Taxing the Weight of EV Batteries Would Be a Real Green Solution
news.bloombergtax.com
news.bloombergtax.com
One example: a thing often overlooked is the efficiency of the onboard charger, which can incur a loss of up to 32% on for example the Renault Zoe [1].
1: https://www.lachaineev.fr/ ( french )
Tax (curb - battery) weight then? So we can afford the 1000km vehicles we all say we need, while penalizing the heaviest and most inefficient EVs.
Ideally this would encourage lighter vehicles to cut down on the initial “weight” tax as well as increase efficiency of the vehicle overall (more miles per kilowatt hour).
There’s obviously going to be a lot of headaches for farm use vehicles and people generating their own power and paying a tax on it but how else do you pay for roads and incentivize people to stop driving gigantic vehicles?
If you want to tax that just tax based on the max GVW.
Taxing battery weight is a better method in this instance, because wear is directly proportional to vehicle weight.
Road wear is proportional to the fourth power of axle weight:
Then reduce&repurpose the current gas tax for uses to mitigate externalities caused in post-sale use.
I'm also in favor of a similar externalities penalty for electrical generation (even though the current state of combustion generation is much cleaner than a typical ICE), so that economic forces are able to operate taking that into account.
I looked at the weight of some of these EVs and yikes 2,900 lbs for just the battery pack? 1.5 TONS? WeW.
I'm all for higher taxation on heavy and commercial vehicles to help with road maintenance and up keep. That being said I only drive my truck when needed <1k miles / year. I wouldn't even have the truck but where I live, the lack of access to rentals and friends with trucks. It's a need even though not needed often.
That's the weight of the Hummer battery pack though. I think around 500kg is the more the norm, with a total curb weight of around 1500kg.
1. !
It suggests that taxing the vehicle weight would lead to less safety.
In fact, previous CARB pollution controls have paid for themselves, just in the reduction in death as a result of lightweighting changes made to achieve the mpg goals.
Tax the vehicle weight. It's an externality.
If you care about some aspect of mining, tax or regulate that directly.
It'll be hard to implement a "gas tax" for electricity with so many people charging at home. Why not simply tax people relative to the maintenance costs which they incur?
It's all too easy to disregard "good" solutions because they are not "perfect".
Even when I lived in range of the local public transport, it's 1/hour frequency, limitations on baggage, and limited hours meant that I pretty much only used it as an alternative to walking back, since it was marginally faster, and climate controlled. It's miles better than nothing, but it still pales in comparison to access gained from the use of a personal vehicle.
Without separate bike lanes like I had doing a more normal commute to the city, hecken nope! I love my EV.
Saying that, they do have a somewhat hidden advantage - as it takes more effort and planning to drive any particular distance, EVs will reduce the amount of miles people drive.
Until we fix that, (more mixed use zoning, higher density, consistent predictable and readily availale public transport options) cars are the only option for a lot of people
Other parts of the subdivision connect to a "greenway", but it is very broken up with missing sidewalks, and only has limited crosswalks. It really is only useful for getting to a nearby park (which is nice), but not for any essentials.
Some of the local residents (including myself) have been asking the city for some funding (or even to take advantage of grants) to improve the walk ability, but there is a smaller contingent of more influential folks that either threaten lawsuits should the city install sidewalks/walkpaths, or just take up tons of time so that everyone is tired and wants to go home by the time we get to speak.
While we've gained some visibility and good rapport, we've not really managed to change anything, and it's starting to feel futile.
Moreover roads wear out to the fourth power of the vehicle's mass, which means if anything that light vehicles subsidize those heavier ones regardless of emissions.
Many/most roads are economically worthwhile (or are a low enough cost to be a justifiable luxury) on their own albeit some (mostly in rural areas) at lower standards of maintenance.
1. There are some issues with heavy vehicles. They put more wear on the roads, they pose a greater risk to other drivers because of their higher potential energy in crashes, and they consume more energy (e.g. power plants have to burn more coal).
2. Current EV battery technology uses resources that have significant environmental impact. Smaller battery does less damage.
The goal of this proposed battery weight tax seems to be tweaking the trajectory of EV development towards an even bigger environmental win.