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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How Electric Cars Could Make America's Crumbling Roads Even Worse
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @02:45PM (21 children)
If the fuel tax doesn't generate enough income, they will make up new taxes or raise existing ones to make up for it. Don't worry, if there is one thing the state consistently succeeds at, it's finding something to tax.
The most obvious tax would be one on electricity. Or maybe on energy in general.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @02:58PM
Buy a shovel with your tax savings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:48PM
In our state they just add a annual surtax of $75 for hybrids and $150 for electric. They probably won't fix the roads anyway.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:27PM
Not really, if they were good at taxation, there wouldn't be billions and billions of dollars that goes untaxed due to massive loopholes in the tax code.
What they're really good at as avoiding taxing the rich and paying for things that benefit the poor and middle classes.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:38PM (4 children)
if there is one thing the state consistently succeeds at, it's finding something to tax.
Yes, the odometer. This is not a difficult subject. The hassle will be having to pay the entire new "gas" tax all at once. Maybe a monthly payment plan is in order. Or I-PASS sensors placed on every corner.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @10:19PM (3 children)
Taxing miles is not as correct as taxing energy. An electric car can report the number of kilowatt hours it has used as easily as the number of miles driven. The energy used is a better proxy for road wear than miles driven is.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Tuesday February 26 2019, @10:30PM
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.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @02:01AM
except road wear per vehicle is by miles driven. They could have a fudge factor by vehicle (going up by power of 4 by gross vwhicle weight), since road wear (aka road usage) goes up by that factor.
The fuel tax is a crude proxy for road usage. Miles driven per some factor of gross vehicle weight would be much better than gas tax.
Bigger vehicles tend to use more fuel, and also contribute more to road wear.
now cue all the SUV and pickup truck crybabies and other edge cases... suck it up, buttercups.
At least in some states or areas, there is already an annual or semi-annual vehicle inspection infrastructure in place. No need to over-complicate it like Oregon was proposing to do (obd-II dongles with GPS that phone home periodically). Of course it'll piss everyone off for various reasons.
(Score: 2) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday February 27 2019, @11:46PM
Road User Charges in New Zealand
We already charge RUC's for diesel vehicles in NZ; since diesel doesn't have the road tax in the pump price the tax is paid per kilometer driven. Different weight classes have different RUC values. I used to drive a diesel station wagon RUC was ~6.2c/km when purchasing in 20,000km lots (the admin fee is static so bigger purchases are better up to a point); this rate applies to all vehicles 3500kg and below.
Large trucks have much higher rates.
The problem is not difficult to solve. Charging per km traveled is much fairer then building the tax into something else. I have always thought we should remove the road tax from petrol and make all road tax via the RUC model; that way a hybrid driver pays the same tax / km as a V8 driver.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:05PM (2 children)
In California electric cars will pay an additional fee. $100 a year. Starts in 2020.
Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 (SB1)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:04PM
It was upheld in a referendum also. [ballotpedia.org]. As a concerned CA voter, I looked into this and found that our road spending per mile was comparable to Utah's. Some conservatives were arguing that we spend too much, but I think the driver of our spending has more to do with challenging terrain than liberal government--we have Utah's mountains, snows, and fires and probably more mudslides. Those same sources were also advocating the idea that they wanted us to be closer to the bottom in per-mile spending rather than the top. When I looked into that, I found Mississippi. You generally don't want to be like MS. Sure enough, articles on MS roads are talking about crumbling bridges and such. That's a recipe for disaster in CA, so I believe I was quite rational in agreeing to keep this tax.
I'm quite happy to pay a surcharge and/or higher fuel tax on my vehicle rather than the proposed alternative, namely tracking us to get mileage data. Fuck that. I prefer privacy.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:25AM
Roads in the US get repaired? I thought they just got a bit of hardfill and tar shovelled into the bigger potholes and then signed off as all OK.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:47PM (3 children)
I have an electric car in WA state -- bastards charge me an extra $100 every year for registration: https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.17.323 [wa.gov]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:13PM (2 children)
The Bastards! Making you pay for you fair share of infrastructure maintenance! What kind of non-libertarian tyranny do you live in, anyway? May I suggest the Libertarian paradise of Somalia [youtube.com]? The answer to Socialism. And now you have cholera.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @07:15AM (1 child)
Is it really a fair share though? How many miles of gas is that equivalent to under the gas tax? What if the electric car owner drives 100,000 miles a year, or zero? No, a flat tax like that is nowhere near a "fair share."
