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[TnFred]

Tennessee is presently trying to pass legislation involving electric vehicles. Motorcycles will be classified the same as a Tesla, there will be a $277.00 surcharge plus the standard registration  fee, annually, thus just under $330.00, every year for a new tag. While I understand the need to make-up for the loss in fuel taxes, this is out of hand. Will your state be next? If you register in TN, please write your representatives, 
   These are known as Senate Bill - 0273, and House Bill - 0321, thank you for your efforts in advance.

[Sklith]

It's been that way here in Georgia. It costs the same each year to register my Tesla as well as my Energica $242 each. I'd be down for them trying a mileage tax if it cost me less each year.

[Richard230]

My recollection is that California and maybe Oregon and Washington, passed similar laws a few years ago. As I California's law was to add a flat $100 per year to the usual vehicle registration fee (which is based upon the estimated value of the vehicle) for electric vehicles purchased after the law went into effect. There was no discussion about the fee being applied to electric motorcycles, one way or the other. So far my 2018 Zero has not been charged more than usual for an ICE motorcycle. I don't know what the current situation is for recently purchased electric motorcycles in this state.

But I certainly agree that using that easy to implement, broad-brush approach to recovering missed gasoline road taxes from EVs is an easy way for the state to collect the money, but a very unfair one for EV owners who don't drive or ride very far, which certainly includes most electric motorcycle owners. Unfortunately, motorcycle owners seem to have very little influence with state or federal legislators as we don't contribute much, if anything, to their reelection campaigns.

All I can say is that proposal really sucks. Perhaps you can get the AMA to intervene before the bill becomes law.

(Sorry about the length of the blank space in my post. Somehow the forum took over my post and I can't seem to shorten the length of the message box.)   

[Specter]

No matter where you live you better get used to this.  There is NO way any politician is going to say no to ANY money grab.  The issue is actually valid and they will go the quick fix route which sucks for most everyone.

Since e vehicles are not paying gas taxes, they will rape you other places to pay for the horribly kept up roads we drive on.

The only 'fair' way IMO would be by mileage driven, which you'd give each year when you renew but anyways.

Aaronm

[Richard230]

No matter where you live you better get used to this.  There is NO way any politician is going to say no to ANY money grab.  The issue is actually valid and they will go the quick fix route which sucks for most everyone.

Since e vehicles are not paying gas taxes, they will rape you other places to pay for the horribly kept up roads we drive on.

The only 'fair' way IMO would be by mileage driven, which you'd give each year when you renew but anyways.

Aaronm

I agree the mileage plan would be the fair way to recover road taxes. But that is likely too complicated for politicians to think about. And there are always a group of people who would complain about "invasion of privacy" believing that the government will somehow be able to collect more information about their driving habits - as if Google didn't already have that information and a lot more. 

[princec]

Can't tax mileage without privacy invasion and tedious paperwork, and unfairness in general.

Just tax tyres. One rule for everyone, works a treat. Massive incentive for manufacturers to make tyres that last longer too.

Cas

[TheRan]

Can't tax mileage without privacy invasion and tedious paperwork, and unfairness in general.

Just tax tyres. One rule for everyone, works a treat. Massive incentive for manufacturers to make tyres that last longer too.

Cas

Mileage is already recorded and publicly available due to MOT tests, I wouldn't be surprised if the yanks have something similar. I remember watching a video from someone showing how ex-police vehicles are sold over there after having the odo turned back so he had some way of checking it all.

[Specter]

Can't tax mileage without privacy invasion and tedious paperwork, and unfairness in general.

Just tax tyres. One rule for everyone, works a treat. Massive incentive for manufacturers to make tyres that last longer too.

Cas

Actually they can and it's quite easy.
Each year when you go in to renew your plate / registration.  ask, whats the odometer read?  There's what they need,  fine, you drove 13k miles / km  at 3.2  cents a mile so you owe us xxx for the tag.

if people want to get childish about it then charge them a flat rate of 500 dollars.  Your insurance company collects this data when they renew your policy.  How much do you drive so we can adjust our rates for YOU accordingly.

I don't care where you drove or went, what time, how many times, bla bla,  just how many miles last year did you drive?

if you own a business and are writing off miles / vehicle use you darn sure bet you the IRS wants to know this info too !

in fact, they should just do this for EVERYONE.  Gas / electric, it don't matter, you pay by use.   For those who own fleets of vehicles because of the nature of their business, then that price gets baked into the cost of what they charge.  It really IS fairly easy to do if we could only get a few adults to the table to figure it out

Aaron

[Richard230]

I agree.   

[AsHperson]

I think road costs should be levied based off the vehicle weight due to the road wear in addition to mileage  with both at a lesser amount.

Mileage is nice since the more you use the road, the more you should pay for the road. The tough part is recording the mileage you put in a year, I've seen cars and motorcycles which have hit the odometer limit and if there is some loophole out when you hit the limit. Another point for mileage is that somehow you will either enter the mileage with a supporting picture in the registration renewal page.

I was reading some of the other options out there. If you tax tires, there may be more incentive to create longer lasting tires sure, but a harder rubber makes for less grip to the road. This will also incentivize people to re-tread bigger tires, drive on damaged tires that have nails or are plugged posing a greater hazard.