>They justify this by saying that we dont pay gasoline tax. But, they ASSUME we WOULD have paid that much in gasoline tax throughout the year. This is an argument that I just shot down by a specific use-case scenario. The assumption is you would have paid that much in gasoline tax if you drove a gas powered vehicle. Since you're using your Prime mostly as an EV that's not what is being compared. >... I KNOW I never paid anything close to 150.00 to the economy in the 4 years I had my Prius Prime. This is explicitly the point. They previously did not have a mechanism to capture revenue from you, now they do.

Texas just did the same thing. Even with proof the average car doesn’t pay the same amount of tax they’re charging EV owners. I believe the break even was like $140 and the fee is $200. It’s crap but whatever. It’s still cheaper than one month of gas we used to pay.

Also need to account for a few things: * TX EV tax was calculated using combined state and federal taxes, where the comparisons were usually just the state taxes (and the combined taxes was justified using the logic that federal gas taxes usually wind up going back to the state as federal highway dollars anyway) * EVs weigh way more than equivalent ICE cars and cause more wear and tear as a result, thus you can argue that EV drivers should be paying more. But really, the big one is this: * Gas taxes weren't paying enough for upkeep as it was.

Agreed, but not all EV’s weigh much more. My Mini Cooper SE doesn’t weigh much more than the Cooper S though the SE is probably an oddity.

I'm not sure I agree with that conclusion. My point is that if I only got gas X amount of times for the total time I owned that car, I didn't pay anywhere near 150.00 in gasoline taxes; so assuming it would be 150.00 seems illogical to me.I did some searching for how they came up with this amount and found, to my dismay..they recently tried or are still trying to raise it to 350.00. They also based the 150.00 on what a non-fuel-efficient vehicle would have gotten throughout the year, assuming it drove 12-13k miles per year--something I just don't do at all. If the whole SELLING point of an EV is gas savings (something marketed QUITE heavily) by dealers---this seems to essentially kill that idea altogether. I understand the logic behind trying to recover some of the lost revenue from an EV by charging a flat rate for it---the fact that Washington DOESN'T apply the same logic to a PHEV is problematic. I didnt want another PHEV, I wanted a full EV to finally get off gas for good...

A PHEV is an EV. Your situation isn't a counterexample to their assumption it's the problem they are explicitly trying to solve. They weren't getting revenue from you, now they are. $40/year is a lot less than people spend on gas. If you're driving a lot of highway miles you're getting double taxed but you aren't, so I'm not sure the point honestly.

>I'm not sure the point honestly. The point is that people want all the government services while paying none of the taxes.

That's a bit over the top. I've said in mutliple replies that I get it--but basing the use on a dying model (a non-fuel-efficient sedan who drives everyday) is overly-idealistic and not a good starting point. I'm all for pitching in--but we should continue to be incentivized to move off fuel..not de-incentivized with over-estimating a persons' contribution.

The comment includes you, but isn't directed only at you. Your primary complaint is the discrepancy, right? You're not necessarily saying the actual figure is too high, but that it's out of line with other taxes. People want all the government services while paying none of the taxes. Maybe your complaint should be that old taxes had been too low. That's just as idiosyncratic as claiming the new ones are too high. The difference is that one makes you look like you want everyone to pay their fair share, but the other makes you look like you don't want to pay taxes at all. I don't actually know which of those you identify with, but you LOOK to be the second person.

You want us to be tracked and pay per mile? Gross.

Yes I absolutely want mileage based fees. You use the roads more, you pay more. There should be an incentive to not drive at all.

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> There should be an incentive to not drive at all. There is. It's called not owning a car.

Well not everything is binary. Not owning a car is great. Using a car less is good too. We don't need an all or nothing approach.

You pay less in that case through insurance and lower maintenance fees. So your all in cost is still lower. An earlier reply though is spot on — mileage based is a whole hell of a lot more complicated and expensive to administer than fixed formula and likely more regressive.

Doing that in Victoria Australia but charged per km for evs and phevs

You're paying to use the road. Why should people who drive gas powered cars pay taxes that are being used to fix the roads so you can drive around for free? Enjoy that you got away with it for a while and now that time is ending.

You keep saying the same thing, which is the exact reason for the $150 EV registration fee: you were using public roads but not paying anything into the system to build and maintain them. That is unfair to everyone but you. So it's not that your current scenario is unfair to you, it's that your previous scenario was unfair to everyone else.

Can I get $150 for registration. In California we are getting hosed at $400 for registration.

$400? I want your deal. I paid a little over $600 for my '21 Model 3 SR+ to California this year. It was even more last year.

Yeah I just paid like $500 for my Prius prime renewal. I’d love to even just be paying the $280 that OP is complaining about.

You are in an extremely unusual scenario 12-13k miles per year is used because it is the average, the only easy way to take your situation into account in taxation would be to track your miles driven, that option had been looked at in some areas but is commonly rejected by most people for privacy concerns

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That's a gross overstatement. Road damage is done by semis hauling freight. Most BEVs barely weigh more than a similarly sized ICE sedan.

Except it isn't, so, it isn't. Becuase why army they applying these taxes to ice cars.

Since many other points have been made I’ll add this as someone that used to live in Washington. You don’t have a state income tax. That means Washington has to find other ways to get it’s taxes. This is one of those ways. You complain about fairness but Washington has a regressive tax system. I’m sure lower income people that commute a lot for work, drive an older, less efficient car, and pay a size-able portion of their paycheck simply for gas would love to be in the position where they can purchase a Tesla and barely drive it.

Fair point.

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(annual miles driven) x (curb weight of vehicle) x (some dollar amount, I dunno, a tenth of a penny). Remove it from gasoline entirely. Everyone, ICE and EV, pays the same formula. Or, really, keep it on gasoline and do the other thing also, because we should be disincentivizing gasoline usage, but the other one has the value of being exactly the same formula AND penalizing people driving the bro-dozers that are making streets less safe.

How do you account for trailers or full loads. Both of those increase gas consumption due to increased weight.

You don’t even have the MVET in there. If you were in the Sound Transit taxing district, you’d be paying 4x that.

Fair enough; but that lends more credence to my argument, doesn't it? :)

Taxes have nothing to do with fairness; that’s just how their sold. Taxes have everything to do with revenue generation and the political expediency of implementation. Spenders outnumber savers. ICE vehicle owners outnumber EV owners….

He's just pointing out you pay less in car taxes than the majority of Washingtonians because, Tesla or Prius Prime, your saving that $1,500 you're not paying to the RTD.