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday February 27 2019, @07:41AM
Doesn't matter. The fact that you raise this question is proof positive that you are cheating on your taxes, and pose a classic case of the "free-rider" problem. So even though it will cost us more in resources than we gain in lost revenue, we will hunt you down, to make an example of you, for the sake of others and the system as a whole. You want taxes to be completely "fair"? Do you think than any human society has the ability to calculate that? No, they do not. So instead, we err on the side of overtaxing the rich, since they can afford it, and going after squeaky wheels such as yourself. We're coming for you capital gains, Chuck! And your falsified mileage! Expect us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:31PM (2 children)
Tire tax. Each tire has specific characteristics, and it is know how much tires wear with general use.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:49PM (1 child)
Tire wear is a bad metric, very slight changes in driving style can make huge differences in wear. My SO accelerates moderately while unwinding the steering wheel after a city corner, this is a common behavior. I wait until I'm nearly straightened out before accelerating moderately. I also lift the throttle when I see a red light ahead, coast down and minimize braking. I get nearly twice the tire mileage that she gets. I adjusted my driving style at some point in my middle age after working with tire experts at a couple of different tire manufacturers.
It's the combined turning and accelerating that makes all the difference to the front(drive) tires. But it's hard to see that this would have any appreciable effect on wearing out the roads faster?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday February 27 2019, @07:51AM
Alert! AC claiming SO! Alert!!! Obviously not correct. Disregard all comment. Besides, sounds like he is a terrible driver, and deserved to be taxed for the excessive tire wear his bad driving causes? Maybe we need a tax on Break Pads*, so that those who use their brakes more often, due to bad driving habits, could pay for the roads for the rest of us! Hooray!
And they do have an appreciable effect on the roads, when I plow their sorry asses and excuses for vehicles into the blood pavement because they pulled some stupid stunt like accelerating before being lined out. Sorry about your SO, but they really, really, needed to go.
(*Pads that break, when you brake. Then there are those than which they're breaking and not signalling turins and florins in the rigamarrole of the spelling of the English, when, one dare not call it a "language", really. )
(Score: 1) by bussdriver on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:15AM (1 child)
Physics says velocity and mass are the biggest problem. Drive slower = make a cheaper longer lasting road. duh. HEAVY fast movers cost us the most. SHIPPING companies get measured by their capacity, not the vehicle weight. Don't like that? then buy local... we've been subsidizing teamsters at the expense of trains for generations now.
Electricity is a NECESSITY, it should have zero taxes.
BEST: stock trading sales tax. We all pay tax for real labor and real products and real services; but stock trading (gambling) pays no transaction taxes. Corporate profit taxes-- as labor goes down and is automated income taxes shrink; while corps make more due to increased productivity. Also, outsourcing benefits them less if they are taxed on those gains (more so if the # of external jobs is a factor. they can't hide people jobs while robot jobs are easily hidden.)
Local:
property tax. location dependent; dirt road? then you pay less. few people on your road? then you pay more.
State:
You pay tax every X years on your car anyway; either new plates, stupid stickers for your plates or a new car sales tax. Make & Model of the car is known. WEIGHT + odometer (impact of odometer is tiny but is multiplied by weight; commercial stuff already tracks miles.)
Federal:
new car sales tax.
income tax.
(Score: 1) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday February 27 2019, @05:10AM
Never sold stocks, have you? There's an SEC fee on each sale. It's negligible, but it does exist.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Thursday February 28 2019, @10:59AM
> Or maybe on energy in general.
Or electric vehicles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @02:46PM (8 children)
How about regular taxes instead of consumption taxes? How about mileage * weight**2 tax when renew insurance on your car?? Or just, you know, general tax? I know, mind blowing.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:31PM (6 children)
Taxes are the right way.
Troll roads are the wrong way.
But you can have the advantages of both. You know how Troll roads have those automatic readers with tags so that you can drive right through? Put those everywhere.
* The government now knows everywhere you drive, and when.
* They can tax you appropriately
* In a very convenient way
* Either debit your bank account, or build it into payroll taxes, or something even creepier that I have failed to think of
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:18PM (3 children)
Indeed, the trolls tend to damage the street even more, instead of repairing it.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:29PM
It's the DAMN GOATS! They'll eat everything!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:18PM (1 child)
On the other hand, trolls can thin out the traffic [google.com].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:57PM
Here's a link to the actual image, for those who prefer not to feed Google: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FremontTroll.jpg [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:56PM (1 child)
Not everybody wants The Man tracking their vehicle's every movement.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:52PM
Did I need to include a sarcasm tag?
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 1) by Gault.Drakkor on Tuesday February 26 2019, @10:51PM
If you are taxing on mileage, that essentially is a consumption tax(consuming a distance of road wear and tear).
Which I would prefer to a general tax because it better reflects use of resource. AKA user pays. Then it also is a voluntary tax in so much as driving a vehicle is voluntary.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @02:49PM (55 children)
Trucks already pay mileage taxes. Just extend that to cars. With GPS, it's a simple matter to keep track of how many miles you travel in each state. Just have the computer spit it out each month, or each quarter, or whatever. Send the statement along with your payment to your county or state capital. The state can worry about balancing funds among the other states. Problem solved. Or, maybe you don't even get the printout - the data goes straight to the state, and the state bills you. That's even simpler.
