11 states assessing fees on EV owners in lieu of traditional fuel taxes
30 November 2015
Eleven states currently assess fees on electric vehicle owners in lieu of traditional fuel taxes, according to the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
Highway maintenance has traditionally been funded from a combination of Federal and state taxes collected at the fuel pump. Because EVs do not refuel at pumps that collect state and Federal fuel taxes, they do not contribute to the upkeep of the highways. This has caused many states to rethink how funds are collected to support the highway infrastructure.
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| Source: DOE EERE. Click to enlarge. |
Georgia has the highest annual fee of the states that have currently enacted fees for electric vehicles. Commercial and noncommercial plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) have different fees in Georgia. Idaho is the only state that has a fee for conventional hybrid electric vehicles (without a plug). Washington State has enacted new fees that will become effective 1 July 2016.
It would make far more sense to transfer almost all the fees to heavy trucks, which do the vast majority of damage to roads. The only fees that should be assessed on electric propulsion are for congestion, and the same fees should be assessed on ICEVs too.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 30 November 2015 at 04:34 PM
Ideally, it should be a non-linear weight-based algorithm such as:
(GVW per axle including max. trailerable limits) * (#axles) * (nonlinear gvw-based factor per mile driven) * (miles driven per year)
Posted by: Dr. Strange Love | 01 December 2015 at 06:41 AM
Georgia is totally ridiculous (I know I lived there almost 30 years). Once EV friendly it is now outright hostile to EV owners. They probably pay more for this registration fee than most gas drivers pay for the fuel tax - but then this is NOT a tax!
The reality and this applies to all of the U.S. is that the decline of Highway Tax revenue is due to increased efficiency of all vehicles.
Why pick on less than 1% of the vehicles when the largest offender of reducing Gas Taxes is the good ole boy in his F-150 truck! If he traded his 2007 pickup for a brand new 2016 he is reducing his consumption 25%. Truck and SUV owners who represent the majority of vehicles in Georgia and many other places are reducing their fuel consumption significantly by buying newer vehicles. This is not a bad thing, but it does reduce tax revenue. So if you want to improve roads and bridges figure out a better way to pay for them.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 02 December 2015 at 09:00 AM
Some people are dumb and proud of it.
Posted by: SJC | 02 December 2015 at 11:40 AM