N Dakota Senate passes bill creating road use fee for hybrid and electric vehicles
31 January 2019
The North Dakota state senate has passed SB 2061, a bill that would implement a a road use fee for electric and hybrid vehicles.
If passed, the bill would establish a $110 annual road fee for EVs, and a $50 fee for electrics. The money collected would flow into the highway tax distribution fund.
The bill also provides for a legislative management study to consider studying current methods, using the electric vehicle infrastructure coalition, led by the department of transportation, to collaborate with the North Dakota utility industry, and North Dakota electric vehicle stakeholder groups, to design a jointly owned public and private network of electric vehicle infrastructure to support both commercial and noncommercial vehicles and make recommendations regarding electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
The bill now moves to the House for consideration.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 31 January 2019 at 05:15 AM
All users should pay for roads/bridges construction and maintenance and for pollution/GHs created by their vehicles. A correspondent/proportional tax on fuel/electricity could also used? Since heavier vehicles normally consume more, a tax per unit of energy would be fair? Who knows, it could convince a few to use lighter more efficient vehicles?
Posted by: HarveyD | 01 February 2019 at 07:25 AM
@EP,
Its only fair that EV's pay their share of road maintenance. If ICE is truly, dying as so many dialogs here desire, this will need to quickly accelerate nation wide.
Posted by: Tim Duncan | 01 February 2019 at 10:45 AM
The problem, Tim, is that road damage is proportional to the 4th power of vehicle weight. LDVs like hybrid passenger cars do essentially none of it; your semi-trucks, garbage trucks and buses do almost all of what the weather doesn't.
There's a rationale for taxing congestion, but since everyone needs roads either to drive on or so that other vehicles can get to them, the basic financing should probably be paid through property taxes.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 01 February 2019 at 11:49 AM