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Comment by s_tec | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a good idea. We have used gas taxes for a long time, but electric cars don't pay this tax. If we want to pay for roads based on how much people use them, we will need to switch to something other than gas taxes. Odometer readings could work, but it's not clear how to get honest readings. Weight isn't perfect, but it seems like a less-bad options than the others.

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Many states are now adding fixed registration taxes for EVs, usually in the ballpark of $200/year. I pay this, and it costs significantly more than if I had paid gas tax on an ICE car of a similar weight for the miles I drive.

Also fun was that this remained full price during the year that my state suspended its gas tax for economic relief due to high gas prices.

Weight and mileage based taxation absolutely makes sense, since road damage increases with the 4th power of axle load. But matching those taxes to damage caused means heavy trucks will pay the vast majority of tax, since they do the vast majority of damage. This may be unpopular with Amazon.

To add to this, the Missouri yearly tax is already higher than gas taxes for most vehicles, and it's legislated to go up 20% a year every year until 2026. Taxes high enough that the economic gains for electric are basically zero.

Arguably this is because gas taxes are too low, instead of the EV annual tax being too high.

I hadn't heard this, but I'm not surprised. The right wing has essentially declared culture war on EVs. They will tax them out of existence, if they can.

In the EU the excise tax on petrol is minimum €0.36 per liter!

That gives 200 USD -> 183 € -> 508 liter -> 134 gallon.

My fairly outdated small but somewhat sporty car with high consumption (9l/100km rounded up) would go 5600 kms from that. Here EVs have to pay no excise and no parking fees and no yearly engine-power based taxes for their cars, while ICEs must, based on age, environmental category and engine power...

Compared to that you still pay some taxes, still that amount is negligible to the taxes some pay for ordinary ICE cars.

Here the combined state + federal gas tax is $0.47 per gallon.

A gas BMW 3 series actually has a very similar curb weight to a Tesla Model 3, around 4,000lb.

At 30mpg, $200 worth of gas tax would buy 425gal of gas and take me ~12,700mi. I usually driver under 8,000mi per year.

It's definitely not crazy, but strange that it is costing more than our gas tax.

Get honest readings by having them read at the annual vehicle test in states that do it, and self reported in other states. Then have police report it whenever they pull you over for any reason.

You don't need to get perfect readings from everyone. If you tax 99% of people, that's fine.

> Then have police report it whenever they pull you over for any reason.

Ah yes, the old have the police collect more information on you idea. What could go wrong?

The problem with just odometer readings is that places where lots of cars pass through used to gain tax revenue via the gas to maintain the roads.

If those people are from out of state, the tax revenue would go to their home state instead of the state they created the road wear and tear on.

You could tax electricity at vehicle charging points, and require separate metering for home chargers.

At that point you might as well have the car just tally how many miles it drove in each state and submit it every year with your registration renewal.

Connected cars (all modern ones) could submit it as frequently as desired. Monthly works for almost all budgets.

Many jurisdictions require annual inspections. Those jurisdictions could require the inspection include reporting the odometer to the state.

Adding an odometer only inspection requirement to jurisdictions that don’t currently have an inspection wouldn’t be terribly onerous. You could make a device that plugs into ODBII and reads the odometer and VIN and reports it to the state, it would take less than a minute of labor per reading. Combine that with some policies that encourage oil and lube shops to get the device and provide the reading at no extra cost when you’re doing an oil change, and most people wouldn’t see any increased costs or inconvenience.

We need a volume and weight tax. Something needs to reduce these massive vehicles in the US.

In most countries, cars are required to get an annual inspection which includes the odometer readings. It would be quite easy to also tax based on that, but it would have to be retrospective.

Taxing by mass seems much simpler.

Odometer reading might be tricky in places like Europe where you have lots of countries next to each other, and cross borders often.

If someone has a car registered in Luxembourg and drives mainly around France, Germany, Belgium, it would be difficult to define where the tax should go

forging odometer readings is already a specific type of fraud in most states. the DMV already wants honest readings on titles/etc

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