Charge me by the ton mile

[Ogre]

Sounds like you are trying to create a magic system where you don't pay anything.

At the charging station the power you use is metered as well as at your home, by including a built-in meter to a home charger those kWhs can be billed correctly. Tax me for what I use when I use it. It works and self scales for vehicle/driver efficiency and miles driven.

In Washington we have pilot pay by mile programs which involve placing tracking devices in vehicles. Way more authoritarian than putting a meter in home chargers and asking people to not charge with 110v.

I stand by my words. What am I forcing people to do? Pay their fair share and have a meter built into or added onto home charging. Tracking miles driven requires low-jacking or intrusive odometer readings. It also requires more government and brings a host of small problems.

I don’t have any problems paying for what I use. The only thing I took issue with is the super invasive way you suggest doing it.

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[JBee]

Seeing we're having this conversation does anyone have a good understanding of the physics involved with road wear, comparing private EVs against commercial trucks and semis?

I'd assume CT comes out worse than a normal EV. Doesn't anyone want a CT here anymore?

 

[Tinker71]

Seeing we're having this conversation does anyone have a good understanding of the physics involved with road wear, comparing private EVs against commercial trucks and semis?

I'd assume CT comes out worse than a normal EV. Doesn't anyone want a CT here anymore?

Good point, is it linear with weight? Compression cycles? Wear and pot holing are very different failures. Maybe we could program FSD to ride the ridges to even out the wear. Then there are future materials of construction. IDK.

 

[tkal]

The proposed state fees for the battery powered vehicles are based on the mileage for working people who put on 12,000 miles to 15,000 miles. I’m retired and seldom drive. I’ll probably only put on 5,000 miles a year. I’d rather be taxed by the total mileage that I actually drive annually. Hawaii has a yearly safety inspection. The mileage could be documented at each inspection service and sent to the state of Hawaii where I reside at.

If EV tax can be implemented and collected at the state level Cubertruck Hawaii has a good solution for his state, not every state has these types of inspections, or any, annually. I wonder what that bill might look like...

 

[tkal]

I don’t have any problems paying for what I use. The only thing I took issue with is the super invasive way you suggest doing it.

How is it super? Invasive it maybe, less so than mile tracking. What would be better while being fair and based off of use?

 

[Ogre]

How is it super? Invasive it maybe, less so than mile tracking. What would be better while being fair and based off of use?

There are free chargers out there. Are you going to require those free resources start charging fees specifically so a road tax can be collected?

I very much like popping over the the local community college and picking up some free juice. I also very much like charging at hotels which offer free charging. These services would almost certainly shut down because they don’t have the infrastructure to charge a fee just to pass it through to the taxman.

I also very much like having 110v charging as an option and if you eliminate that as an option, you remove a lot of flexibility, an easy emergency option, and now everyone has to pay $1000 - $2000 to install a charging station which presumably communicates back to the government. If you have an off-grid home with solar… now you have to have some kind of Wi-Fi hookup to phone home your use?

The whole idea of pushing this down to the charger is just weird because you are adding a whole other layer of responsibility to the charger which currently just pushes power through a wire. It also… encourages people to build rogue chargers to bypass the fees.

Flat rate or charging per mile is simpler and accomplishes the same thing. People can voluntarily report and square up when they sell the car. You are already required by law to report mileage when you sell a vehicles.

 

[Challeco]

Don't cry. As a medical technologist with most likely a working spouse, some classic cars in your drive you are not close to poor. You may work hard to stretch your budget, but you are not close to being poor. Don't delude yourself.

Your statement "Progressive taxation is cruel... to me and everyone I know, including each of you." is the stupidest statement of the year. The opposite of Regressive is Progressive. What do you want?

IMHO all taxes should have a Proactive Element before you even look at progressive.

What does proactive mean? Webster defines it as “acting in anticipation of future problems, needs or changes.” At its core, that's what proactive tax planning boils down to: anticipating and steering tax issues based on the needs of the business.

"Business" in this case " the Government "the people". Less traffic, less sprawl, more competitiveness for the USA is ultimately in the best interest of all Americans.

I did the math and for 90% of the people this might be a $150 swing either way, so this might be a whole lot of tracking or potential intrusion for a couple hundred dollars.

I am convinced heavier vehicle should pay more. Maybe annual registration is charged by the ton. Then X a use multiplier. Make 3-4 pretty wide overlapping bands and ask people to estimate their annual mileage. Then require a random audit of ~.05% of the registrations. People who have most likely lied to pay less will need pay 10x the difference.

Or maybe put the annual mileage band on your licensee plate. So unscrupulous people can be reported. It would be pretty easy to prove someone that self reports <1000 miles per year and has a known commute of 20 miles is lying.

