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How Electric Cars Could Make America's Crumbling Roads Even Worse

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @02:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the exceedingly-crumbly dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Phys.org:

To fix the potholes and crumbling roads, federal, state and local governments rely on fuel taxes, which raise more than US$80 billion a year and pay for around three-quarters of what the U.S. spends on building new roads and maintaining them.

I recently purchased an electric car, the Tesla Model 3. While swerving down a particularly rutted highway in New York, the economist in me began to wonder, what will happen to the roads as fewer and fewer cars run on gasoline? Who will pay to fix the streets?

Will toll roads become universal to bridge the funding gap?

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 26 2019, @10:30PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @10:30PM (#807301) Journal

    The kilowatts are irrelevant to road maintenance, they're the electric company's business, and that's who will collect that tax. If there has to be a multiplier on miles driven, it would be the weight of the vehicle. The odometer is already in place, they take the the readings when you renew the plates. There's no need for extra complications.

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