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[Crissa]

Here is the link to the bill...

I couldn't find the specific bill.  Thank you!

It still stinks that a motorcycle might have the same surcharge as truck, though.  Or less than a gasoline vehicle.

-Crissa

[motorrad36]

I agree. Trying not to sound whiny, but it seems pretty steep. I am working with my local assembly member to amend the legislation to index the reg fee to battery capacity. $2/kWh makes way more sense than a flat $100.

[Richard230]

Here is the link to the bill text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1

bill itself says:"a new $100 annual vehicle registration fee applicable only to zero-emission vehicles model year 2020 and later, with an inflation adjustment, as provided"

So almost none of us should be paying the extra fee until we upgrade to a post-2020 model!

Well, that is good news for me. Previous news reports on TV and the radio seem to have been confusingly presented.  They would leave out the word "model" and implied that the fee would be applicable to all EVs starting in 2020.  Not surprising I guess, considering how much effort some reporters put into their research into the news stories that they report lately. 

[Crissa]

I would pin the charge to rated Wh/mi, that way we continue to encourage efficiency and also lighter vehicles are already more efficient, so we wouldn't also have to classify for weight (although we could).

-Crissa

[motorrad36]

I don’t remember seeing wh/mi as a rating on the zero site, do they claim such a number? It honestly may be too technical to put into legislation. Maybe not, who knows. Capacity is a much more visible number though, but I don’t know why weight would factor into reg cost.

[Richard230]

I don’t remember seeing wh/mi as a rating on the zero site, do they claim such a number? It honestly may be too technical to put into legislation. Maybe not, who knows. Capacity is a much more visible number though, but I don’t know why weight would factor into reg cost.

Since the surcharge is supposed to go toward road maintenance, you could argue that weight has an affect on road degeneration. However, in California the yearly vehicle registration cost is based upon the original purchase price of the vehicle, less 10% for each year of ownership.  As you can see, the state legislature prefers to deal in $$$ rather than a more rational and fair solution to establishing a road tax.

[TheRan]

No need for Wh/mile, just go by the MPGe given by the manufacturer.

[togo]

I don’t remember seeing wh/mi as a rating on the zero site, do they claim such a number? It honestly may be too technical to put into legislation. Maybe not, who knows. Capacity is a much more visible number though, but I don’t know why weight would factor into reg cost.

Since the surcharge is supposed to go toward road maintenance, you could argue that weight has an affect on road degeneration. However, in California the yearly vehicle registration cost is based upon the original purchase price of the vehicle, less 10% for each year of ownership.  As you can see, the state legislature prefers to deal in $$$ rather than a more rational and fair solution to establishing a road tax.

Yes, tying to weight and miles traveled makes the most sense for the intended purpose.  For fossil fuel vehicles, per gallon is a reasonable approximation.

[togo]

No need for Wh/mile, just go by the MPGe given by the manufacturer.

We can't keep defining electric vehicles in terms of fossil fuel equivalents. We need to break free.

[TheRan]

No need for Wh/mile, just go by the MPGe given by the manufacturer.

We can't keep defining electric vehicles in terms of fossil fuel equivalents. We need to break free.


Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Until ICEs are no longer on the roads it is the logical way to do it.

[togo]

Nah, better to get fossil fuelers in the habit of defining their energy use in terms of the more fungible commodity, kwh.

Or you could use the dominant paradigm, define every EV in terms of the car that is still to be bested by others, the 2013 Tesla Model S.

[NEW2elec]

All of the "road" taxes shouldn't exist in the first place.
Of all the things that should be accepted as a universal need for all citizens it's roads.  Because, hey some people don't get sick.
Hello general tax fund meet necessity.  Even if a person has never driven a car or even had a license they still depend on roads.

Did you eat today?  Do you know how that food got to you?  It was a road.

[Crissa]

...And that truck paid a larger price to use the road because it weighs more and emits more pollution.  Encouraging fewer truck trips and identifying where trucks travel for road repairs.

Roads cannot be free to commercial travel because that would make other forms of transport even less competitive.  We already underprice road use.

-Crissa

[TheRan]

All of the "road" taxes shouldn't exist in the first place.
Of all the things that should be accepted as a universal need for all citizens it's roads.  Because, hey some people don't get sick.
Hello general tax fund meet necessity.  Even if a person has never driven a car or even had a license they still depend on roads.

Did you eat today?  Do you know how that food got to you?  It was a road.

The people that directly use the roads rely on them more. The vehicles that use the road for the people that don't drive or ride, such as the food delivery truck, have already had their tax paid by someone or some company. Here in the UK the only vehicles that don't pay the tax are those used for public non-profit services like police, emergency medical response, fire trucks, some road maintenance machinery, grit spreaders and snow plows, etc.

[NEW2elec]

The trucking company isn't paying the gas tax.  You are.  When you tax a business they pass that cost, that lack of profit, on to the  customers.
If the market won't support the higher cost the company goes out of business.  Of course then there is no tax money at all from them.

The point is there in a general tax fund in every budget and it is supposedly there to cover the needs that most everyone has.  When they add on more and more special taxes for different things how much of the general fund goes in their pockets?