Gee, I wish I could take back that typo. I have only been calling it regressive taxation this entire time. But, hey being disingenuous is not new to the interwebz. Seriously, though, I am so rich! The classic car I own was purchased in 2012 for $1500. Yes, with only 2 zeros. I'm not like the posers who want a cool car so they buy it complete for $45K then store it in a garage somewhere and buff it with a cloth diaper. Oh, are you talking about the 1971 F250 with classic lines that your daddy used to drive? Yeah, I bought that one for $500 from a farmer who thought he was being sneaky telling me "it runs" while bringing it to me on a triple axle trailer, full of bad fuel and yeah it ran... barely.
But, you see I am capable of making things run better. I don't throw something rare at it, like money. I clean it, tune it, weld it, and gently use tools until I fix the wrecks that others give up on. So, yeah, I am wealthy but not like you. As for that typo, please go back and read every response I provided free of charge. Every one but this one stated that REGRESSIVE taxation is cruel.

Oh, one last item to mention before I go to bed after my 10 hour shift taking care of Covidiots, I said I was on the other side of my struggles as a poor man. My house, my cars and trucks, and all of the tools in my shop are items nobody looked at with anything but disgust. I didn't inherit gold and silver, I mined it, refined it and use it. So when I refuse to associate with posers that think their money will always be there for them, this is why. My mommy and my daddy died early and left me not more than a used car... that I had to buy from the estate in order to be fair to my siblings. I mentioned not being wealthy because I remember struggling to find food for my kids. I remember being ignored by government agencies because I didn't leave my job correctly. I remember visiting church food closets that didn't really want me there because I didn't belong to their congregation but I had babies. So, yeah, maybe I do finally in my last decade of working (maybe) make more than the median income in my area. But it doesn't change the memory that people like you made my life a living hell. REGRESSIVE taxation is cruel. You are cruel for suggesting it. More so for trying to dismiss my narrative because you researched what a Med Tech makes and referenced my "classic" cars. Your arrogance and willful ignorance is showing.

 

[Challeco]

How is it super? Invasive it maybe, less so than mile tracking. What would be better while being fair and based off of use?

Better would be State and Federal budgets that honestly calculated the maintenance and upgrade costs (in non-profit terms) of public roadways, including winter maintenance. Then, amortizing that real budget with flex for emergency (read that as expected disasters) across the taxable incomes and business profits at state and federal levels.
That is the equitable metric. Not based on use, based on collective responsibility. I think it would shame you to realize the collective cost of a general budget that honestly measures the requirements would be significantly lower than a regressive tax that requires attention to individual use, weight, driving metrics, fraud investigations, and all the rest of the bureaucracy that comes with sin taxes.

 

[Tinker71]

Gee, I wish I could take back that typo. I have only been calling it regressive taxation this entire time. But, hey being disingenuous is not new to the interwebz. Seriously, though, I am so rich! The classic car I own was purchased in 2012 for $1500. Yes, with only 2 zeros. I'm not like the posers who want a cool car so they buy it complete for $45K then store it in a garage somewhere and buff it with a cloth diaper. Oh, are you talking about the 1971 F250 with classic lines that your daddy used to drive? Yeah, I bought that one for $500 from a farmer who thought he was being sneaky telling me "it runs" while bringing it to me on a triple axle trailer, full of bad fuel and yeah it ran... barely.
But, you see I am capable of making things run better. I don't throw something rare at it, like money. I clean it, tune it, weld it, and gently use tools until I fix the wrecks that others give up on. So, yeah, I am wealthy but not like you. As for that typo, please go back and read every response I provided free of charge. Every one but this one stated that REGRESSIVE taxation is cruel.

Oh, one last item to mention before I go to bed after my 10 hour shift taking care of Covidiots, I said I was on the other side of my struggles as a poor man. My house, my cars and trucks, and all of the tools in my shop are items nobody looked at with anything but disgust. I didn't inherit gold and silver, I mined it, refined it and use it. So when I refuse to associate with posers that think their money will always be there for them, this is why. My mommy and my daddy died early and left me not more than a used car... that I had to buy from the estate in order to be fair to my siblings. I mentioned not being wealthy because I remember struggling to find food for my kids. I remember being ignored by government agencies because I didn't leave my job correctly. I remember visiting church food closets that didn't really want me there because I didn't belong to their congregation but I had babies. So, yeah, maybe I do finally in my last decade of working (maybe) make more than the median income in my area. But it doesn't change the memory that people like you made my life a living hell. REGRESSIVE taxation is cruel. You are cruel for suggesting it. More so for trying to dismiss my narrative because you researched what a Med Tech makes and referenced my "classic" cars. Your arrogance and willful ignorance is showing.

Well now that you have admitted to not being poor, it is really about saving a couple dollars per year for you with the excuse of helping poor people (your past).