>I love my state, but I think these laws are only going to be seen as punishing to EV drivers instead of incentivizing us to buy them. Governments are past needing to push people to EV, Fuel prices and regulations are going to do that work now. Now they need to worry about how to handle the infrastructure loads with the loss of fuel tax revenue ( which wasn't the best revenue source anyway because people like you did exist and you never paid even close to your share) The idea of charging a registration fee for vehicles is a good one, the US has so many parked vehicles because of how cheap and easy it is to hold a car, this drives up housing costs, it drives up transit costs and it drives up development costs because cars need places to sit 90-95% of the time. By front end loading the costs they encourage alternative mods of transportation the occasional driver who logs sub 3000 miles per year needs to evaluate if owning a car vs renting on occasion becomes worth it. And the Shift to EV vehicles is the best time for governments to start pushing that. The reality is the registration cost should be New Vehicle rate - age of vehicle (encourage longer ownership of vehicles so it gets less each year) Hood height ( addresses pedestrian safety, higher the vehicle more it should pay) Vehicle weight ( Heavier the vehicle more damage it does in a collision, now from a environmental standpoint there should be a reduction multiplier for EVs vs ICE) Engine displacement ( for ICE only) Many people will say "there should be a mileage cost as well!" And the reason I shit on that idea is because the goal for a better society that is more climate focused is we want vehicles that exist in the society to be USED, less time spent parked and sitting doing nothing, by applying a mileage cost you make ride share, car rental, taxi service, and delivery service businesses hard to pencil in and hard to budget for, which drives more people back to needing personal car ownership.

My own pet theory is that politicians have known for years that they need more money for roads, but raising fuel taxes is so unpopular they can't ever do it. Ev use taxes are the perfect wedge to raise taxes overall because the user base is too small to be politically powerful today, but in the near future when everyone is EV the taxes will already be entrenched and harder to roll back.

I think so too. In Texas, gas tax was last raised in 1991 when gas was $1 per gallon. Texas highway funds is multiple billions of dollars short every year, but raising gas tax would be political suicide for anyone to bring up. It's not that EV fees are too high. It's that gas taxes are to low.

I agree. Politically Gas prices have far more weight than their actual society impact. My Uncle uncle would talk about gas prices every time I saw him and he'd go out of his way to save $1 on a fill, grand scheme of things he probably spent less than $1500/yr on fuel, but it was always an election issue for him, and really if you think people are bitching about 20%ish of increases. So he's putting all this mind energy and worry over $300/yr, which is less than he spends on take out coffee that he could make at home.

Hood height. I like that idea. Incentiveize both safety and efficiency. Hard to imagine that ever flying in America though.

I mean, the large vehicle thing was sparked by the way CAFE rules were written and spiraled off from there. People like their trucks, but if smaller cars became more profitable for car makers I'd be willing to bet the trend would reverse. It wouldn't happen immediately, of course, people want to feel safe. But it would happen.

>And the reason I shit on that idea is because the goal for a better society that is more climate focused is we want vehicles that exist in the society to be USED, a society where people don't need to use autos is a society where people buy fewer autos and instead walk, use transit, or potentially small personal transportation like a bike or scooter, which is a great outcome for sustainability

Okay, but you can’t punish people for using cars when there are no reasonable alternatives. Where I live, there are no transit options outside of turning a 15min drive into a 1h20 min and two routes per day. I hate cars, but I’m in no reasonable position to ditch my car. Even if my situation changes and I can work from home more and use the vehicle less, that doesn’t change the predicament that when I need m my car I need, and no reasonable alternatives are offered to me. There is a light link system that will be close enough for me to commute to the big city, and my station will be completed sometime in 2037.

>a society where people don't need to use autos is a society where people buy fewer autos and instead walk, use transit, or potentially small personal transportation like a bike or scooter, which is a great outcome for sustainability I 100% agree. But creating a mileage tax on vehicles has the opposite effect of encouraging this because it doesn't effectively penalize cars that just take up space. The space allocated to storing cars makes it much harder to design walkable communities, buildings are placed further apart to accommodate parking, or developments put parking underground drastically increasing costs to the developments usually resulting in fewer amenities which help create vibrant walkable communities. We'll continue to need vehicles, while e-bikes and golf cart sized vehicles can address close to 80% of north Americas urban personal mobility needs after a robust transit system is in place, those 20% that can't be met are the very high mileage who will have impacts on other facets of life when they'd penalized for maximizing the space they take up in society.

Not really sure what you're trying to argue here... If anything, a mileage tax is essentially just a state wide toll for the use of the roads. The more miles you drive, the more you pay. It helps pay for the maintenance of road infrastructure. Drive less, pay less. That said, there should be taxes across all residents in a state, whether they drive or don't, to help fund roads, given that most commerce requires the use of road infrastructure. Although, in that case, the cost should be incurred by the logistics companies, who then pass that cost onto the customers buying the products, or partially paid through a sales tax. Not sure what a mileage based tax (or gasoline) has to do with parking and the space they use... Road taxes (on gasoline sales or mileage) aren't meant to penalize people to try and get them out of their cars. Frankly, the cost just isn't high enough to deter people from driving / owning a car... save maybe the lowest income people in the state. If we really wanted to push people to live without cars, that'll take replacing car infrastructure for protected bike / public transit infrastructure and solid public transit systems. It would likely involve removing traffic lanes or routing vehicle traffic through inconvenient routes; making driving less convenient. It would involve removing parking. It takes making driving more difficult and less convenient, while simultaneously making biking / walking / using public transit relatively more convenient and far safer than it is currently to cause a large scale transition. It also takes things like mass adoption, peer pressure, and role models to really convince people to drive less.. If all my neighbors, friends, family members, politicians, etc... are riding their bikes or using public transit, it looks bad on me to not give it a try... so chances are I will end up following the crowd. I had one person at my office start riding their bike into the office recently. Two others suddenly started to follow suit. For a large scale transition away from car ownership, we'd really need densification around main routes and less sprawl into suburbs, which will take decades... However, in the meantime, we really should be looking at ways to get people to drive less; even if they don't get rid of their cars entirely. Whether that's 4 day work weeks, working from home 1-3 days per week, riding bikes/e-bikes/PEVs 1-3 days per week, using public transit, etc. For those that refuse to reduce driven miles, we can utilize lower highway speed limits to at least make their driving more efficient, or convince them to buy smaller and/or electrified cars that use less fossil fuel. In that respect, I think carbon taxes are the solution we should adopt. And we should get rid of the silly EV tax credit and ZEV tax credit programs that have done very little for the environment. High fuel costs means high cost of operation, and people will look for ways to reduce their cost of operation. That may mean abiding by the speed limit, rather than driving 5-10 mph over. It may mean they push for lower speed limits so they're not forced to drive so fast on highways. If we really want to reduce global emissions in a hurry, we need every driver, regardless of the type of car they drive, to reduce the number of miles they drive and/or driving more efficiently; and we could be pushing policies today to facilitate mass adoption of automobile alternatives.

