Trump Tax Bill Passes in House: Major changes for EVs

[IIIEnforcerIII]

It's what I tell my kids every time I get the chance, There is no endpoint to the creativity and the lengths the govt will go to take your money. Don't innovate, don't invent, don't make things better. Every time you do, you're punished for it. Govt does not have your best interest in mind. All that matters are the $$$s.

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[Friday]

The States were hard at it first. All Politics is Local.

As of 2025, 39 states have imposed EV-specific fees, with amounts ranging from $50 to $400 annually.

What a game.

 

[greenporsche]

As a civil engineer who designs roadways, something folks don't understand is at least for freeways, if there were no semis or other similar vehicles and only passenger cars and light trucks, the roadway surfaces would never need repairs..

 

[TeslaKen]

I concur this tax is out of whack but I suppose I can offset it with my tax deduction for "educational expenses" for having to use my time to read this thread and get educated about stupid things my government is doing today... ???

 

[PungoteagueDave]

there is tax on the electricity from super chargers and home chargers. So, double taxed? bastards.

No, there is no road tax in electricity taxes. We pay for roads in the U.S. through fuel taxes, not general revenues, income taxes, etc. I assume you aren’t a freeloader. We must pay our share somehow. In many states, there is now an efficient-vehicle tax, which any vehicle getting over 25 or 30 MPG must pay annually. That’s only fair.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

As a civil engineer who designs roadways, something folks don't understand is at least for freeways, if there were no semis or other similar vehicles and only passenger cars and light trucks, the roadway surfaces would never need repairs..

Simply not true. Parkways do not allow heavy vehicles at all. Have you ever driven the Baltimore-Washington Parkway or the Long Island parkways? There are many others such as the Sawmill River in NY. These roads are repaved regularly and are often in terrible condition despite never having semis or other trucks or busses on them. All roads need maintenance.

 

[Steelheart]

It’ll be interesting to see if this affects potential end of quarter incentives.

 

[vandytom]

The model 2 was cancelled...or Elon said "shelved".

I thought recent shareholder meeting said something coming this summer?

 

[BrockN]

Eva are quite a bit heavier and do more damage to the roads, but this still seems quite high.

No. Roads (asphalt) wears mostly due to what are calculated as single axle loads. The mass of a semi or delivery truck applied to the axles is very high relative to an average EV. For that matter, the average pickup truck is in the same range (or higher) than a typical EV.

A simplistic way to think of the asphalt damage is like metal fatigue. If you don't stress it very much, it will last virtually forever. If you flex it significantly more, to the point of yielding or just before, it won't survive very long. It's not exactly a proportional relationship, meaning that an axle load that is 1/10th of another load won't do 1/10th of the damage.... it would be MUCH less. The heavy semis do more damage to pavement with each loading than a ridiculous number of cars do. If properly designed and placed, an asphalt mix that was only loaded by passenger vehicles would last practically forever and frankly, weathering would probably deteriorate it faster.

So the notion that EVs are somehow destroying roads at a ridiculous rate is essentially nonsense, but it does sound good!

 

[dalton108]

As a civil engineer who designs roadways, something folks don't understand is at least for freeways, if there were no semis or other similar vehicles and only passenger cars and light trucks, the roadway surfaces would never need repairs..

Correct!

 

[BrockN]

Simply not true. Parkways do not allow heavy vehicles at all. Have you ever driven the Baltimore-Washington Parkway or the Long Island parkways? There are many others such as the Sawmill River in NY. These roads are repaved regularly and are often in terrible condition despite never having semis or other trucks or busses on them. All roads need maintenance.

I'm with @greenporsche on this. I also spent my career designing and building, amongst other boring municipal things, roads. But of course all roads will need at least some maintenance work. You can't guarantee that the road base was perfectly competent, compacted exactly enough everywhere. You can't prevent water and freeze/thaw from spalling aggregate out of the asphalt mix, or cracking a concrete road surface. But the bottom line is that ESALs (equivalent single axle loads) are what determine pavement life. If you don't believe me, maybe have a read of this (the first page Google gave me): https://pavementinteractive.org/reference-desk/design/design-parameters/equivalent-single-axle-load/

EDIT: That linked page was better than I first thought. If you want to get into the weeds and use the logging truck example on that page... and a 7000 pound Cybertruck (one of the heaviest EVs on the road!), the numbers would look roughly like this:

Logging truck in the example calculated to 2.41 ESALs. Assume Cybertruck is evenly split, front to back, or 3500 pounds per axle: 0.0014 ESAL. Two axles total 0.0028 ESAL. Comparing the 2.41 to 0.0028, it's apparent that the logging truck passing once does 843 times more damage than one pass of the Cybertruck.

Obviously this doesn't mean any vehicle is incapable of causing wear. But if you design the road structure to handle that logging truck and thousands more like it, then the wear of a typical vehicle is infinitesimal.

 

[YDR37]

This country is really going to shit...this administration is causing so much brain drain.