Whatever, the roads are going to be paid for.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:14PM (1 child)
Around here, a lot of the roads are not being paid for, terrible condition. Partly it's our climate, many freeze-thaw cycles over the winter with temps averaging around freezing. Once there is a crack for water to get in, the roads will crack. Since this isn't very dependent on traffic, the cost could be spread over all road users--which is nearly everyone, so the general tax fund.
Back to user taxes -- if the tax is for the damage done, then trucks should pay the largest part by far. Road damage from weight goes as the 4th or 5th power of the weight. Bicycles don't damage roads, cars very little and trucks (overload in particular) do most of the damage.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:32PM
State of Oregon has been looking into a GPS mileage tax to pay for road work.
http://www.myorego.org/ [myorego.org]
https://www.oregon.gov/das/OEA/Documents/2017report.pdf [oregon.gov]
Is a report they produce every two years about the state of the roads, who does the most damage, etc.
When i last looked back in 2015 they were talking about how there is essentially no difference in damage done by light trucks and by cars. Previously they lumped all vehicles less than 8,000lb together because they did the same amount of damage, they have raised that to 10,000lb because they found that the extra 2k didn't effect road damage enough to have a separate group. When the program first launched it was to get all the small fuel efficient cars that are doing just as much damage as a truck, but not paying nearly as much, to pay their share of the road repair costs.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:21PM (18 children)
I could have sworn I've seen you ranting about privacy before. I don't want the government having direct access to GPS of my every movement. It is bad enough now when all they have to do is ask Google nicely.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:01PM (11 children)
That is always the solution from these people: more spying and more taxes. No matter what the problem, it can be used as an excuse for those two activities.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:17PM (10 children)
I always suspected Runaway of being a lefty who hasn't yet gotten out of the closet. (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:40PM (2 children)
So we get to tax one of the most environmentally dangerous parts of the vehicle and give a market solution to replacing them? Sounds pretty good idea.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:43PM
Sorry, resized browser to watch your tire video and replied to the wrong one of your posts.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:47PM
Well, it is one, isn't it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:52PM (2 children)
I can't get out of the closet because your large ass is in the way. Move over!!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:05PM (1 child)
Lame
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:16PM
He's lame? That's why he doesn't get out of the way?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:09PM (3 children)
It has nothing to do with left vs right. They are on the same side. It is republicrat authoritarians vs the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:14PM
Yeah, maybe... but I can't make fun of Runaway based on what you said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:06PM (1 child)
what kind of dumb bitch modded the post troll? oh, that's right, the typical suck ass american voter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:03AM
The kind of bitch that just modded your protest at being modded troll, you troll biatch! You don't understand what we do here, do you? Well, fuck off, looser!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:00PM (5 children)
Yes, I rant about privacy. But, the fact is, they're watching us anyway - might as well make some use out of it.
Actually, though, it isn't necessary to log every mile you travel, and report every mile to the gubbermint. The vehicle has multiple onboard computers anyway. Give them the software to work this stuff out. The only detail necessary in your report to the state looks about like this:
Alabama: 2356 miles
Alaska: 0
Arizona 0
Arkansas 780 miles
California 0
Colorado 0
Connecticut 0
Delaware 0
Florida 9128 miles
Georgia 10575 miles
etc and so forth
Trucking companies make a similar report, but the numbers are much, MUCH bigger. I've never heard of any of the states auditing a trucking company, trying to get an extra thousand miles worth of taxes out of them. It's pretty damned tough to chase down those last few miles! Set up the software, then trust it to do the job properly.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:41PM
The weigh stations that trucks have to drive through record the DOT numbers of commercial vehicles, so states have first pass rough data on it.
With electronic driving records, trucking companies already have high quality miles per vehicle/driver/state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:25PM (3 children)
That makes sense, but instead of recording mileage, which is only a mediocre proxy for road wear, the car should record kilowatt hours. The amount of energy a car uses to move is a good proxy for road wear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:23AM (2 children)
Bullshit.
The only deficiency of mileage is that it doesn't include vehicle weight, which is by far the biggest factor in road wear. And at least for cars and light trucks, this is trivially accounted for by considering the vehicle's weight from the registration database. (For commercial trucks, on the other hand, the actual vehicle weight may vary a factor of two or more depending on loading.)
Power usage isn't an improvement, as it has a lot more to do with acceleration habits and traffic anticipation than with vehicle weight, and these have no significant relation to road wear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:07AM (1 child)
Because energy is never about mass X velocity. so that would have nothing to do with . . . are you always this stupid, or only when you post on the intertubes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @12:16AM
First, you need mass raised to the 4th power or so to reflect actual road wear, so "mass X velocity" won't cut it.
