Added fee for Electric/Hybrid vehicle registration

[Indyfella317]

Went to renew my vehicle registration for my Prius and noticed the cost was more than last year. Dug into the details and now Indiana charges $50.00 fee for Electric/Hybrid vehicles and additional $25 for future road improvements.

Any other states do this?

[Another Reader]

The state thinks you are not paying your fair share of the gas tax, so this is how they make that "loss" up.

California wants to charge by miles driven instead of the gas tax.  No doubt that will evolve to in addition to the gas tax. 

[Indyfella317]

Did some research and found that Tesla had lobbied hard against this legislation, for obvious reasons.

The best part is that the state is also increasing the gas tax annually over the next 10 years.

My biggest complaint will come when the road money isn't used for the roads.

[YttriumNitrate]

It looks like about 17 states charge extra fees for electric vehicles...not sure how that breaks down for pure electric vs hybrid.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/13-states-now-charge-fees-for-electric-vehicles#gs.xCSMotw

[Bateaux]

Eventually it will be an odometer tax.  You'll pay by the mile driven.

[sol]

Washington used to charge an extra $50/year to register an EV.  This year they increased it to $100/yr.

I don't really mind, honestly.  My car costs approximately 2.5 cents/mile to charge, and my old gasoline car was approximately 14 cents/mile.  And that's with cheap gas.  I only need to drive my EV 69 miles per month to come out ahead, and everything after that is money saved (compared to a gas car).

Separately, I also figure I save more than $100/year from not having to do oil changes, top off coolant levels, repair timing chains or water pumps, or do any of the other ordinary repairs that a gasoline car requires and an EV doesn't.  I still have to rotate the tires and replace the wiper blades, and that's about it.  I love it.

And honestly, an extra $100 for car tabs is a rounding error compared to my property tax increases.

[inline five]

Most electric cars use one kWh to travel 3-4 miles. At national average rates of $0.12 per kwh you're taking about $0.04 per mile just on electricity costs.

Let's translate that into mpg for a similar car, let's say that gets 40mpg (small gas car). That would equate to about a per gallon cost of $1.68 vs the current national avg around $2.50.

So while electric cars can be cheaper to operate, the difference isn't substantial. Even at a whopping 12,000 miles a year or 50 miles a day, the gas car is buying 300 gallons of gas a year and the electric would be saving under $250, now tack on the additional $50-$100 fee, and you aren't much further ahead.

So they can make sense but only if you drive a lot and have low electricity costs like hydropower.

[sol]

So while electric cars can be cheaper to operate, the difference isn't substantial.

My math is different.  You're right on with the 3.5 miles per kwh, but my power only costs 7.8 cents per kwh.  That's 2.2 cents per mile, which I round up to 2.5 to account for ~10% overhead in the charger.

But I use my EV for city driving, not highway miles.  The limited range means I take the gas car on long road trips.  A car the size/age/performance of my EV does not get 40 mpg in the city.  30 mpg would be charitable.

30 mpg with $2.50 gas is 8.3 cents per mile in gas. That's over three times as expensive.  That's a "substantial" difference in my book. 

Don't forget all of the free charging I get to do!  Those miles cost 0% as much to fuel as a gasoline car.

As a side note, some nontrivial portion of your gasoline cost per mile goes directly to middle eastern countries that support terrorism!  Think about that the next time you fire up your lifted F2500 with the American flag bumper sticker.  Over it's lifetime, the average truck spends far more on petrotyrrany than it costs to purchase from the dealer.  Are you really "buying American" if you send more money to Saudia Arabia than you do to GM?

At least my $100 EV fee stays in my local economy.

[MilesTeg]

Good, roads SHOULD be funded by those that use them. The gas tax used to be a fairly decent proxy, but as technology evolves so will the way taxes are assessed.

I am 100% behind EVs, but I am not for EVs not paying for the roads they use.

The best way to handle it would be a formula based on weight and distance driven. That would encourage less driving and smaller/lighter vehicles which would also reduce the need for roads and road maintenance.

[inline five]

So while electric cars can be cheaper to operate, the difference isn't substantial.

