I figure it’s semi trucks that do almost all the road damage. We could just tax the trucks, but that would just get passed along in higher prices for everything. So might as well pay for road repair out of the general fund than have special taxes.
Not anymore. You just get an IFTA sticker and apportioned plates.
However, EVs cause around 2x more damage to roads than non EVs.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/26/pothole-electric...
Wait til the semi EVs hit the road!
EVs also have significantly higher particulate emissions due to increased tire wear.
A 3-series BMW clocks in at 1700-2255 kg. A comparable Tesla Model Y clocks in at 1778-2003 kg (from empty to fully loaded).
You could argue that those aren’t luxury vehicles, but downmarket EVs need to be heavy too, because batteries do not match the energy density of petrol.
Myself, I’m replacing nearly every car trip with biking where feasible (young kids make that challenging, admittedly, but the car doesn’t see a ton of use these days).
The Dacia Sandero, one of the smallest cars I can think of here in France, that's also supposed to be cheap so doesn't have a lot of... anything, has a curb weight of 1,025–1,204 kg (2,260–2,654 lb) according to wikipedia [0].
The previous generation Renault Clio, which is a small city car, weighed around 1000 kg, too (980 at the lowest). [1]. Wikipedia doesn't have data for the current generation, which is somewhat bigger physically.
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[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacia_Sandero
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Clio#Fourth_generation...
At least the popular A segment cars like the Aygo, Up or 500 still tend to be under a ton.
Sadly even heavier cars are becoming more popular, so in the future a ton will be far from the median.
A brand new 330i is 3500lbs. A Model Y is 4500lbs. That's a 28% increase in weight for a similar size car.
A Honda Civic is 3100lbs in full trim. A 530i is 3800lbs. My VW SUV is only 3850lbs.
That means more tire wear and more road wear. Are we at the point where EV fans are going to deny that EVs are far heavier?
GP said "and EVs are typically nearly twice as heavy as ICE vehicles"
Also I'm sure you know that 330i is a sedan. Model Y is a SUV. They are not similar. A BMW similar to Model Y would be X3. it's weight is 4150lbs.
Did you know that BMW series 7 is around 4720lbs, compared to 4790lbs of a model S?
EV is heavier than ICE. That's never been a question. EV is gentler to the environment despite the weight.
Does a sharp pointy thing poke a hole in a surface more easily or less easily than a big flat thing?
The "list of academic and government citations" is all just finger-in-the-air unscientific "we think it works like this because it fits our primary school child view of the world".
Given the (unsupported) claim that a EV wears the road significantly more than a gasoline car for what amounts to shouldn't we expect that a vehicle exerting three times the pressure on the road should pay more per mile than 'just' 3x what you and I do in our gas passenger cars?
Wear on the road is a function of weight. It’s really simple and uncontroversial. An EV generally weighs more than an ICE of equivalent size.
Hopefully, the federal push to install tons of charging stations will usher in useful EVs with smaller batteries, lowering weight.
[0] https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
Yes, some states haven't figured out what that looks like, but I really don't think the right answer is to dump all that cost on truckers. I would rather pay more for my car's operational tax, increased EV tax or existing gas tax on ICE, than disproportionately affect the price of groceries for someone living paycheck to paycheck.
As for disproportionately affecting the poor, sales taxes (like on groceries and other goods) and excise taxes (like on gas) are exactly the regressive taxation systems that burden the very people living paycheck to paycheck. Shifting the tax burden from skimming off the top for the people spending all their income on daily necessities, towards companies paying the full cost of their chosen operations, would give the poor more buying power and allow market forces to find and utilize the most effective and efficient means to provide services instead of the cheapest means that are only cheap because they are subsidized by everyone else.
Also you could just get a slightly smaller cars since EVs tend to be a bit more space efficient.
Noting the increased road damage isn't an attack on EVs, it's a call to be smarter about infrastructure:.
This is an unambiguously, heavily supported claim. By states, car makers, the federal government, and third party analysis firms. It's incredibly uncontroversial. It's even got a name, and associated math: it's called the Fourth Power Law https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
> shouldn't we expect that a vehicle exerting three times the pressure on the road should pay more per mile than 'just' 3x what you and I do in our gas passenger cars
Gas taxes make up a relatively small part of the cost of gas. If you run the numbers, you'll find that it's maybe closer to around 3.5-4x for most passenger EVs. At scale, that becomes a problem, but at the individual level, it's still a relatively small amount - and certainly less than the cost of gas.
Your source claims no such thing. EVs may be heavier than equivalent ICE cars, but an electric Smart (the brand) is going to do less damage than a loaded Ford F150.
Tax the weight, not a shitty proxy for weight.
Your comparison is misleading. Compare an ICE car to an EV car, not the lightest EV to the heaviest ICE.
It is pretty much insignificant increase on road wear vs what trucks put on it?
If you meant SUVs or pick-ups by trucks yeah, insignificant and a bad proxy for weight anyway. No point in taxing EVs when what you need to tax is weight.
Over in the EU it seems that taxes and duties represent at least half of the cost of petrol, more in some member states
https://www.statista.com/statistics/937796/pump-price-and-ta...
Q: How are governments going to replace this?
Add a supplemental registration tax to EVs and hybrids to make up the cost of consuming less fuel. Of course, taxes never go away, so enjoy this new tax as we enter an electric future.
Q: How much fuel duty and tax does the average ICE vehicle (or rather, its driver) contribute?
I did some back-of-napkin math and came up with a figure of €500
I still have the dents in my driveway pavement!
https://racfoundation.org/data/percentage-uk-pump-price-whic...
Hiding the externalities is somewhat communist.