If we want to get pedantic, road wear is related to axle weight4, not mass, but since the current crop of EVs generally have 2 axles and more-or-less symmetric weight distributions, that's practically a constant factor; it's only worth worrying about the distinction when freight trucks start going electric in any kind of scale.
Pretty much:
So yeah, at least in the context of EV energy consumption, energy is never about "mass X velocity".
no u
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:31PM (3 children)
Would owners of cars manufactured before the transition be required to buy a tamper-evident GPS unit specifically for this purpose? To what extent would law enforcement be able to subpoena records from this unit in order to put a person of interest at the scene of a crime?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:03PM (2 children)
I thought we were only considering electric vehicles, which don't pay a tax at the gas pump. No need to install this stuff on a gas guzzler, is there? And, I'm pretty sure that all the electrics out there have the capability to do this. All that is required is an update from Musky Man, or whoever sold the vehicle.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:59AM (1 child)
I'm not so sure that an update would be practical for extended-range electric vehicles (also called plug-in hybrids), such as Toyota Prius and Holden/Chevy Volt, or early all-battery EVs that predate wide Tesla availability, such as Nissan Leaf.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:34PM
Fair enough - maybe they can't all be updated. But, the feds can certainly mandate that all new cars have that ability.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:47PM (9 children)
You don't need a freaking GPS, although the governments will doubtless claim you do. Cars already have odometers, and they are already tamper resistant. Just report that.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:52PM (3 children)
A tire tax. Tire wear is a function of mileage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:06PM
this would actually work better than fuel today.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:28PM
Wait.. I have a vision. I see... I see it now...
I see wheels with no tires [youtube.com] becoming a mundane reality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:06PM
No, tire wear is not a simple function of mileage -- I posted above on this, copying here as well:
Tire wear is a bad metric, very slight changes in driving style can make huge differences in wear. My SO accelerates moderately while unwinding the steering wheel after a city corner, this is a common behavior. I wait until I'm nearly straightened out before accelerating moderately. I also lift the throttle when I see a red light ahead, coast down and minimize braking. I get nearly twice the tire mileage that she gets. I adjusted my driving style at some point in my middle age after working with tire experts at a couple of different tire manufacturers.
It's the combined turning and accelerating that makes all the difference to the front(drive) tires. But it's hard to see that this would have any appreciable effect on wearing out the roads faster?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:52PM (4 children)
This doesn't work for interstate travel
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:20PM (2 children)
The current fuel tax doesn't really work for that either. I live and work in Rhode Island, but I can't remember the last time I bought gas in this state. Might happen three or four times a year. I cross from RI to MA and back to RI every day on my way to work, and the gas station I always stop at is in the middle of that MA portion. Most of my driving is in RI, but nearly all of my fuel taxes go to MA.
But either fuel or tires is probably good enough for most situations...it's not perfectly fair, but that unfairness is likely to go in both directions and more or less balance out.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:36PM
Oh sorry, you replied to the odometer suggestion not the tire tax suggestion. That depends on how often they read the thing but it's probably "good enough" too...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:43AM
It may not be perfectly fair but it is perfectly simple.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:09PM
Actually, it does work for interstate travel, with a little discipline. Keep a notepad (or tape recorder if you prefer) and record your odometer reading each time you cross a state line. I did it for years. As a truck driver, you have to turn all those numbers in at the end of each trip anyway, so you get used to doing it. Most drivers keep their log books close at hand, and write the numbers in the log book. I never did that because it gives the diesel cops more evidence to bust you with. They tend to take log book violations seriously.
With all of that said - private citizens aren't ever going to exercise that kind of discipline. So, you hand the duty over to the onboard computers.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:17PM (2 children)
Some countries tax tires to pay for roads - not saying that's a good idea, but it is one...
The fuel tax in the US doesn't even completely pay for maintenance of the existing road network, much less its expansion or other un-recovered costs of vehicle use such as: pollution, direct health risks due to traumatic injury, simple waste of time/life spend sitting in metal boxes for un-necessary travel.
The highway system in the US is, in addition to an essential cog in the economic engine, one giant taxpayer funded amusement park. People love getting in their cars and going places for any reason or no reason at all. There are real costs associated with this, and not all of them are currently being borne by the people choosing to do the driving.
I hope we continue to be a wealthy enough society to provide such frivolous amusement with taxpayer cost-assistance.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:27PM (1 child)
Yeah, the federal tax on gasoline has been stuck at 18.4 cents per gallon since the mid 1990s. Every other such tax I know of is a percentage, but somehow that one is a fixed amount. Inflation has reduced the purchasing power of those tax moneys by over 50%. The setup is an outrageous giveaway to Big Oil.
