A specific road use tax on EVs and hybrids makes no sense.
Given the harms caused by traditional vehicles, society should welcome the decline in fuel excise revenue caused by the transition to EVs – in the same way we should welcome declining revenue from cigarette taxes.
Vehicle registration fees make only a modest contribution to road costs. That’s why all motorists should pay a road-user charge. The payment should be based on a combination of vehicle mass and distance travelled
This would incentivise cycling and public transport
Well, we’ll just have to tax bicycles, buses and trains etc!
And anyone/anything who has legs. I’m awake to your ‘walking’ and ‘riding a horse’ schemes.
It is funny when revenue raising and incentivising behaviour get mixed. Like when governments become dependent on speeding fine revenue.
Governments have never been dependent on speeding fine revenue. This is a myth perpetuated by people who are indignant that they can’t drive recklessly without consequence.
Do you have a source for that? I don’t mean dependent like the government would collapse without it, but that they have included it in their budget expectations and would very much like to keep it.
Its absurd to think that traffic fines are any substantial part of the budget but here you go, I did 2-3 minutes of research for you.
In the 2023-24 financial year, fines issued from road safety cameras amounted to $473 million. This figure represents a fraction of the overall cost of speed and distracted driving and seatbelt-related crashes. Link
The total state budget is 111.7 billion. Link
ie. Around half of 1%
I used victoria just because when i typed “traffic camera revenue” into DDG it was the second result.
Thanks
I ask this as a non-hoon. I hate reckless driving and have never got a speeding ticket in 25 years of driving.
That make sense.
Also, an hybrid vehicle may pollute more if it’s never recharged and only use gas. Or less if it’s frequently recharged.
So an added benefit of that change would be to get rid of an automatic insentive for hybrid. Taxing gas and fossil fuel is a more direct and efficient insentive. If gas cost more, hybrid owners will recharge more often.
Fuel excise makes sense, the more fuel you use the more you’ve probably driven, the more damage you’ve contributed to the road. How to make it fair for EV users with out invading individual privacy is harder. Like what should a commuter pay compared to a courier who would do far more kms and relies on the road for the business?
It’s going to be unpopular, but as a car lover, I’m happy to pay a carbon tax to keep driving gas guzzlers and have that reinvested into carbon neutrality, whether that’s EV subsidies or something else work a better carbon return
If a commuter and or courrier drive the same distance on the same road with a similar car, they should contribute the same road toll for maintenance.
A courier should be able to deduct the toll from his income, counting it as a business expense. So it’s a bit less of a burden for profesionnals who depend on their vehicle.
There already are mechanisms for this. No need to complicate further.
How do you calculate the road toll?
The article has some suggestions
The payment should be based on a combination of vehicle mass and distance travelled. That’s because damage to roads is overwhelmingly caused by heavy vehicles.
My biggest problem with that is the distance; either the licencing authority has access to our cars position or we self report it. Neither are great options in my opinion
It could be reported each time the car is serviced or at registration time. Seems to happen in the US like that sometimes.
If people misreport it, it would be caught when they try to sell the vehicle. Eg, if I report 5K per year, but actually do 20K, then if I try to sell it in 5 years time, and it shows 25K on the Registration info, but 100K on the odo, then I’m not buying that car lol
But, of course, they’ll go for the “track your car at all times” option. An app that you must operate and sends real time GPS info would be their wet dream. Or they could just take the Maps data you send directly from Apple and Google lol
As an aside, insurance companies would love this too. You were speeding by 3km/h? Your insurance premium has just jumped by 20%.
Good point, I hadn’t thought of a car rego declaration. Servicing seems like not the best idea as it would make life harder for poor people, who might stretch out servicing and would probably do it more if there was an additional cost at that point.
I’m scared that continually tracking your car will be the default option though. Best argument against it is to argue that it would put victims of domestic violence at further risk
Have you heard of toolbooths?
There are variations that require neither self reporting nor tracking cars. Grab a ticket uppon entering the highway. Feed the ticket in the exit booth and pay with cash or credit card. The machine uses the ticket to compute the distance.
Well yeah, but most of my driving is around the suburbs or the small country roads near my house, no complaints I guess, but i wouldn’t be paying my fair share of road use.
Plus to cover the full road network seems like a huge expense. I mean you could fund it using a carbon tax, but I feel like paying for tollboths is not good bang for buck in carbon abatement
I wondered about this also, FWIW my solution would be self reporting verified at the time of vehicle sale or end of vehicle life. I believe some states require periodic roadworthy checks which would also be an opportunity for verification.
Real time vehicle tracking is obviously unacceptable.
Relevant to our recent exchange, @Zagorath, this helped clarify my thoughts on the topic.
Thanks for sharing!
I thought this line from the conclusion was particularly interesting:
Vehicle registration fees make only a modest contribution to road costs. That’s why all motorists should pay a road-user charge.
I’m torn. I do like the idea, in principle. Add a road-use charge to both EVs and ICE vehicles. That helps keep EVs at an economic leg-up over ICE, while also helping address the broader societal costs of cars.
The thing that makes me nervous is that even today, when there’s no such thing as a road use charge and roads are paid for out of general revenue, we frequently see drivers say things like “I have a right to be on the road because I’m paying to use it, and you need to get out of my way” to cyclists. This is both factually and morally wrong, and my concern is that if the factual side of it were made correct, it might be a little harder to immediately shut them down for the bad morals. Not that I think some people arguing in bad faith should be a reason to avoid doing a good thing. It just needs to be accompanied by strong PR around the idea that it’s to help offset the damage cars do to roads, and perhaps also the effects of pollution caused by tyres. And not merely framed purely as a toll for the right to use the roads.