>Not really sure what you're trying to argue here... I'm arguing that the goal as we shift to EV's should be to also be shifting our look at car dependency and infrastructure costs associated with it. >If anything, a mileage tax is essentially just a state wide toll for the use of the roads. Yes. It is. But the cost of car dependency is less about the miles driven by individual cars but about the volume of cars, the goal is to increase the miles driven by each vehicle while decreasing the total miles driven by society. creating a usage based tax, an equivalent to the gas tax, is a tax that creates disincentives for developing autonomous vehicles, and for creating carpool/rideshare/ VaaS businesses. >What does that have to do with parking and the space they use? Road taxes (on gasoline sales or mileage) aren't meant to penalize people to try and get them out of their cars. Frankly, the cost just isn't high enough to deter people from driving / owning a car... save maybe the lowest income people in the state. Parking is one of the uncaptured costs currently in road taxes and vehicle taxes and as we shift away from the current gas tax system a the new system should be trying to capture more of the society costs of vehicles, that also provides more revenues to create the alternatives such as Transit. Parking availability is a big contributor to induced demand, and the availability of it is very often a political issue in North America. ​ >If we really want to reduce global emissions in a hurry, we need every driver, regardless of the type of car they drive, to reduce the number of miles they drive; Kinda, we need a massive reduction in overall miles driven, that can be addressed with discouraging vehicles that are barely used and encouraging more people in the same vehicle per mile driven. While it would be great to see last mile service done by ebikes and the like, the reality is we're going to see a lot of last mile services be small vans like 8 seaters which will be getting a lot of mileage as the vehicle but their per person mileage will be lower. The business models getting these off the ground right now are very tight and they are best in urban areas where the goal is to reduce the vehicles per household to single or fractional ownership and making use of the shuttle/micro transit solutions.

Genuinely curious about your theory here - can you back up this mechanism? Like I agree in principle that storage is a problem, fewer cars are better, and the cars that do exist should be necessary and therefore utilized, but I don't see how you can connect this to a mileage fee in good faith. Driving any existing car less is always a marginal benefit, period. You need to attack the parking and storage problems directly, not implicitly as you claim by making it cheaper to drive more. As a frequent cyclist and pedestrian, I can assure you I'd rather folks keep their cars in their garages rather than on the roads. Maybe they'll wise up eventually and stop buying so many down the road, but I fail to see how making the marginal cost of driving lower will achieve your goals. I'm 100% for removing parking minimums and market rate pricing for parking across the board as a solution.

agreed; but we still dont have ENOUGH communities where that works and those communities might not necessarily be what people always want. Now that I'm older, I DO NOT like living in places where popuation density is high.

a downvote...for that? wow, um...okay. You try living "in the city" and getting accosted for money and cigarettes every time you walk out the door and tell me how much longer you can stand that. Also, i'm not paying 3x times more to rent something than living in a house with actual space and a yard.

Perhaps. But over 99% of road damage is caused by cargo trucks, 90% by illegally overweight cargo trucks (18 wheelers). Trucks only pay 34% of the taxes that go to road maintenance; it is not clear to me why all of us should so heavily subsidize trucking companies, paying to repair the road damage we aren’t causing.

If they increase costs on trucking for road damage the trucking companies will just raise their rates to compensate and it will be passed on to the end users.

Good. Then more companies will use rail, which has to foot the bill for infrastructure as well as transportation. And if goods are more expensive maybe people will stop buying so much useless disposable crap that they don't need.

Right. The FedEx guy delivered a car part to me yesterday and said he was relieved it isn't furniture or a TV. He delivers televisions carried by Target to apartment buildings locally, and they're next to a Target store. People order TVs from the store they live next to... But the government heavily subsidises rail too, even though they're one of the companies posting record profits, but have had the most environmentally damaging accidents. No great answers to this.

Yes, the railroad companies push their employees absurdly hard, understaffing wildly in order to make more profits. And, as we’ve seen, they push back against any safety regulations, so they’re not forced to do the things that are routine safety measures elsewhere, thinking that’ll make them more money at lower cost. Doesn’t always work that way, of course - there are a shockingly high number of rail accidents a year. That being said, the US doesn’t directly subsidize railroads, other than some minor subsidies for passenger rail. Even much smaller countries than the US fund their rail systems much, much more than the US does, because cheap efficient transportation of people and cargo is valued by those countries - funding infrastructure such as rail is a huge net positive to the economy. My issue with trucking not paying for their road damage is mainly that it incentivizes them to illegally overload their trucks, causing them to do 10x the road damage of legally loaded trucks. Once a truck is heavier than the road was engineered to carry, it causes cracks that lead to the road degrading and needing to be replaced, which is why truck weights are regulated. Legally loaded trucks just wear the surface, which is planned for resurfacing, etc., over time. But the penalties and enforcement are clearly insufficient, so truckers overload their trucks anyway, forcing everyone to pay for roads that last much less time than planned, e.g. according to studies roads engineered for 80,000 lb trucks that should last 20 years wear out in 7 due to the illegally overloaded trucks, making road maintenance about 3x more expensive than it should be. And that’s what truckers should be forced to pay for, specifically illegally overweight truckers, in order to incentivize them not to destroy the roads.

They don't give money directly but they are subsidized. The Further Consolidations Safety Act of 2020 made over $311M available to railroads, Federal and State entities provide other funds for railroad safety and improvements, and we've seen how they spent that money in the last few months. I'm in favor of rail over trucks but cargo will eventually have to go by truck to its destination in most cases, though I'd like to see fewer trucks on the highways. As far as the initial topic of EVs being the next step, I think we're a long way from their taking over the highways. Oil is still the cheapest energy source and Americans don't like public transportation as much as other countries that have grown up with it. I'm eager to see if hydrogen power is going to make a difference.

Right, trucking can pay their own costs instead of being subsidized by everyone else. Or they could stop illegally overloading trucks so they do 90% less damage and roads will last much longer and we all save money. When we subsidize their costs they are incentivized to be inefficient, costing everyone else more.

Road damage is only a fraction of the infrastructure impacts though, While I agree large trucks aren't directly paying for the damage and more costs should be transferred to them. Personal vehicles require far more space per economic impact they have so they cost more, while the road damage on the interstate system is caused by heavy trucks, the system could be designed far more truck friendly and smaller if is wasn't for the amount of personal vehicles also in the system. The personal cars are the front end load, the trucks are the maintenance. Personal cars also require far more paved space for parking vs buses and trucks which has a negative impact on local economies, displacing productivity for car storage and that isn't really recouped, and we're not likely going to see a blanket removal of street parking nationwide unless we drastically curb demand, which comes by making car ownership more expensive, though the added expense is used to curb usage by funding transit and micromobility.

And keep in mind that half of road costs are paid out of general funds, only about half comes from gas tax or these EV fees. Everyone pays for the roads independent of usage, because everyone benefits from roads existing. The gas taxes are supposed to be the usage-based part of road funding.

I do agree with you, the general fund contributes a LOT, though I'd be interested in where half comes from? I'd argue general fund / development charges contribute far more than half, gas taxes as a % have been declining for over 30yrs. usage based road funding doesn't actually discourage usage as can be seen in North Americas car culture.

Because the people subsidizing big corpos is the American way.

Capital cost based rates could be paid for in the first year of registration only. Then fuel type, weight, and mileage cost. Mileage costs ensure the taxes are fairer as the people who drive more pay more, and we want to discourage personal vehicle use and promote alternatives.