Yes, Americans like to drive. One thing that struck me last time I visited Canada was how much less road there was. Texas cities have gone big into roads. Lots of limited access highways. and new massive, stacked interchanges for them, with much reworking to cut down on traffic weaving. It's quite the stunning display of wealth. Meanwhile, Canadian cities will have intersections with stoplights where Texas cities would have an interchange. The freaking Trans Canada highway gets the old stoplight treatment even in major cities.
However, Texas has gotten sneaky about funding all those roads. It's not just that they're going for tolls, it's the underhanded manner they're going about it. Can't turn an existing, free public highway into a toll road. So, they built these "service" roads on the outer edges of the new limited access toll highway, and designated those as the official state highway. There are places where there are 14 lanes of road. 4 each direction for the toll road in the middle, and 3 more each direction for the free state highway. They also made a shabby start with the collection system. Photograph your license plate, and bill you later. One of the early problems was they wouldn't give people much time to pay. You might get a notice of a bill for the toll road on or after the day it was due, with a warning of a big penalty if you were late.
Anyway, the headline is disingenuous. It's not the fault of the electric car that there's going to be even less money for roads. It's the fault of the revenue system.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:31AM
Imagine it's a percentage. Imagine fuel prices drop. Imagine people driving more (and more to the point, companies using more trucking and less e.g. train freight), putting more wear on the roads, but you simultaneously have less funds for road repair.
It should certainly allow for inflation somehow, but I don't see that a percentage is a better way to do that than directly indexing it to inflation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:38PM (12 children)
Trucks don't pay sufficient taxes to cover the cost of the damage they do to roads. Why should EVs be taxed according to societal cost when trucks are not? That's not including the effects of pollution from ICE trucks and cars .....
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:42PM (11 children)
I don't know who told you that story. Trucks DO pay their share, and then some.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:39AM (9 children)
https://truecostblog.com/2009/06/02/the-hidden-trucking-industry-subsidy/ [truecostblog.com]
There are lots of other links. Trucks don't pay their way.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:54AM (8 children)
That story is badly skewed. Look at the claim that railroads aren't subsidized, for starters. Do you really believe that? Texas is well known (among truckers at least) for raking money off of every other industry, to subsidize it's railways. You're looking at a political nonsense article there.
I'm not going into all of their numbers, but I will point out that one individual truck might pay more than $50,000 in road taxes in a year. Private vehicles? Using their own numbers, a POV doesn't come close to paying it's share compared to an 18-wheeler.
Besides - if the trucking industry is taxed more - who will ultimately pay those taxes? Bob and Betty consumer ultimately pays all shipping costs, and that's not going to change.
Time for work - maybe I'll get back to this tomorrow.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday February 27 2019, @06:49AM (7 children)
1. Faulty logic: Whether or not trains are subsidized is irrelevant to the question of whether trucks pay their fair share.
2. Faulty logic: the fact that trucks already pay a lot of tax does not mean they pay their way.
3. You conflate policy issues (should trucks pay the full cost of the damage they do) with factual issues (do trucks pay the full cost of the costs they cause).
Here is another article:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-le-0215-sunday-cars-weight-20150215-story.html [latimes.com]
Does that $50,000/year represent 9600 times the amount paid for the average car?
More links:
https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/06/02/trucking-industry-imposes-up-to-128-billion-in-costs-on-society-each-year/ [streetsblog.org]
Older article:
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/25/us/study-asserts-heavy-trucks-cause-big-damage-to-roads.html [nytimes.com]
This looks like the source for the 9,600 times average car costs:
http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf [gao.gov]
More recent:
https://www.overdriveonline.com/do-truckers-pay-enough-for-highways-white-house-suggests-not/ [overdriveonline.com]
Is that enough citations for you? There are plenty more.
I fully expect you will reply with some bullshit with no citations, no facts behind your claims. But maybe you will surprise me.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:18PM (5 children)
Citation needed for that 9600 number. You are aware, I believe, that some asshole told Congress that fewer than 1% of opiate prescriptions resulted in addictions. No one seems to know where that lie came from, but it was used to justify all kinds of stupid shit. What is the source for that number? The government estimated it? Citation desperately needed.
You do offer something good with that second link - shipping by rail. I like the idea. Back when it cost roughly fifty cents per ton to ship stuff by truck, it then cost two cents per ton to ship by rail. Rail is cheap, cheap, cheap. Are you aware of any problems with shipping by rail? No? Well, let me help you. Rail shipment is about as dependable as a teenage daredevil driver with ADD, epilepsy, narcolepsy, alcoholism, AND a drug addiction. That is - you ship it, and you may or may not ever see it again.
I enjoyed my coast-to-coast runs. Take something or other out to San Diego, hop back across the mountains to Nogales, and load up lettuce or whatever. When you're loaded, haul ass for Miami, Elizabeth City, New York City, Rhode Island, Quebed, Toronto - or wherever. I could have that lettuce or whatever at the market in 3 1/2 days - 5 days if going to Nova Scotia. Try that with a train. Railcars might show up this summer, some time. And, when it arrives, you may have to open a valve and let that lettuce run out on the ground.
