$100 annual fee only for EV owners

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Daox

I'd be interested in seeing some info to back up that statement. I did a quick google search and found that most of the tax money does in fact go toward road maintenance, but yes some does get used for other things. This differs from state to state though. The state tax is the majority of the tax. The federal tax is smaller in compairison.

Or if your state raids random funds with IOUs and borrows money to claim its not running a deficit.

In any event the real problem is the skyrocketing cost of roads and WHO causes road damage.

Our current system does absolutely nothing to encourage the companies/agencies that build roads to have them last any period of time. There were roads that historically lasted 30-40 years with minimal maintanence, today most interstates get plowed over every 2-6 years around here. That is an indiciation of incompetance, and flawed materials being used in the road. There are materials that cost little if anything more that would last much longer, even europe uses more advanced methods of building roads and most euro zone countries require a guarantee of 20 years on any given road.

My belief is that many roads...
1. need maintanence not repair (secondary roads should be left to rot besides fill and hazard control) Car traffic does little to wear them out literally and yes I have driven on 100 year old "original state" roads in Oshkosh.
2. Semis cause over 90% of the damage on most roads (sometimes more), many roads will deteriorate of old age before car traffic causes damage, perhaps we should encorage train usage by putting the majority of the cost on those who cause the damage and less on those who use the resource occasionally? A shift to rail would reduce road damage.

Ah well.

[Xist]

A professor friend said "It's a lame excuse for taxation. The materials used for producing the electricity are taxed at each stage, including at point of sale (just like the gasoline). It's a lame way to exploit the general public's ignorance of supply chain economics."

[rmay635703]

This BS is coming back in the form of a $50 fee, bleh my thoughts here.

Wisconsin would join electric car tax trend - Insight Central: Honda Insight Forum

[Daox]

FYI, the transportation fund reform did pass.

[sendler]

NY state requires a plug in annual safety inspection of every vehicle. A change to a mileage based road tax would be easy. We have to change something even without EV's in the discussion. Fuel efficiency is much improved for every vehicle on the road today which has left a gap in road maintenance funding.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Daox

FYI, the transportation fund reform did pass.

Ah, another layer to the onion.

I have yet to find the full text but the snippets I can find of the "reform" is that it is very specific and only applicable to tax on fuel. "Other" funding sources appear to still be disgressionary so it may still be meaningless at the end of the day. Given the length of the document it may take some time to figure out what kind of crap... erm I mean loopholes are in it and who is benefitting.

I am strongly hoping they just add a few pennies onto the gas tax and don't go the typical republican way of adding fees on top of other fees.

The idea of a special tax against people who save money using alternative fuels to me is very sad and a good commentary on the state of affairs here in wisconsin. Although I secretly had a bit of vindictive happyness when I found that people with greenwashed vehicles like hybrid suburban/tahoe/durangos/ and start stop cars were apparently included in the $50 fee but it still to me is a boneheaded move.

We still have the farm loophole that causes 25% of our rural road repairs, too bad we don't have the will to address the real causes of road damage and instead just spread out the cost on everyone because a handfull of individuals cause extreme damage in of themselves.

Ah well.