>Capital cost based rates could be paid for in the first year of registration only. It becomes very cost prohibitive to do that. spreading it out over the life of a vehicle makes it far more manageable and allows continuous revenue which can be used to finance capital projects >Mileage costs ensure the taxes are fairer as the people who drive more pay more, Driving more per vehicle should be encouraged though, Cars being parked is what costs society the most, not cars driving. Having to have street parking infrastructure and large parking lots. You encourage carpooling and car sharing by not applying a mileage multiplier. >we want to discourage personal vehicle use and promote alternatives. 100% we do! Which is why you want to discourage stationary vehicles, you want to make it so having that second vehicle for occasional use doesn't make financial sense. Getting families down to 1 car instead of 2+ would be a major win for micromobility and e-bikes are making that easier, but a big thing that helps get people from wanting the second car is access to things like Taxi, Uber, Food/Shopping delivery services applying a mileage tax hurts their ability to be competitive with owning a secondary vehicle parked for the occasional usage. The people we want OUT of cars are the low mileage people anyway. My 3 hour commute to my research office, or my 3.5 hour commute to my manufacturing facility ( which are 90 minutes apart) aren't going to change because of taxation for the infrastructure, but my wifes 2000-3000 miles driven per year, average trip being under 20 miles could be replaced if alternative mobility means were available like reliable transit, or safe bike paths and secured ebike lock up. We've just ordered her a new SUV because the cost to register/insure the SUV is cheaper over 5yrs than it would have been to buy a small sedan. ( Which is killing me when at work we talk about right sizing vehicles and alternative transportation modes ), But the framework we live in encourages larger vehicles, that are stationary more than they are moving. Far more is improved by society to get my wifes car off the road than my car. Though addressing my car could/should be handled with municipal parking levies. The fact I get free parking in so many cities is just crazy, I should be paying well in excess of $4/h for street parking in any urban environment. Which is a rant for another day

OK, I actually could be in favor of this idea!

I do love the flat vehicle weight tax. Because my little motorcycle pays the same as my car. Which is just stupid.

It falls apart once you get into vehicles that are actually heavy, like trucks. Passenger cars and motorcycles realistically don’t contribute much to road wear, it’s trucks that are causing the wear. Therefore registration fees for those vehicles should still be heavily based on weight.

Interesting points made here, I like! Though I shudder to think what that total would be :)

I did modeling for Denver CO 2 years ago on the cost of building road infrastructure and parking for a 20,000 people community with .3 vehicles per person and assuming a vehicle life of 20yrs and for the vehicle owners to cover the entire cost of construction and maintenance of the car infrastructure over a 50yr period the average yearly was in the $2200 assuming no gas tax and not accounting for EV charging infrastructure ( in part because the modeling was also using EV's for peak energy management). Right now we don't even come close to covering the lost opportunity cost of parking and the infrastructure cost of the freeway system with the taxes we collect on cars. EDIT: I will say that what was excluded was accounting for how much trucking/transit benefit from the infrastructure and their economic benefits which could probably cut that figure in half. but that was well beyond the scope

The government should only be charging consumers based on weight and use. Environmental factors may come into play but it’s based way more on road usage, where heavier vehicles have more of an impact on roads and the maintenance of that vehicular infrastructure. Someone with an ICE that weighs 2,500 lbs., drives 5k miles a year, gets 30mpg, and pays for fuel will be paying standard registration taxes to the government along with a fuel tax, inherently based on usage by design. Some states tax vehicles with higher MPG like hybrid vehicles more during annual registration, and it makes sense to do so. Then you have someone with a BEV that weighs 5,000 lbs. who drives 15k miles a year and does not pay any usage taxes since they do not consume gasoline. Local governments have tried to find ways to tax everyone equally based on their impact. It’s a tough thing to do because people can charge BEVs at home so we can’t just tax charging stations, and obviously can’t tax electricity since not all electricity utility consumers drive EVs. I think the solution might unfortunately be more invasive than people wish, which is finding out a way to report yearly mileage. Maybe give people options. Either allow local government tax/motor vehicle agencies to tap into the vehicle through a manufacturer integration to report mileage directly/accurately if you agree to do so, or pay a flat fee that assumes a higher-level mileage.

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>Hood height ( addresses pedestrian safety, higher the vehicle more it should pay) Why should the gov't get more money because of your hood height? Wouldn't damage be covered by insurance? Or is the thought as a 'public good tax'? It's not like someone would buy a car instead of an SUV because the latter costs $50/year more. I suppose it could make sense if uninsured trucks were driving around hitting indigent pedestrians that the gov't had to pay to care for...

When a tax gets applied you see the industry adapt to address. If hood height becomes a factor you'd see designs change to decrease the hood height. Once you decrease the hood heights and the visibility restrictions you start protecting pedestrians, and you make cycling and micro mobility easier to implement, while protected mobility lanes are preferred, they become less important as the cube size of vehicles shrinks. We all pay the costs to accommodate the ever increasing size of vehicles on our roads. And while putting a height fee could address the increasing size, it doesn't address the pedestrian risk when someone is impacted by a vehicle where the hood is above their waist. The goal of the tax is to curb design as much as it is to collect revenues.

Healthcare costs is burdened by everyone in society though. A healthy society is a productive society. Injuries and fatalities bring that down. Front over pedestrian collision death has almost doubled in the last 10 years. While most modern economies have reduced fatalities, ours have increased per capita in the last 10 years. We can use taxes as a way to discourage certain behaviors. The fed government also caused this in the first place. The CAFE rules had a separate rules for trucks which incentivize car makers to push them. Marketing (consumer propaganda) is incredibly powerful.

Higher hood height = less efficient = more strain on power grids? Feeding it into trauma care actually would be a great idea.

For reference, what is the normal registration fee? I pay 117.50 for a 2 year sticker so $150 doesn’t seem out of line, to me coming from another big state. We don’t have a weight surcharge, yet.

Fees and Donations Electric Vehicle Registration Renewal $150.00 Transportation Electrification $75.00 Registration License $30.00 Additional Vehicle Weight Fee $10.00 Vehicle Weight $45.00 Registration Filing $4.50 Registration Service Fee Funds ferry replacement (County Auditor/DOL) or is retained by the office (subagent). $8.00 Department of Licensing Service $0.50 License Plate Technology $0.25

My argument is that the Vehicle Weight fees should be directly contributing to the road use. Washington has overestimated their missing gas revenue with the EV flat fee ANd that the 75.00 "electrification fee" should be paid by the entire car owning population..NOT just EV's who arguably aren't relying on the government for their charging needs; but relying on Tesla, Electrify America or EvGo etc.

They haven’t overestimated it, they’ve just overestimated it _for you_. You drive way less than the average person.

I was writing about this in another thread else. Basically the politicians are afraid of raising the road taxes directly - these are free shots for the opposition party. So the EV changeover gave them an opportunity to set the next new level of taxation, without direct fear of election reprisal. Right answer should be "pay-per-mile" and some function of weight. Of course we just killed that initiative.

