So it's a special EV privilege that is going away (because of the Feds). Now they'll be treated like other vehicles. Not as bad as the headline could be interpreted.
If you're referring to gasoline taxes, California taxes electricity too.
> with far less road damage per mile
I agree, let's tax all vehicles by weight. I'd love to see all those pickup trucks and full-size SUVs pay.
By weight and by tire count! Have to made sure to deal with four-tire axles and such, not to mention electric semi trucks.
I believe the California pilot determined that odometer reporting and occasional DMV drive-thru checks will be the solution. I’d post the newsletter to HN the next time it comes out but this isn’t really the sort of group that appreciates taxation.
Paying tens of thousands to avoid a few cents per gallon doesn't immediately strike me as a great deal.
"According to Caltrans, Californians with gas-powered vehicles pay about $300 a year in state gas taxes."[1]
This is a tiny minority of EV drivers.
> Doesn’t really work out in road repair costs
For that matter did the gasoline tax ever fully cover repair costs when EVs weren't around? I always had the impression that funds were needed from other sources too. It's interesting to see so many people get religion about "making drivers pay their fair share" after EVs became popular.
> By weight and by tire count
Even better!
1. https://abc7.com/post/california-looks-eliminate-gas-tax-rep...
However, the real threat to roadways that hasn’t yet been fully realized is EV autopilot tractor-trailers; without gas taxing, without mileage taxing, and without the constrain of having to pay humans to drive them, the state highways are going to get shredded into gravel in a decade.
Both have to be treated; passenger vehicles wear down roadways in residential zones that semi trucks don’t enter, and semi trucks wear down highways vastly more rapidly than any personal vehicle of any weight can.
I participated in two phases of the mileage pilot program described by that ABC article over the past ten years and look forward to its eventual implementation in literally any form whatsoever. I truly hope that their final form ends up being mass-wheel-mileage taxation with a transit credit for public transit and 10+ passenger vehicles, so that lightweight Priuses and buses pay little and heavyweight Rivians and semi trucks pay lots. Whatever their first steps towards that outcome is, I’ll take it, whether it’s gas tax or EV tax or truck tax corrections or any combination thereof. The status quo is unfair in multiple ways and they’ve got their work cut out for them.
So: the EV loophole is costing the state half of the road maintenance tax budgeted for road wear in subsidies paid to EV drivers, assuming that all gas vehicles get 30mpg at all times. I don’t expect that gap to last much longer now the Federal government is openly hostile to the state. Hooray for silver linings, I guess.