Yeah - put that shit on a train. And, you better start growing lettuce locally, or you'll do without.
That next link - NYT publishes a private study. Uh-huh - haven't we seen enough private studies used to push something to make someone rich? Private studies are never political, are they?
The Overdrive article is interesting. Trump wants toll roads - that should surprise no one, Trump likes rich people, and toll roads will help to make more rich people. Put the highways in private hands, and those private hands can skim trillions off the economy. The ATA prefers to raise alrady existing taxes. No new rich bastards in the making that way.
That PDF from the GAO is 146 pages - it will take more than a minute or two to read it. I'll give the GAO some credibility. I'll note that the title of the article is "Excessive truck weight: an expensive burden we can no longer support." Which leads me to believe that they may not be talking about legally loaded and legally operated trucks at all. But, I'll go through it . . . BBL.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @12:54AM
Dunno exactly where that 9600 figure is from (I've seen it around, but never seen a source or justification). It's a little optimistic or pessimistic, depending on your perspective, but just barely in the range of credibility.
Road wear is generally considered proportional to axle weight4. If a passenger car has axle weights of, say, 2500/2500 pounds, and a tractor-trailer has axle/tandem weights of 15,000, 30,000, and 30,000 pounds (i.e. 15,000 per axle), that's a factor of 1296 per axle, and with 2.5x as many axles, a total of 3240. (If the load distribution is less even, it gets worse: 15k/26k/34k yields factors of 1296/2x731/2x2138 -- vs 1/1 for that 50/50 passenger car, that's a total factor of 3517.)
The 9600 figure seems like either somebody took the whole weight to the 4th power (inadvertently pretending 50k pound trucks have only two axles) or is comparing a maxed-out truck or rig to a fairly light passenger car. For instance, it's roughly what you'd get if you compared a 4000-pound car and the heaviest legal 2-axle truck fully loaded to its 40k GVWR (both with 50/50 weight distribution).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @01:03AM (3 children)
Oh, and I forgot to get back to dollars, but if you take a more realistic 3000-4000 ratio... $50k/year for a truck would be equivalent to $12-$17/year for a passenger car.
I don't know about other states, but I'm sure paying more than double that here in IN.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 28 2019, @02:43PM (2 children)
I meant to reply to this earlier. Your vehicle registration doesn't play into this discussion, really. You pay somewhere between 20 and fifty dollars for your registration, whereas 18-wheelers pay somewhere between 150 and 500. Probably more than that now, but there were times when I was routed through Illinois to renew plates on a tractor and/or a trailer. $100 a pop for the trailers, and I think it was $120 for the tractors. That was registration only, and did not contribute to highway taxes, fuel taxes, the bingo card fees, business tax, or anything else.
Similarly, someone mentioned the purchase price of a private vehicle being comparable the taxes paid by a big truck. Except, that has no bearing on the discussion at all. The purchase price of any vehicle goes to the manufacturer, the dealer, a bit of sales tax, and nothing to road use.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 28 2019, @07:09PM (1 child)
Not clear if you're saying it doesn't count because it goes into the general fund rather than specifically going to road upkeep, or just because it's a smaller number than commercial vehicles pay?
If the former, note that Indiana allows counties to levy a excise and wheel taxes that get paid along with, and in addition to, your state vehicle registration fee, specifically to cover road upkeep. (In my county, this is an extra $25/year for passenger cars.) Besides, fuel taxes and the like often go into the general fund as well -- if that's the criteria for exclusion, it becomes impossible to have a meaningful discussion of whether any class of vehicles pays "their share", since no matter how much anyone pays, the politicians can (and too often do) spend it on other stuff and leave the roads unrepaired.
If the latter, well, what I'm seeing is, tractor-trailers pay 10x as much, while doing 1000+x the road damage. So add that tiny $500 into your $50000 figure you mention, and it's still significantly less than passenger cars are paying in proportion to road wear.
But even disregarding registration/excise/wheel taxes entirely, look at just the gas tax. Indiana's state gas tax is 29 cents/gallon. At 30 mpg and 15k/year, that's 500 gallons per year, or $145. (We additionally pay normal sales tax on gasoline, but I'll ignore that because I know most states don't.) The state taxes diesel (and other non-gasoline fuels) at 48 cents/gallon, so combining the increased per-gallon with increased fuel consumption, of, say, 4mpg, a tractor-trailer might be paying 12 cents/mile in fuel tax vs 1 cent/mile for our passenger vehicle. Again, paying ~ten times as much, but doing thousands of times the road wear.
Same story for tolls -- tolls on I80 are $11.10 end-to-end for passenger vehicles, and up to $130.80 for 7+ axles. Once again, it looks like tractor-trailers are doing multiple orders of magnitude more road wear, and only paying one order of magnitude more.