As announced today, eleven US states have formed the "Affordable Clean Cars Coalition", and will continue to promote EV manufacturing, charging, and sales, in spite of the new federal policies:

Today, the U.S. Climate Alliance announced the launch of the Affordable Clean Cars Coalition by 11 of its member governors to sustain America’s transition to cleaner and more affordable cars, support U.S. automotive manufacturers and workers, and preserve states’ clean air authority. Alongside the launch, the Alliance announced the availability of resources to help states tackle vehicle pollution and lower barriers for consumers to more affordably own, drive, charge, and maintain clean cars.

This new multi-state effort underscores governors’ commitment to both consumer choice and regulatory certainty and stability for the U.S. automotive sector, which has faced a series of destabilizing actions from Congress and the federal government. These actions have included attempts to terminate funding for electric vehicle infrastructure, impose tariffs and disrupt supply chains, eliminate consumer credits for purchasing an electric vehicle, raise consumer costs for owning an electric vehicle, and dismantle states’ clean vehicle programs — all of which undermine American competitiveness in the global automotive market and constrain innovation.

The initiative was launched by a group of governors whose states have chosen to use their authority under the Clean Air Act to adopt and implement clean vehicle programs. Participating states include: California, Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.

Could possibly help Rivian, Lucid, and Telo, which are based in California. Other EV manufacturers, such as Tesla (Texas) or Slate (Michigan), are not based in Coalition states.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

I'm with @greenporsche on this. I also spent my career designing and building, amongst other boring municipal things, roads. But of course all roads will need at least some maintenance work. You can't guarantee that the road base was perfectly competent, compacted exactly enough everywhere. You can't prevent water and freeze/thaw from spalling aggregate out of the asphalt mix, or cracking a concrete road surface. But the bottom line is that ESALs (equivalent single axle loads) are what determine pavement life. If you don't believe me, maybe have a read of this (the first page Google gave me): https://pavementinteractive.org/reference-desk/design/design-parameters/equivalent-single-axle-load/

EDIT: That linked page was better than I first thought. If you want to get into the weeds and use the logging truck example on that page... and a 7000 pound Cybertruck (one of the heaviest EVs on the road!), the numbers would look roughly like this:

Logging truck in the example calculated to 2.41 ESALs. Assume Cybertruck is evenly split, front to back, or 3500 pounds per axle: 0.0014 ESAL. Two axles total 0.0028 ESAL. Comparing the 2.41 to 0.0028, it's apparent that the logging truck passing once does 843 times more damage than one pass of the Cybertruck.

Obviously this doesn't mean any vehicle is incapable of causing wear. But if you design the road structure to handle that logging truck and thousands more like it, then the wear of a typical vehicle is infinitesimal.

Sorry, but he said two things:

“if there were no semis or other similar vehicles and only passenger cars and light trucks, the roadway surfaces would never need repairs..”

and

“If properly designed and placed, an asphalt mix that was only loaded by passenger vehicles would last practically forever.”

The condition of America’s truck-free parkways prove both statements to be grossly exaggerated or false. Yes, of course trucks do far more damage than light vehicles. Duh. But are you aware of the huge per-miles excise taxes they pay for road use? They pay far more than their share. Until the advent of EV and High-MPG taxes, efficient cars were free-riding on everyone else. One of teh geniuses of Elon’s master plan was to make EVs widely accepted and as good or better for driving than ICE vehicles. He achieved this and changed the world with the MS advent. But with that comes responsibility. We have now matured and some EVs are the best selling vehicles in the world. Time to act like adults and pay our way. No more tax subsidies and no more free-riding the roads.

 

[cyberrr1]

As announced today, eleven states have formed the "Affordable Clean Cars Coalition", and will continue to promote EVs, in spite of the new federal policies: Could potentially help Rivian, Telo, and Lucid, which are based in California. Doesn't help Tesla (Texas) or Slate (Michigan).

The Federal government has a greater impact on industry unfortunately, the federal government seems to want to diminish the importance of the dollar while destroying cutting edge technologies. Which will have long term economic and social ramifications in the long-term. The country will be full of Chinese EVs in the coming years.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

The Federal government has a greater impact on industry unfortunately, the federal government seems to want to diminish the importance of the dollar while destroying cutting edge technologies. Which will have long term economic and social ramifications in the long-term. The country will be full of Chinese EVs in the coming years.

Chinese EVs cannot be sold in the U.S. for wide variety of reasons. The chief reason is that they are banned by Federal regulation due to connectivity issues and chip content. Bottom line is that even the Biden admin saw the danger of having Chinese computers running around on our streets. Other countries are foolishly playing with fire, but it cannot and will not happen here.

“the Biden White House states in its fact sheet that the rule prevents the import or sale of connected vehicles “by entities who are owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of the PRC or Russia – even if those vehicles were made in the United States.”

Yes, this screws even Polestar, even though their cars sold here are assembled here.

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