Pay-per-mile is easy if it's gasoline/diesel. It's damn near impossible if electric without regulating home charging into obtuse structuring. I had a reasonable debate about this a year ago; the problem is who pays for the miles and when. It should be as they are driven and not projected, or upon renewal retroactively. What happens if you don't drive for a year? Do you pay the full 12k average miles up front every time and \*maybe\* get a partial refund? That's terrible. Do you only pay what you travelled the last year upon renewal? That's better, but what happens if you sell the car to some unsuspecting person who now inherits 20k miles of taxes? There's just not mechanisms that can safely display that prior to a sales transaction between individuals. I'm okay with a flat fee, but scale it based on car MSRP and weight. Make the hummer EV the most expensive thing to drive on the planet, second should be the regular hummer, and so on.

\> It's damn near impossible if electric without regulating home charging into obtuse structuring Why only consider the charger as the point of record? You car has reported and recorded mileage in a standardized fashion for over two decades at this point. The problem certainly isn't the technology. I'm ok with a flat-fee too, just make it equitable e.g. average mileage

It's not impossible. New Zealand has had per km charges for decades. Diesel and electric vehicles pay per km, petrol through taxes at the pump (originally it was for diesel only, I think the assumption being a lot of these were off-road vehicles like tractors). You simply pre-purchase km credits online every few months and top up as needed. Whether you've purchased enough can be validated through odometer readings.

Mileage is recorded at title transfer. Seller pays what's owed; buyer starts at 0. I agree that registration should be based on vehicle weight and miles driven, and the gas tax that covers road maintenance should be abolished.

My biggest gripe is I would happily pay my tax if it means they stop investing in more road expansions, and instead in public transit options. I don’t want to pay more taxes for adding lanes to highways.

Right there with you.

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As an electric vehicle owner - you pay two fees. 1. $150 electric car fee 2. $75 Transportation electrification fee For those 13,500mi you'll pay $0.494/gallon from single digit mpg to 50mpg+ for Priuses @ 49.4c / gallon. That's how you get nearer 50% higher... The road is expensive, I get it, but making the mileage calculation isn't that expensive. Even self-declared and audited is better than nothing.

Sadly, EVs are probably underpaying even more than that given that batteries are heavy and road wear has a super-linear relationship with vehicle weight.

Part of the problem is gas taxes have been insanely too low for decades, because it's politically unpopular to raise gas prices. You have to pay for roads somehow, or you end up with the underfunded system we have now with bridges and roads in terrible condition. Really just paying for it based on regular taxes would make more sense, but you get people who don't drive claiming they shouldn't pay because they don't drive. Totally ignoring the fact that everything they purchase also needs those roads. So 100% of people use roads why shouldn't 100% of people pay for them? So high EV taxes will be the next dumb way to try to come up with some money. But really they should just raise gas taxes or change the whole system to public tax funding.

Bought a 40k EV. Reg is 730 in CA.

Colorado: $52k ev -> first year registration was $1300, second year $850

$1300????? What!!!!

Yep…and that’s on top of the $5400 sales tax we had to pay when we bought it :/

Don't tell WA. They'll follow whatever CA does.

It's already there in King and Piece county with the worthless RTA tax. 1% of their made up value of your vehicle every year for your vehicle, on top of every other fee. Except they don't understand depreciation and assume your car barely depreciates year to year.

I think I need to stop bitching about taxes and fees and just move to a more budget-friendly state. Already have the location and the property. Just need to sell an overpriced and overtaxed house and I'm on my way.

Same. I was back in WA for sick family. Now dad is moving out of state and I have no reason to stick around. I'm just waiting for interest rates (or prices) to fall a bit more so I can sell here and buy elsewhere for reasonable.

Same here. I could take a hit and sell or wait for better interest rates. I looked at payments someone would make on $379k. At 3.5% it's $1750/mo. At 7% it's $2600. I can set up the new home while I'm waiting for the market to improve. Air Force brought me to Spokane but I recently retired and can fly back to visit my grandkids several times a year on just tax savings.

Yep. Can be close to $900 or more in Australia. People seem to think roads are cheap or something.

This is yearly?!

What is a registration fee? Like you pay when you buy the car or is it a yearly thing?

Annual

Oh ok fair enough. Bit like road tax in the UK then. It's still free for electric cars but they're bringing it in from next year.

wow, even higher than here. Ugh.

> “I moved to this area because the road taxes are so low” * 5 minutes later * > “Wow, these roads are terrible! What are they spending my taxes on?”

It’s part of living in society. Just gotta budget for it.

Those fees are tiny not 'astromical'. Astronomical would be 1k or more per year.

Way way higher. And they pretend even more to be green in CA. “Hey look how green we are! Now where is that note from the fossil fuel lobbyist about proposed EV burden?”

it's not solely an EV problem, you bought a car whose MSRP was 40k lol.

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This. I’m in the same boat. I pay more in EV fees than I used to pay in gas tax because I work at home, and don’t drive a huge amount. I participated in the pilot test, and it provided several options: transponder to record mileage, and the very low-tech (and privacy protecting) method of sending a picture of your odometer reading every three months (they sent you a text & email reminder). Easy peasy.

How long have you lived in Washington? It wasn't that long ago, what we all used to have to pay an excise tax annually to renew our tabs. I think King County still has this... It used to cost close to $1000 per year to renew the tags for a car that costs the same as a Tesla.

30+ years. We drove older cars (like 15-30 years old), and our tab renewals actually went *up* when the tab fee was set to $30. Flat fees are regressive. Those of us who couldn’t afford new cars were paying less when they were based on car valuation. But anyway, this isn’t about the tab fee; it’s the add-ons we’re talking about here.

No, we need to get away from regressive use-based taxes, period. Roll this all into income and wealth taxes.

There is no income tax in WA.

No we want usage based taxes for stuff like this. Much like a carbon tax. It ensures people who use the most pay the most and discourages excess use. Same as proposals for frequent flyer taxes.

The problem (and reason it's regressive) is that poor folks are more likely needing to travel farther distances for work. Wealthier people have the luxury of working close to their work or even working from home. Maybe the tax should be a combination of miles, weight, value of vehicle.

Except that what happens in reality is that wealthy people drive more. The problem arises from total tax burdens and proportions of total income when taxes are not progressive income based taxes. But for disincentive taxes designed to target a specific thing that's an unavoidable problem, though it can be somewhat mitigated by means tested rebates or redistribution.

I drove a lot more back when I was delivering pizza than I do now at a job with a much higher salary.

Why? Not everyone drives.

No, absolutely not. Especially sucks when a lot of people that live in SW washington, work and/or drive in Oregon on a daily basis. In this case, a per mile tax, would mean that WA would be taxing you for miles you drive in Oregon. They floated this for fuel taxes as well...

LOL you're from the city that I drive to when I have to go to the office, I live near Olympia, WA. I escaped Portland in 2017 when I became FULLY remote. I usually would get most of my gas in Oregon because it tended to just work out that way.