As Crissa said, paying a fair share is not regressive. As previously posted gas tax (which we need to replace) only covers 27% of the total cost of road maintenance. I am sure there is opportunity to be more progressive with the 67% of the general fund, but people should be keenly aware of the environmental impact of driving and sprawl. Sprawl is worse for poor people, yet you want to encourage it well in to the future. Rich people live in estates in the hills above the pollution and traffic jams.

I am done with you Challengedco. You just don't get it.

 

[S3av8r]

Fair is paying for what you consume. Now I feel for poor rural people. There will need to be some sort of adjustment for them so this does not come as a complete shock, but still if they want to save money in taxes they should drive smaller and less when possible.

Rural people are often subsidized by urban people, although many don't see it that way.


I see what you are saying about making it to easy to accept the cost and do nothing about it.

Perhaps an annual reconciliation versus the transponder just charging your account incrementally.

Really???? Well I’m a “Rural People”. I’m also an Airline Pilot and my wife is an Attorney. We wouldn’t be what is considered poor for most. For you to make blanket statements like that and stereotype people is pretty sketch and misinformation.

 

[S3av8r]

It's a challenging problem. Taxing fuel more-or-less was proportional to usage, but we can't really do that with electricity. We can tax the vehicle at the time of sale, but this inhibits adoption and does not incentivize conservation. Taxing during annual registration can capture the usage, but will be burdensome and very unpopular.

Tax electricity thru your utility bill. Subsidize with an additional tax levied during a yearly inspection based on vehicle mileage rating and miles driven.

I have a Ram 3500 currently while I wait for my CT. 30 gallons a week x 52 weeks x .18 = $280 I pay in federal gas tax.

If I drove a CT and was assessed an equivalent fee based on efficiency and usage, it’d probably come in well below $200.

As we move away from fossil fuels, electricity will have to be taxed more on both fronts to maintain infrastructure.

 

[JBee]

I still think that without knowing the actual cost of zero-fossil road construction this discussion around EV tax is pretty pointless. It can only be a transitional thing and we really don't have "renewable road construction" yet.

I still believe with robotaxi we will drive less and per capita road consumption will go down over time not up.

Another point is if we are heading towards renewable energy abundance, and low energy costs, then wouldn't that mean charging by kWh is also fairly dumb. I mean I get that theres an embodied energy cost to produce renewables and that EV's could be better etc, but reducing solar energy consumption, which otherwise would go to waste because it can't be stored, is not anywhere the same as having fuel efficiency standards for ICE.

Using less energy is good and fine with a finite fossil resource but the sun is infinite and free for our purposes and lifetime.

 

[Crissa]

Highways and sprawl and suburbs - all that pavement - is expensive to maintain, to patrol. More miles in private cars causes more pollution, more sprawl, more deaths and injuries. (Between one and two percent of Americans have to seek medical attention due to car collisions every year... and everyone knows our health system sucks.)

These are all costs. Ones we need to cover, and need to prevent.

Paying for highways and suburban streets out of general government funds is even more regressive than out of consumption taxes. Because rich people might only drive a little bit more - they and corporations do not pay taxes equal to their share of wealth. Remember, most general funds are out of sales taxes and income taxes and property taxes... the highest property taxes (rates) are on property poor people own. Poorer people have less ability to choose less taxed purchases (from buying out of town, bulk purchases, hiding purchases through shell companies).

And yes, rich or poor, we want to encourage people to drive less. To drive smaller vehicles. And it makes no sense that the registration fee difference between my 400lb bike and my 3000lb car is less than 20%.

Charging at the plug isn't going to work, though. Wealth would be even more able to escape that tax.

-Crissa

 

[Challeco]

Well now that you have admitted to not being poor, it is really about saving a couple dollars per year for you with the excuse of helping poor people (your past).

As Crissa said, paying a fair share is not regressive. As previously posted gas tax (which we need to replace) only covers 27% of the total cost of road maintenance. I am sure there is opportunity to be more progressive with the 67% of the general fund, but people should be keenly aware of the environmental impact of driving and sprawl. Sprawl is worse for poor people, yet you want to encourage it well in to the future. Rich people live in estates in the hills above the pollution and traffic jams.

I am done with you Challengedco. You just don't get it.

Oh, I get it. You are right, just ask you. Thank you for letting me out of this special hell communicating with a conservative. Be well.

 

[Tinker71]

Really???? Well I’m a “Rural People”. I’m also an Airline Pilot and my wife is an Attorney. We wouldn’t be what is considered poor for most. For you to make blanket statements like that and stereotype people is pretty sketch and misinformation.

Where did I make a blanket statement where Rural = Poor? Where did I stereotype? You don't need to brag how rich you are. You are another subset of rural people. Rural rich, that also benefit from the current system. You could afford to pay more for your lifestyle and you drive a lot, but ride the tiny subsidy of the rural poor. So by default a freeloader, accidental or otherwise?

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