need to be both a stick and a carrot. EV's get a carrot, all drivers get a stick.
Just as two datapoints, the Fed hasn't raised the federal gas tax in 25 years, and in my state voters have rejected state gas tax increases for 28 years. Whatever new funding source is identified to replace or supplement the gas tax, is going to have many enemies.