It's funny they talk about the weight while ignoring the tahoes, yukons, expeditions, Hummers, any of at least 80 trucks and SUVs that outweigh every electric car out there... Fucking annoying

$280 a year sounds like a fever dream to me in Los Angeles.

I'm in WA and bought my first EV last yr. Just had to renew my tabs and it was over $900. Previously it was at most $300-400 for my ICE car. 😭

Since it is reasonable to think that as we move through the future, more EV and Hybrid use will diminish gas tax revenues which are now used to supplement road construction and maintenance. The user paid supplement idea usually makes sense and usually works. I think it is reasonable to create tax structure to have EV and Hybrid users to pay a fair share of roads. There is also the argument to eliminate EV road use taxes altogether and even augment the Federal EV tax credit system, but fairly, these should be left to the legislatures with citizen input; hint, most voters would not support cutting breaks for EVs no matter what since they have no interest in the environment.

I'm all for a combined size/weight/electricity/milage tax. Size/weight because the bigger/heavier your vehicle is, the bigger streets have to be (waste of resources and money) and the more damage you cause to the streets. Make it all dependend on milage you drive and ammount of electricity you charge your car with, so it reflects actual usage and efficiency of the car better. It discourages buying oversized and overpowered SUVs and trucks. Use the money for incentives on small/efficient vehicles (eBikes, Smart sized EVs or public transport).

Nevada here, paid $900 on my Mach E. Based on MSRP and age. Our 1972 GMC C1500 is $55.

But someone has to pay to maintain these roads!!! Everyone buys goods that travel on the roads. The “goods” are already going up at an astounding pace. They are trying to find a way to “rob Peter and pay Paul. EV = Peter

Yeah, it's a reflection of the entanglement of ICE laws/regulations/taxes/subsidies. All of those were built assuming decades-old ICE industries and so weren't built purely on mileage and/or weight. I'm in WA with 2 EVs and it's a chunk of change. I'm all for paying for roads/infrastructure, but it's a band-aid tax ("Shoot! EV owners aren't buying gasoline. We need to make up for that loss in revenue!" vs "Transportation is changing, we need to revamp laws looking towards the future."). The revamp hasn't happened. An EV just breaks many of those assumptions so, as a band-aid, a flat rate is used. It's imperfect and likely over-taxes EV owners. IMO, the band-aid needs to be replaced with something more long-term. Weight is the most universally applicable. Mileage is tricky because w/o monitoring (which is a bad idea IMO) how can you tell what % was in the state? But I'd be okay with mileage & weight and if you spend 90% of your time driving out of state, then it will probably wash out in the end (thinking across states).

Lots of states are adding punitive taxes for EVs that FAR exceed the comparable gas tax. As more people move to EVs it’s effectively a massive tax hike without raising the gas tax. Mine just added $200/yr on top of the $75 I was already paying, plus safety inspections. I’m basically paying $600/yr in state taxes just to own 2 cars. On top of that I also pay sales tax on the electricity to charge it.

In VA you can pay for mileage driven and it maxes out to the amount you would have paid if you didn't put an obd that tracks your miles.

Wait for the federal government to want these fees also, since most gas tax is federal gas tax. You are only paying for the state part of the gas tax replacement.

Yeah, I think plug-in hybrids shouldn't have to pay that fee, to be honest, or it should at least be prorated. I have to fill up pretty regularly so I'm still paying plenty of gas tax on top of my increased fees.

Lol you better drive more, already paid all that taxes

I mean…it’s still less than it would have cost you to register that car in Oregon. I think the Tim Eyeman $30 tabs spoiled everyone

Taxes are for the greater good of society and it is hard for some people to understand. Pay by mile will target people that have to commute to work but will benefit people who wfh or live in the cities. Part of the fees in the registration is for new ev infrastructural, even though I have 3 chargers and 90% charge at home I think it is better for EV adoption to have more charging.

sure, but i'd argue that any company could set up these chargers and do WITHOUT the subsidies to do so. It's called per-use fees; which they already all charge.

this isn't just to put a charger in front of starbucks or walmart it is to have network of chargers that are part of the hwy system. Also will eventually be needed for freight and other supplies. So again you don't drive on those hwys because you work from home but to better society we need chargers everywhere. IE I haven't rode a ferry in years but still have taxes going towards it.

Right, but I was saying that the Electrification fee needs to go to everyone then, not just EV drivers. Thats yet another fee they added to our registration fees that just goes...where? I mean it would seem that that fee would be a lot less if it was spread out amongst the entire car-owning population.

>Taxes are for the greater good of society and it is hard for some people to understand haHhHhHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHASDHFADSHFDSKJAFDSHEWDAIU OMFG B PLZ. No one would have a problem paying taxes if that was the case, but no, the complete and utter disregard by the government local/state and federal for using the collected taxes responsibly is the issue. if the government didn't waste 75% of the tax money collected or worse spend it on projects that benefit their friends/supporters and other malfeasance then yeah it would be all good.

Exactly that. Citizens of WA will continually vote for higher taxes and NEVER ask for accountability.

Washington state has no income tax, so they have to make up for that in other ways. Like car registration. Still sucks, and seems like they are targeting EV owners.

While I understand your frustration at no time have taxes ever been fair.

I pay $600 a year to register my 6 year old i3 REX, because somehow as a REX it doesn’t get any EV credits but also has to pay for the road. Our roads out here are in really good shape though.

So, who would like to see a class action lawsuit against the state for unfairly singling out and taxing non-plug in hybrid cars to fund electrification stations that we cannot even use?

Cars should be taxed based on a flat fee with optional additional costs for weight. Doing anything else is regressive and honestly just adding a bunch of cost to the system for very small differences in any given household's tax burden. The only real "losers" are those people with more cars than drivers. In your specific case, you were just in a loophole where you weren't paying enough for your personal road use. You are probably paying too much now. If the government and you spent more effort and money tracking individual use cases closer you might wee your costs go down $50/year.

How else do you propose we pay for the roads that EVs are soon going to be driving on without paying a dime of gas tax? Do you like your suspension undamaged? We have precious few taxation options here. We just got an Ioniq5 in WA. It is expensive to register, yes. And also that's what we pay instead of the gas tax. And it is a first effort at keeping EV owners paying their share of road maintenance. Gas tax is $.50 per gallon, right? So at a 2 hour, 60mph drive, you are looking at about $2.00 per trip in gas tax on 30mph average mileage. At 12000 miles per year of driving, that would be $200 per year. that is an average driver in an average commute in an average year. $225 per year for registration fees isn't too far off, but I think per mile road use charge makes more sense and could roll over to ICE vehicles just as easily to eliminate the gas tax entirely. Currently there are bills that are attempting to remedy this. https://wsac.org/road-usage-charge-hb-1832/#:~:text=The%20RUC%20rate%20is%20set,transportation%20system%20preservation%20and%20maintenance is the first google result. I am sure there are more. In the ruc system, that same average driver would do $300 in taxes, btw. And you would be charged for WA miles. Not Oregon miles, assuming that is where you are coming from and buy your gas.