My math is different.  You're right on with the 3.5 miles per kwh, but my power only costs 7.8 cents per kwh.  That's 2.2 cents per mile, which I round up to 2.5 to account for ~10% overhead in the charger.

But I use my EV for city driving, not highway miles.  The limited range means I take the gas car on long road trips.  A car the size/age/performance of my EV does not get 40 mpg in the city.  30 mpg would be charitable.

30 mpg with $2.50 gas is 8.3 cents per mile in gas. That's over three times as expensive.  That's a "substantial" difference in my book. 

Don't forget all of the free charging I get to do!  Those miles cost 0% as much to fuel as a gasoline car.

As a side note, some nontrivial portion of your gasoline cost per mile goes directly to middle eastern countries that support terrorism!  Think about that the next time you fire up your lifted F2500 with the American flag bumper sticker.  Over it's lifetime, the average truck spends far more on petrotyrrany than it costs to purchase from the dealer.  Are you really "buying American" if you send more money to Saudia Arabia than you do to GM?

At least my $100 EV fee stays in my local economy.

I feel like every time you respond to posts you stop reading after the first sentence. I stated at the bottom in the PNW with hydropower they can make sense.

I'm curious what electric car you have. Our Prius gets 50 mpg city, and is a fairly big car inside, certainly larger than the Focus, Leaf, Volt, and i3. Used ones can be picked up for next to nothing as well. And no need to spend money on insurance, registration, and depreciation on a second car - it can do it all.

[robartsd]

My biggest complaint will come when the road money isn't used for the roads.

We're a long way from that. Maintaining our road system is mostly supported by general taxes - special taxes are mostly used for expanding it.

[FiftyIsTheNewTwenty]

Eventually it will be an odometer tax.  You'll pay by the mile driven.

Oregon has been working on this for awhile, and is probably closest to getting it.

Pricing according to location and demand makes more sense, like in Hong Kong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_road_pricing_(Hong_Kong) or London UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge). 

Did you see the the $40 tolls in northern Virginia?  Supply and demand -- people were paying it.

I'm all for motorists paying full cost and then some, helping to fund transit too.

And I'm all for a tax holiday for electric vehicles, until their prices come down and they are mainstream.  They're still too tiny a  percentage of the fleet to affect fuel tax revenues, compared to fluctuations in demand due to gas/oil prices.

Mostly, I'm all for living where you work, working where you live, and walking or biking for most trips.

[Rural]

Eventually it will be an odometer tax.  You'll pay by the mile driven.

... which will be absolutely fucking fabulous for those of us who do significant driving on our own property, on roads we built and maintain ourselves. Sigh.

[robartsd]

Eventually it will be an odometer tax.  You'll pay by the mile driven.

... which will be absolutely fucking fabulous for those of us who do significant driving on our own property, on roads we built and maintain ourselves. Sigh.

Some have suggested that sensors on the roadway will detect and identify vehicles using them to calculate assesments. Might be implemented with cameras and computer vision to read the license plates as they pass. Of course deploying a network of sensors and monitoring it is much more costly than inspecting the odometer of cars occationally and calculating assesments purely by mile driven and most places that would implement a road usage tax are not likely to have significant populations of voters who drive signficant miles on private roads.

[Rural]

Eventually it will be an odometer tax.  You'll pay by the mile driven.

... which will be absolutely fucking fabulous for those of us who do significant driving on our own property, on roads we built and maintain ourselves. Sigh.

Some have suggested that sensors on the roadway will detect and identify vehicles using them to calculate assesments. Might be implemented with cameras and computer vision to read the license plates as they pass. Of course deploying a network of sensors and monitoring it is much more costly than inspecting the odometer of cars occationally and calculating assesments purely by mile driven and most places that would implement a road usage tax are not likely to have significant populations of voters who drive signficant miles on private roads.

Oh, I'm used to being an edge case, no worries. :) I wish I didn't think my private road would tear up an electric vehicle, though at the moment I'd need the range of a Tesla. All these things (except maybe the road tax) will improve over the next decade.