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[Richard230]

California legislators are falling all over themselves trying to come up with additional taxes to fund road repairs and maintenance in the state. Some legislators feel that electric vehicles are getting a free ride and not paying their fair share of gas taxes. Rather than increase our 36 cent per mile state tax (plus 7.5% sales tax, I believe), one legislator has introduced a bill to charge all electric vehicles a flat $165 - on top of the yearly registration fee, which is based upon the initial price of the vehicle, to fund road improvements.  Naturally there appears to be no reduced fee being contemplated for electric motorcycles. This would be in addition to the $200 yearly registration fee that I pay for my Zero (as an example).

I have been riding my Zero about 4000 miles a year, which is about the same mileage that I average for my other 5 IC motorcycles.  Their gas mileage ranges from 45 mpg to 70 mpg.  Just to use a 50 mpg number, that would mean that I am paying about $29 per year in road taxes (I actually am paying less) to operate one of my IC motorcycles for 4K miles.  So, needless to say, I am not in favor of being charged $165 a year to ride my Zero 4000 miles.

Apparently the legislator floating this funding balloon assumes that every EV owner drives an expensive Tesla and can afford to pay a generous contribution toward fixing our roads. If this proposal becomes law, it is not going to do anything to increase electric motorcycle sales, especially if the ultimate plan by manufacturers is to reduce the initial cost to make electric motorcycles more affordable to the general public.   

[JaimeC]

Why not just tax brakes and tires?  ALL vehicles use those and it would spread it out more fairly.  Or does that make too much sense??

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Paying to make the roads less rough would probably reduce my eventual bill on tire wear, so I'm okay with a tradeoff. But that is too high a proposal.

Right now I'm racking up 1200 miles per month just commuting back and forth on I-880, so that's 14k miles per year in CA without trips (and there are trips!). But I'm riding three motorcycles and no cars, which would make this tax really painful for me.

[ctrlburn]

Most road damage models don't acknowledge an ESAL (Equivalent Single Axle Load) value for motorcycles at all.
So contribution to road damage as a factor for contribution for repairs should result in no charges for motorcycles.

Legislators are only selectively "good at math".

[KrazyEd]

   It seems like many states are looking into this. Most if not all appear to be using an exorbitant flat fee. It is very simple. Figure out what ever the CAFE standard is for MPG
then charge by miles driven. Every year when my ICE vehicles get a smog check, the DMV is apprised of my miles since last test.
Of course a tax for miles driven would be FAIR, so, probably not a consideration. Some of the RED states are using it as a punitive measure for being GREEN.

[Richard230]

When I read statements by legislators in the newspaper, it seems to me like they resent all electric vehicle owners because they can afford these "expensive" vehicles and that is not fair to the poor immigrants that have to get around while driving clapped-out 1990's Honda Civics that have to burn expensive gasoline.  Therefore the legislators appear to feel that EV owners should be taxed at a higher rate as they apparently have too much money to spend on frivolous toys - and then the legislator drives off in their 400 hp, $50K, SUV gas hog.   

[NEW2elec]

We use convicts to pave our roads.  It's cheaper and gets them out of the cage for a while.  Road paving has been a corrupt over priced joke for decades.  Do it cheaper don't charge me extra.

[ultrarnr]

North Carolina charges a $100.00 a year EV fee when you get your registration renewed. Welcome to the club.

[Alan Stewart]

I can see a couple issues with taxing tires/brakes. One, it would encourage folks to defer purchasing new tires/brakes. That would be a safety issue for everyone. Second, it would have to be a rather large tax to match what is raised through fuel taxes. Fuel taxes are easy because folks pay a little at a time, many times. Tires/brakes last long enough that the tax would easily be hundreds of dollars.

[JaimeC]

Yeah, it's also too easy to cross into the next State that DOESN'T tax brakes/tires and buy them there.

Here in NYS when your vehicle is inspected (which is an annual thing), they do record your odometer reading.  Right now they don't do anything with that information, but I could see it becoming a potential piece of data for taxation, just as long as it's done fairly.  As someone already pointed out, my 400lbs Zero isn't doing NEARLY as much damage to the road surface as a two-ton Tesla...

[supertubesocks]

Another reason that i love Texas.  $30 a year per motorcycle no differentiation in EV's here. 

[JaimeC]

Another reason that i love Texas.  $30 a year per motorcycle no differentiation in EV's here.

We're not talking about right now.  We're talking about what MAY be coming up in the future...  Infrastructure repairs aren't free, they have to be funded SOMEHOW.  The only other solution would be to make EVERY road a toll road...

[Richard230]

Another reason that i love Texas.  $30 a year per motorcycle no differentiation in EV's here.

We're not talking about right now.  We're talking about what MAY be coming up in the future...  Infrastructure repairs aren't free, they have to be funded SOMEHOW.  The only other solution would be to make EVERY road a toll road...

I don't mind paying for road repairs, I just want a fair system that doesn't charge my motorcycles the same as a vehicle weighing 10 times as much, or traveling 10 times further in a year.

[Doug S]

I don't mind paying for road repairs, I just want a fair system that doesn't charge my motorcycles the same as a vehicle weighing 10 times as much, or traveling 10 times further in a year.

I think most people agree with that, and that was the logic behind a fuel tax. Larger vehicles consume more fuel, as do vehicles that put on more mileage, so the more wear you put on the roads, the more you're paying for the upkeep. Pretty elegant solution, actually. It's only a first-order approximation, but that's a lot better than the government does in many areas.

Us EV drivers do throw a monkey wrench into that elegant solution, and it's hard to know where to make it up. I guess I'm thinking the most equitable way would be to add a surcharge to the registration fee for EVs. It would be painful paying it all in a lump sum, but perhaps they could offer a pre-payment plan or something. It could be based on vehicle weight, so a Tesla driver would pay more than we would for our much lighter vehicles, which are much easier on the roads. It wouldn't account for mileage, so it would be biased against low-mileage riders in favor of people like Ben and Terry, but at least it's something.

[Richard230]

I don't mind paying for road repairs, I just want a fair system that doesn't charge my motorcycles the same as a vehicle weighing 10 times as much, or traveling 10 times further in a year.

I think most people agree with that, and that was the logic behind a fuel tax. Larger vehicles consume more fuel, as do vehicles that put on more mileage, so the more wear you put on the roads, the more you're paying for the upkeep. Pretty elegant solution, actually. It's only a first-order approximation, but that's a lot better than the government does in many areas.

Us EV drivers do throw a monkey wrench into that elegant solution, and it's hard to know where to make it up. I guess I'm thinking the most equitable way would be to add a surcharge to the registration fee for EVs. It would be painful paying it all in a lump sum, but perhaps they could offer a pre-payment plan or something. It could be based on vehicle weight, so a Tesla driver would pay more than we would for our much lighter vehicles, which are much easier on the roads. It wouldn't account for mileage, so it would be biased against low-mileage riders in favor of people like Ben and Terry, but at least it's something.

I think our legislators just prefer a simpler system that doesn't consider motorcycles, such as the way we get charged for crossing toll bridges and for entering state parks.