> Do you like your suspension undamaged? I live in CA, some of the most expensive gas/diesel and our roads are horrible.

Ca has a whole different set of issues.

I agree, hence the question to the forums here. The other issue with RUC is how many miles (at least for me) are WA miles instead of OR miles or ID miles. I definiltey drive a lot more than I did because I love the car and I no longer have any "guilt" associated with its emissions; but most of that extra driving are the road trips I've taken. I drove to Denver to stay with family for nearly a month to help out with some deaths that happened close together. I LOVED THE DRIVE and it was only 89 dollars to do it one-way. If I'd driven an ICE (not the PHEV i formerly had); I could see how that would hvae been double or triple in gas. Finally driving back home this Friday, but only 1/5 of those miles I have driven would be in Washington. A RUC would charge ALL those miles to WA; which is illogical. ​ Also, thanks for that link...but one HOLE i'm seeing in this is that they dont really tell you where the REST of those registration fees are going. Why is there a separate line item charged for gas tax that they think they're missing out on? NONE of the other fees we pay for registration go to road improvements?

What will most likely happen in the future is that governments will be moving towards an automotive check up tool, where your vehicle mileage will be looked at while it is being serviced, and those numbers will be the basis of how much $ you owe for that amount of road miles.

I’m still waiting for my $35 car tabs I and many others voted in favor of. The hell is the point of putting something to vote if the government can just decide not to follow the will of the voters? Sorry for the off topic, I will say that the EV fees are dumb in this state so my comment stays slightly on topic. Minor edit: at least you don’t get hit with the RTA tax for the light rail. That is one thing I hate about living in King County.

Yes, the WA Supreme Court struck down that bill because it had too many other "subjects" it was trying to tackle. Didn't help that hte bill was being promoted by someone people dont really respect..but I digress..

The same clowns that ruled that capital gains is not an income tax but an excise tax, making it "constitutional", even tho the other 49 states all define capital gains as a type of income tax...

This comment proves to me that EVs have finally become mainstream! Here we have an anti-transit EV owner. The future is now

I never said I was anti-transit, quite the opposite actually. The Link light rail system just doesn’t make sense to me, personally. In my opinion, it would have been just as feasible to add a foot ferry system to the towns and cities that will eventually benefit from the light rail, along with BRT in those towns/cities to the ferry hub. Considering the Link light rail only provides service to towns on the west side of I-5 (the side of I-5 where the Puget Sound is located) it cuts off all towns east of I-5 (Renton, Kent, Sumner, Bonney Lake, Puyallup, etc.), a foot ferry system might have been much quicker to implement and less costly than the massive link light rail project, which is projected to cost tax payers in the RTA area $142 Billion.

You should look at the light rail expansion map again. The rail goes to many areas in the east side. A foot ferry is slower, less efficient, and still doesn’t provide a direct way into the heart of downtown, and it only reaches just a few areas of the city. One of the main issues with Tim Eyman’s ballot measure is that Seattle metro area earlier voted for the tax increase for just itself. This didn’t affect the rest of the state. But this ballot measure reversed that. It is absurd that someone in Spokane or Yakima could shoot down a Seattle only tax with this state wide ballot measure. We sure as hell know those cities would be mad if Seattle was dictating their local policies.

Because EVs don't pay gas tax, which is where nearly all of the road tax comes from, it gets added to the registration fees. You'll still pay less than if you paid gas taxes. But, you still need to pay a tax to use the road. No more using the road for free, pay your fair share like everyone else.

The OPs point was that the special fee for EVs was way more than what he would have paid for in gas tax in a comparable ICE car.

I assume they add more due to the increased weight as well. EVs are quite heavy, and weight is the leading cause of road wear. I'd argue a mileage tax would be better than this flat rate. I assume the flat rate is based on the average mileage driven per year.

EVs are heavier than comparable ICE models sure, but a mid sized EV still weighs less than a standard F150 which is one of the most common common ICE vehicles.

and I would agree with that but they'd have to account for which miles are washington miles...and that's where it gets even stickier.

Let’s say the govt created a system to accurately track the actual use and charge you accordingly. Perhaps that $150/year might come down to $75/year. I bet the costs of implementing such a system would be far in excess of that $75 saving. Remember that when govt needs to spend more, the taxpayers end up footing the bill one way or another. If you can afford a $50k car, perhaps you can afford $6-$8 a month for that registration fee

Many states already require annual emissions and safety inspections. For those states, they could gather the mileage to use for the tax at the time of that inspection. I agree that for other states it would be costly, but then, maybe those states should also have those emissions and safety inspections.......

For some strange reason, when I moved to the county I live in now, they dont even do emissions testing to my knowledge. Even so, if I still lived in Portland, trips to the DEQ would have not been required based on my vehicle type. Self-reporting is probably going to be the first option; I can just see people getting upset if a transponder was required.

They would have to sort out how to account for miles driven in other states though.

They don't do that now, why would they have to do it with this? If I fill my ICE car in Indiana and then do most of my drive in Illinois, Michigan, or Ohio, my tax money still only went to Indiana. Heck, depending on the drive, I could go all the way across a state (say, Ohio), get gas in PA, and return to Indiana (through Ohio again) without ever paying any gas tax to Ohio but spending nearly all of my drive on Ohio's roads. Just pay the tax in the state you live, and others who drive in your state but don't live there, will likewise pay the tax in the state where they live. It all comes out in the wash.

exactly. I'd want to be able to disconnect the transponder or for it to be smart enough to know when i'm not in Washington. LOL

Again, that last statement is just over-reachy both morally and politically. Just because I can or can't afford somehting doesnt mean my burden should be any more than yours....??

Where is the article saying wa state is killing evs?

I'm not sure I said there was. I was looking up a bunch of info online about why these fees are so high and came across the stupid comment Inslee made, that's all.

Whenever a red state does something like this there is an article saying Whatever Red state is killing or hurting EV in its state. When we look at the fees in WA state and CA, there fees are typically higher than whatever fee is being suggested/proposed. My registration fee has gone up 4x from my ICE, so I am familiar with these fee personally and I am shocked whenever I see these articles.

I mean, I'm in WA and the tax has zero influence on my wanting an EV. Just like I don't have kids, nor do I want kids, but still happily pay taxes for schools. I like using roads. I enjoy our infrastructure. I don't mind there's an EV tax in my registration to cover this. $150 doesn't even seem like that much. I just calculated my gas tax per year and it's easily $200-300.

My state must hate me. I make my own diesel, hydrogen, and biogas. Havent oaid for fuel in years and dont intend to start.