I'm open to being convinced that there's really some hidden subsidy for cars, or some tax I'm not understanding for commercial trucking. But so far, the numbers just don't seem to be adding up.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 01 2019, @12:42AM
Go with the former. All taxes, fees, etc, had some intended use when they were passed by the legislature. To my knowledge, no registration fees were ever intended for highway maintenance. Those monies were intended for other things. Fuel tax, highway use tax, mileage tax, etc were all intended for infrastructure upkeep. All of that is a generalization, I suppose, and I probably shouldn't have brought it in here.
I've not heard of that wheel tax - it would definitely count in this discussion.
But, we're kind of distracted here, because politicians don't use our money for it's intended purpose, often as not.
I'll restate my argument against that 9600 times as much damage, for clarity. I found that number in the PDF that was offered. That PDF was published in 1978, and it very specifically discusses overweight trucks. It discusses trucks in one instance that are routinely 30,000 pounds overweight. It also discusses the individual states failing to enforce federal laws, both on federally funded roads, as well as state funded roads. In the context of the discussion in that PDF, I can, and do, believe that some trucks in that era were probably causing that much damage to the infrastructure.
There is no fault with the concept that heavier vehicles cause more damage than lighter vehicles. The Federal DOT has a rather complex formula for determining permissible weights on the axles, as well as gross weights. Those trucks that are operated legally, and conform to federal guidelines are certainly causing hundreds of times as much damage as the typical privately owned vehicle, and maybe even a thousand times. But, that almost ten thousand times as much damage is out of the question. It's an obsolete number from a bygone era.
Long story short, I've argued primarily against that high shock-value number, which is simply not true.
I still believe that trucks pay their fair share, but you have made a case for re-examining that idea. Maybe they don't pay their full fair share. If you or I were to make the effort to find out, I'm still certain that it's pretty close to fair. That was what the federal government was shooting for when they imposed the current weight limits and taxing scheme, after all.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:31PM
Oh, the PDF is from 1978 or so. It's obsolete. The trucking industry is almost unrecognizably changed from those days. Some things have changed for the better, some for the worse, but it's a whole new world out there today. I did see that magic number of 9600 in the PDF, so obviously, that number has been around for a long time. Still want a citation: where did it come from? The PDF focuses on overweight trucks, and I can imagine that a grossly overloaded truck might cause as much damage as almost ten thousand cars.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:00AM
Spoken like a true, subsidized by the rest of us, trucker. Or some freeloader of VA benefits from having floated around, on the taxpayer's dime, for a couple of years? You are are parasite, Runaway! A not very smart one, yes, but good enough to suck the lifeblood out of America without actually killing it. But Trump will take it too far.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:31PM
Good thing I can walk to work.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:34PM (1 child)
Anything that involves GPS and "the state" is a no go.
There are other ways to do mileage counts, like the odometer on a car, or just simply a tax on tires. These also have the benefits of the state on spying on you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:15PM
I live near Canada, we already go over the border to get some drugs that are over-the-counter there (and prescription in USA). If a big US tire tax was levied, I'd by tires in Canada too.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:53PM
In California, smog check places require you to report your mileage along with the smog check results to renew your registration. Just get people to keep coming in, skip the smog check part, and get the smog check places to give them a mileage bill (and option to immediately pay) after they electronically submit the smog results to the DMV.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:26PM (4 children)
Electric Cars are not making the roads worse.
Stupid Government needs to figure out a 21st century fair way to pay for infrastructure maintenance.
Welcome to the present day! We're glad you joined us.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:46PM (3 children)
Charge khallow, he currently finds US have incredible capacity to build and repair stuff [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @03:57PM (2 children)
Lol that response of "don't worry about floods from global warming, someone will fix it" is about the same as "we must continue burning fossil fuels so we can tax them and get money to (not) fix the roads".
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 26 2019, @06:02PM (1 child)
The actual response [soylentnews.org] was:
Sorry, but that's true. And this quibble about how to bill (in the US) for that massive ability to repair roads and similar infrastructure doesn't change things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:12AM
Wow, just like the khallow! Or sixteens of hims.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:11PM (9 children)
Well, almost all countries variously already have:
Vehicle Excise - literally charging you each year to have the vehicle legally on the road anyway.
Electricity tax - charge you a per-user, specific, usage-based charge based on your actual electricity consumption in a simple manner (no matter what purpose the electricity is used for).
Tolls and other usage taxes - literally per-road, per-mile, per-usage, whatever you like.
A sales tax on certain vehicle types.
Local council tax - the people who have to fix most roads anyway.
etc. etc.
