$1,000 yearly EV registration fee?

[ChronoMax]

easy. Tax every vehicle for mileage driven since the previous year's safety/smog/state inspection.

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[Leverage]

This made me smile but here in Belgium registration fees (you have to pay a unique fee before the car is put on the street + you have to pay an annual fee every year to drive your car). Now for EV, in some part of Belgium it's currently free (amazing) but for instance my old car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee: I had to pay up to €3000 as registration fee and then €1500 annually just to drive the car. Of course the higher performance and the higher fees you will pay.

And let's not talk about France where if you buy a Lamborghini for instance, you will have to pay a €50k registration fee lol.

 

[kort]

easy. Tax every vehicle for mileage driven since the previous year's safety/smog/state inspection.

not many states have safety/smog inspections

 

[whitex]

Washington state got an EV fee voted in on a ballot few years ago. The vote was for a $10 fee. I told my wife at the time, knowing the politicians are slimy weasels this is just to get voter approval, then they will raise it. I was right, the very next year the fee went up 1000%, then another 50% after than (so 1500% of what the ballot vote was for in two years - since they don't need a vote to raise a fee, just to add one). While I don't oppose EV fees to substitute for lost gas taxes (the $150 works out to be an equivalent of paying gas for an medium sized car driving 12K miles a year), I hate the way they did this. They've since added another $75 for charging infrastructure too (not sure what that funds). The same politicians also put a "less than 1% increase in tax for public transportation", except the stupid voters did not catch that it was they were talking about an increase from 0.2% to 1.1% (the difference is 0.9%, so they didn't lie when they said less than 1%). My Taycan registration is ~$2,000 a year now. The state used to be EV friendly, have tax breaks for EV's, but those times are gone after the politicians realized they are subsidizing Tesla, and Tesla is the enemy of the dealers associations who pay a ton of money in political contributions and lobbying. They almost managed to ban Tesla in WA state a few years ago. The state also never offered HOV access to EV's, not even in the early days, because (as the official DOT statement said) "Washington has one of the cleanest air in the country, therefore we don't have a pollution problem, we have a traffic congestion problem". I even heard of some Democrats proposing a $0.25 per mile additional EV tax, hopefully that will never pass (or I will have to sell the Taycan and buy some V12 ICE instead). Instead, they should revoke all gas taxes and charge each car per mile of usage, something which they are at least studying right now.

 

[PetroK]

Politicians at their best Especially problematic in US, as every State trying to do own stuff. Looks like competition of stupidity $2000 yearly registration is insane, especially if it is not tied to vehicle price, it might be not that problematic for owners of Taycan and other high end ex's, but imagine getting ~35k ID4 (with rebates) and then being slapped with $2k fee each year.
I guess (as of now) I'm lucky to live in NJ, which seems to be most EV friendly state. No Tax on EV, no extra registration fees and even $4k rebate from State on vehicles with under $45k MSRP. Here high end EV's are no brainer, as you save 6-10K on taxes alone compared to similar priced ICE car.

 

[rim23]

This made me smile but here in Belgium registration fees (you have to pay a unique fee before the car is put on the street + you have to pay an annual fee every year to drive your car). Now for EV, in some part of Belgium it's currently free (amazing) but for instance my old car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee: I had to pay up to €3000 as registration fee and then €1500 annually just to drive the car. Of course the higher performance and the higher fees you will pay.

And let's not talk about France where if you buy a Lamborghini for instance, you will have to pay a €50k registration fee lol.

Hold my beer. In Finland, pure gas/diesel cars are heavily taxed - up to 40% of its final price. For example, I ended up buying my previous X5 as hybrid as that costed me about 113k euros (3.6k one time registration tax there). If it was running diesel or gas, I’d have to pay about 40k in tax.

 

[Old man]

Washington state got an EV fee voted in on a ballot few years ago. The vote was for a $10 fee. I told my wife at the time, knowing the politicians are slimy weasels this is just to get voter approval, then they will raise it. I was right, the very next year the fee went up 1000%, then another 50% after than (so 1500% of what the ballot vote was for in two years - since they don't need a vote to raise a fee, just to add one). While I don't oppose EV fees to substitute for lost gas taxes (the $150 works out to be an equivalent of paying gas for an medium sized car driving 12K miles a year), I hate the way they did this. They've since added another $75 for charging infrastructure too (not sure what that funds). The same politicians also put a "less than 1% increase in tax for public transportation", except the stupid voters did not catch that it was they were talking about an increase from 0.2% to 1.1% (the difference is 0.9%, so they didn't lie when they said less than 1%). My Taycan registration is ~$2,000 a year now. The state used to be EV friendly, have tax breaks for EV's, but those times are gone after the politicians realized they are subsidizing Tesla, and Tesla is the enemy of the dealers associations who pay a ton of money in political contributions and lobbying. They almost managed to ban Tesla in WA state a few years ago. The state also never offered HOV access to EV's, not even in the early days, because (as the official DOT statement said) "Washington has one of the cleanest air in the country, therefore we don't have a pollution problem, we have a traffic congestion problem". I even heard of some Democrats proposing a $0.25 per mile additional EV tax, hopefully that will never pass (or I will have to sell the Taycan and buy some V12 ICE instead). Instead, they should revoke all gas taxes and charge each car per mile of usage, something which they are at least studying right now.