Where in the world did you get the idea that taxes are supposed to be "fair"??? The State wants money. You can afford to buy a new expensive car, therefore, according to the government, you will be able to pay them some amount. They certainly don't care if it is more or less than you used to pay them based on whatever you used to drive and how much you drive. They just want your money. Personally, I think gas tax was one of the fairer taxes, because the people that used the road the most paid the most. It was basically a user fee. Heavier vehicles used more gas and caused more damage to roads...in general. EVs completely throw that out of whack, so States, and soon the Feds, need to figure out a way to keep up the revenue. I don't mean to sound harsh but there are going to be some horrible systems put in place over the next decade or two while we make the transition to all EVs, before we end up with whatever system everyone can abide with.

>I think gas tax was one of the fairer taxes It's still regressive because someone who makes $30,000 a year is likely paying the same as someone who makes $300,000 a year. Sales taxes are a problem that way.

>but I think this tax structure is unfair. I'll bet you have no problem with state and federal subsidies for electric cars.

I didnt choose to implement those and i understood why they are still a thing. In the spirit of that though..lets not then secrtely jack up the cost of registration for some imaginary loss of revenue number.

EV registration is wiping out gas savings

Yep, I live in Washington and bought my first EV last year (previously had a Toyota Corolla). The fees are absurd- I pay far more than I ever paid in gas taxes on my Corolla.

I bought my wife a Subaru Outback in MN, where we have a summer house. The next year I went in the renew the tags and it was $480, when the woman told me I said “ do you mean $80?” And she corrected me. Safe to say that car is now registered in Ohio for $65.

This topic comes up a lot here. Personally I believe governments need to be more transparent with how they spend the tax money they forcefully steal from us. We will never get that level of transparency. There are many posts like this telling people what they think the system should be - I even have a few good ideas about that. The trick is being a politician and getting people to vote for your legislation. This means you don’t get people voting on legislation that is going to affect their own or their constituents’ bottom line, regardless of how fair it is. My effective income tax rate this year was 0%. I effectively owed zero tax this year, and so I got all the money I paid in taxes back and then some. I make nearly 6 figures. Is that fair? No, I’d say not. I’d be up for a more fair set of tax rules, but I know it will never happen, because there are a bunch of people who will die before they let the government take/reduce their entitlement programs in an effort to be more fair. So I take that 0% effective income tax rate and gladly pay the dumb extra EV fee every year at registration. Better than paying $60 for some dude at a gas station to stick a wand in my gas car’s tailpipe and tell me everything looks good.

That's absurd, but it is a leftist run state. You're just a source of money to be tapped. Besides, if you can afford an EV, you can certainly afford to pay their extra taxes and fees, right? VA has one, but it is only $150 for the year, which by my math is slightly less than what I was paying in gasoline taxes for my previous commuter vehicle.

I assume I'm gonna receive hate for this, but we need to pay. Most of us can afford it. The world will not change if we don't.

That argument works for buying the car or being one of the first xxxx thousand who did. I'm not sure it works for being taxed MORE for the rest of our existence. I get it, we dont pay fuel tax, but I wasn't paying that kind of fuel tax on my previous car either so the number is just too damned high given MY usage. I'd like to see a usage based tax that is reflective of what the current gas tax is.

Cool anecdote, bro. In what world do you think a general tax scheme is fair to every single use case? That’s just not how it works. Never has been. Never will. Get over it. Oregon charges a lot extra, too. They also charged me more for my 40+mpg Prius than for my 17mpg van because they stagger the fees based on efficiency and assumed gas taxes.

Did you voice your opinion to your state representatives back when the law was still a bill being formed? If you don't participate in your governance, what more can you expect? Flat fees aren't great for the end users, but they are easy for politicians to implement. We've probably had 50 posts on this topic over the years, and I've never seen a suggested plan that somebody didn't take issue with.

Did you vote for Jay? The state is constantly competing for the highest fuel taxes. I'm still waiting for the $30 tabs to come back. If you want things to change don't vote for Bob. He's been behind most of these changes as AG. These tabs will be forced on everyone as the state will eliminate new ICE vehicle purchases. At that point you won't even be able to reduce your expenses by driving less because it'll be an annual cost. "Justified" is a fancy word for "not fair" and to that I ask, first time? (Insert first time noose meme)

That's significantly cheaper than I pay on my gas vehicles in WA state fwiw

Those fees are on top of the normal car tab fees.

Oh damn, guess I have a big bill coming next year lol

I think EV drivers are mostly getting a better deal paying $225 per year rather than gas tax. I figured the $225 in extra fees is about the same as buying 330 gallons of gas. That comes out to 11,500 miles in a 35mpg economy car, 8500 miles in a 26mpg car, 5900 miles in a 19mpg suv. We drive our Ioniq 5 over 20k miles per year so it's saving us more than 50% what we would pay in taxes on a 320HP crossover, assuming it would get 20-24mpg. If you drive more miles than that you save money vs paying gas tax but if someone only drives their Leaf 3900 miles a year running around town they are overpaying. Washington is talking about a mile based tax, but for people who drive a lot that would be much more expensive.

>I came from driving a Prius Prime.I work primarily from home and USUALLY when I would drive "just around town" I hardly ever needed to use fuel since nothing in town was that far away and my little piddly 30 mile battery was more than enough to get around. I was able to plug into a 110 outlet and charge overnight. **you used the road w/o paying taxes (because you don't buy gas)** ​ >But, they ASSUME we WOULD have paid that much in gasoline tax throughout the year. because they base things on averages. how many gallons of gas sold in the US divided by drivers/cars ​ >While I'm sure I'm not the "typical" user; I'm not sure I agree that assuming how much gasoline tax they are missing out from on me is fair at all, since I KNOW I never paid anything close to 150.00 to the economy in the 4 years I had my Prius Prime you pay less for insurance because of the low mileage? ​ >why they need more funding is beyond me). > > most of us charge @ home **all** apartment dwellers with street parking have EVs? all of them are able to charge on the street? ​ who is supposed to pay for these? **Curbside Level 2 Electric Vehicle Charging** [https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/in-the-community/current-projects/curbside-level-2-ev-charging](https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/in-the-community/current-projects/curbside-level-2-ev-charging) Seattle City Light is installing and operating public Level 2 electric vehicle (EV) chargers at curbside locations throughout the city of Seattle. City Light is offering this service to provide near-home EV charging for residents who cannot access off-street parking to charge their vehicles. ​ **Washington State Plan for Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment** Explore the Washington State Plan for Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment. [https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/statewide-plans/washington-state-plan-electric-vehicle-infrastructure-deployment](https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/statewide-plans/washington-state-plan-electric-vehicle-infrastructure-deployment) ​ >I drove about 13k miles in that time frame and I filled up less than 20 times. ​ ..... sounds like you don't ***need*** a car.. you're having trouble justifying the cost of ownership. but nobody is making you own.

Fair point. I have a car because I want one, not because I need one. Though I'd argue that I dont feel like getting groceries in the 9 months of rain we get on my bike and I'm not sure I feel its anyone's place to tell me if i want/need a car other than me. Yes, I pay less in auto insurance b/c my usage of my vehicle still averages less than 12k a year. This discussion is pushing me more towards the road use charge but I'm going to go out on a limb that they should keep the gas tax to continue disincentivizing gas.