There are plenty of already-existing, already-collected taxes that can just be increased no problem at all to compensate. You would hope that a usage-based one is used to penalise people who are damaging the roads more compared to those who don't even own a car, for instance. That leaves you with electricity taxes and road-usage taxes. Road-usage requires an awful lot of infrastructure, which would be paid for somewhat by the taxes, but it's also a lot of upheaval and politicially-risky. Electricity tax can be slowly ramped up today, in tiny increments and requires nothing more than a bit of paperwork, and people will barely notice until it's too late.
Welcome to the world post-subsidy - affecting solar, electric cars, wind turbines, all kinds of things. The government granted you a reprieve to make the technology popular. Now that it's popular, they're going to tax it. That's how it works. Prepare to see all your subsidies dissipate, all your costs rise (including purchase and usage), and all the advantages that electric cars *did* have disappear into the void.
Gimme a call when electricity is twice the price it is now, high-power fast-charging comes only at a premium (relative to the contribution to peak load), there are only pathetic prices available for selling power back to the grid (thereby finally representing the reality of that situation), you have to pay the same road/vehicle taxes as everyone else has for 50 years, and it almost becomes cheaper to burn your old fuel to generate your new electricity fuel at home as it does buy the electricity yourself.
Subsidies are for things the government wants to happen.
Punitive taxes are for things the government considers harmful and doesn't want to be happening (e.g. inheritance taxes, carbon-taxes, etc.).
All other taxes are for things the government wants you to do a lot and not be able to avoid in order to generate money for them (e.g. sales taxes).
You've passed the subsidies stage. The punitive taxes will now start to apply to things producing carbon (and thus costing countries money in compliance and fines from international organisations). So your ICE car will now be taxed into oblivion - which earns money and also pushes people to electricity. And then they will be expecting to recoup all those subsidy payments - plus interest - plus make more on top enough to perform all the usual expected services, plus a bit of "profit" from the other taxes that they *already* impose just by changing what it applies to (e.g. electric cars the same as diesel cars, etc.).
If you don't get that, then you never will understand governments and taxation. It's only good business sense, so it's *really* hard to argue against it. They helped spark the industry. They gave it assistance and carved exceptions to the rules. Now those dissipate and they'll find a way to tax it into perpetuity.
A tax on electricity would be my bet. Governments are gearing up to do that. It would fund electrical generation and all their not-very-profitable green-electricity ventures. It would reduce overall carbon emissions. It would apply to everyone. It's incredibly hard to avoid without even more expense on your behalf. And with the UK making noises towards stopping natural gas being fitted to new properties, it's obvious where we're being led to.
An all-electric world, with large electricity taxes the same as current fuel taxes.
I can't even say that it feels wrong. It doesn't.
Electricity usage and production will end up getting taxed heavier. And maybe toll-roads etc. will increase (which has a nice side-effect of controlling/monitoring which vehicles are on the road and paid their OTHER taxes). But, for sure, the free-ride given to electric cars is over, and solar and wind etc. will start to follow suit.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:25PM
In the US road maintenance costs are split somewhat evenly between Federal, State, County and City. I worked at the State level DOT for a short while, but long enough to experience the ongoing constant negotiation between the levels of government about who takes responsibility for maintenance of which roads.
In general, you'll see it in the highway names: Intrastate/US highways are _usually_ federally maintained, State Road X would _usually_ be state maintained, and the local feeders, neighborhood streets, etc. are handled by their respective county or city.
In specific, they horse trade responsibility for roadway miles back and forth between the levels - for instance when a City wants to more than basic improvement on a State road, they might exchange responsibility for that portion of that road for an equivalent number of road miles that they would otherwise be responsible for. That's about the simplest of examples, politics is rarely that simple.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @04:44PM (7 children)
Too late already down-under. [abc.net.au]
If they continue to raise the electricity prices, I'm gonna buy batteries and disconnect from the power grid; it'll be more cost effective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:14PM (1 child)
Isn't that antisocial? Probably racissss too!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:58PM
Nope, just asocial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday February 26 2019, @05:43PM (4 children)
Did you even read the article that you linked to? The price rises appear to be unrelated to taxation -- in fact, there has been a reduction in taxes on electricity.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:18PM
The price rises are because they sold off the public electricity infrastructure to the private sector. And naturally when you have no real competition or repercussions, you raise prices as much as you can get away with. There are legal limits to the price hikes, but like toll roads they are well above the inflation rate here in Au.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:35PM (2 children)
And? How's that relevant for how much I pay on electricity?
You reckon if the price gonna go up because of taxes is gonna make less a hole in my pocket?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:43AM (1 child)
Sigh.
Go back to your original post:
See, your post was in the context of taxes rising on electricity and you wrote that it was "Too late", implying that taxes had already caused an increase in taxes on electricity.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:59AM
Sigh
(I'll let aside the "taxes had already caused an increase in
taxesprices on electricity")No, what I'm implying is "with so high prices already, any increase will immediately be noticed, because many people - myself included - are already on the edge of their patience with this shite!" (in contrast with "people will barely notice").
Is it clearer now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0