Maine charges an annual excise tax ( in addition to the initial sales tax) which for a Taycan is over $2500 annually although is does drop a little each year as the car depreciates. No rebate for more expensive EVs but there is some break for less expensive ones.

 

[whitex]

Maine charges an annual excise tax ( in addition to the initial sales tax) which for a Taycan is over $2500 annually although is does drop a little each year as the car depreciates. No rebate for more expensive EVs but there is some break for less expensive ones.

Yea, but do they charge you 11% sales/use tax in addition the excise tax?

 

[wmras]

EV drivers have been freeloading for years now. At some point the roads need to be maintained, and that costs money.

Roads are damaged by weight - a fair tax would be by weight and miles driven, regardless of propulsion.

 

[whitex]

Roads are damaged by weight - a fair tax would be by weight and miles driven, regardless of propulsion.

Personally I think the issue is a lot more complicated than that. On one extreme, we could make all roads toll roads, pay per use. The other end of the spectrum general taxes pay for roads for everyone, not just road taxes. I'm a capitalist at heart, but I also believe certain infrastructure needs to be provided by the government in order to aid capitalism (e.g .welfare as a social safety net encouraging taking more risks, utilities, roads, courts, law enforcement, etc.). With the roads, the problem is that it's hard to enumerate all parties who is benefiting from the roads. Road users, for sure, but what about businesses to which the roads lead? We could make all roads pay per use, then have businesses "validate tolls", essentially cover the roads which provide customers access to the business. What about home builders, you don't have to look far to see that homes near good roads access sell for much higher prices than homes where there are poor roads. Should the toll be proportional to the benefit it provides (speed, congestion, etc)?

I don't have all the answers, but I do think the taxpayers should pay for some smart people to study the issue and figure out a pragmatic solution. Of course, no matter what conclusion they come to, there will be some groups which will always complain, but that's life, there is nothing you can do or say which will not offend or be criticized by some groups of people. In the end, the decision should be facts/evidence based as far as what is best for society as a whole, not some politician, their party, or some group of people who feel entitled to special treatment (be they EV drivers, or some other group).

 

[Old man]

Yea, but do they charge you 11% sales/use tax in addition the excise tax?

No. We’re ” lucky” to pay only half of that, but then only half of our roads are only half decent

 

[Vfr750Rouge]

South Florida Palm Beach County, just renew it and it was a terrible 49$ including a 2$ fee.

 

[ntmatter]

I'm actually OK with this, but it should be national with money apportioned back to the states based on where the registration is.

Road funding budgets are already under stretch because the gas tax was designed when cars got 20 miles per gallon and used nice fat tires, not the road-destroying but low rolling resistance pizza-cutters on most EV's. I think $200 makes sense - if you compare to a car doing 10,000 miles per year, at 25 miles per gallon, that's 400 gallons of glass yer year, or $.50 per gallon which is significantly less than the gas tax in Washington state.

EV owners have to take the good with the bad - we don't pay for gas any more but fair is fair - we use the roads just as much. A flat fee per year is way better than some kind of "the state tracks your GPS" type of solution to make it perfect. Of course that's just my view, I could be wrong.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

[...] My Taycan registration is ~$2,000 a year now. The state used to be EV friendly, have tax breaks for EV's, but those times are gone [...]

No contest with 90+% of your post, but you should clarify that the exorbitant registration fee in your case is address-specific, and not state-wide. The Regional Transit Authority is collecting this excise tax in urban areas of the counties within the Sound Transit District. There are no exemptions for EVs because they, too, are "traffic" - the combatting of which is what the tax is meant for. FWIW, my registration fee is an order of magnitude less, as I live outside the RTA zone.

Secondly, it is literally littered with Teslas and other EVs around here (meaning Eastside); a subsidy or tax breaks for EVs at this point in this area would be a very bad look/poor use of taxpayer money.

Note I'm not disagreeing with the machinations of politicians; best we can do is being informed voters. Best they can do is to remember there is always a breaking point.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

Road funding budgets are already under stretch because the gas tax was designed when cars got 20 miles per gallon and used nice fat tires, not the road-destroying but low rolling resistance pizza-cutters on most EV's. I think $200 makes sense - if you compare to a car doing 10,000 miles per year, at 25 miles per gallon, that's 400 gallons of glass yer year, or $.50 per gallon which is significantly less than the gas tax in Washington state.

EV owners have to take the good with the bad - we don't pay for gas any more but fair is fair - we use the roads just as much. A flat fee per year is way better than some kind of "the state tracks your GPS" type of solution to make it perfect. Of course that's just my view, I could be wrong.

I'm mostly with you - I wouldn't mind paying a road tax, whether it's fixed or by some weight-weighted )), equitable (?) formula. Presumably the incessant heavy construction traffic also pays its fair share, as do the utilities who keep carving up roads and leaving behind half-assed repairs.

But that's not where my disagreement lies - my 285-section rear tires did not like being called "pizza cutters", and would like an apology.

(j/k <- hopefully redundant)

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