EVs Blamed for California Road Deterioration

Toyota Rav4 EV Forum

Help Support Toyota Rav4 EV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rickrides

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 18, 2014
Messages
91
Location
SF Bay Area, Danville, CA
I could't believe what I was hearing. What is the percent of EV miles driven in Calif?

Here's the story: http://www.capradio.org/articles/2014/10/28/local-california-roads-continue-to-crumble/
 
I just read thru the links, and sent a scathing email to Katie Orr, the alleged "journalist" who wrote the piece.

The original report notes that our roadways are deteriorating at an alarming rate due to a number of reasons - primarily many more trucks and busses that greatly exceed the allowable gross vehicle weight on our roads, greatly increased use of trucks for delivery, garbage, recycling and construction, and continued deferred maintainance by choice by local government. It also states that the relative gas tax has remained fixed and as the fuel efficiency of vehicles overall has gone up, that tax per mile driven has gone down substantially, as well as the increase of "alternate fuel vehicles" - without specifically citing electric cars, although it does mention bikes -

It also has information about the requirement to add ADA mandated improvements such as curb cuts and ramps to all roadways, which adds substantial cost to projects, increased environmental requirements such as heavy sweeping to reduce toxic runoff, and the failure of local agencies to learn about current maintainance techniques and the reduced number of qualified contractors to perform the work.

It actually never says (that I can find) anythng that specifically cites electric cars as the source or even a contributor to the problem - although I have to imagine someone from the Koch Bros office probably told the CSAC president and this alleged journalist to reduce the 156 page report to a nice snippet like that -
 
Yes, I looked at her web site. Sacramento public radio....that says it all. ANYTHING that takes a cent of tax money away is evil, evil, evil.

The handful of us who go to the trouble of driving cars with limited range that most people won't even consider...potholes are our fault. It's an event when you actually spot another EV on the road, but it's the seed of destruction.

Give me a break, Katie. I understand the government people making these outrageous claims, but you claim to be a journalist. Question their assertions, don't parrot them.


Oh...Ms. Sacramento Public Radio....maybe you should praise EVs because we get to pay utility taxes that are not levied on gasoline?
 
Anything that travels on public roads should pay the taxes to maintain those roads. Trucks pay A LOT !!!

Currently, except for Washington state, EV's don't pay road taxes. They should a tax that is equal to the typically gasoline car of similar size, weight and impact to the roadways.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Anything that travels on public roads should pay the taxes to maintain those roads. Trucks pay A LOT !!!

Currently, except for Washington state, EV's don't pay road taxes. They should a tax that is equal to the typically gasoline car of similar size, weight and impact to the roadways.
Petrol cars, do not pay a tax, for the destruction they do to the planet, when they pay their share, I will gladly pay a fair road tax.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Anything that travels on public roads should pay the taxes to maintain those roads. Trucks pay A LOT !!!

Currently, except for Washington state, EV's don't pay road taxes. They should a tax that is equal to the typically gasoline car of similar size, weight and impact to the roadways.

Yes... I agree. All should pay. The Washington state tax is $100 per yr. added to our annual licensing fee. But oddly, the state EV sales tax exemption giveth, and the state road tax taketh away... and our roads still suck.
 
pchilds said:
TonyWilliams said:
Anything that travels on public roads should pay the taxes to maintain those roads. Trucks pay A LOT !!!

Currently, except for Washington state, EV's don't pay road taxes. They should a tax that is equal to the typically gasoline car of similar size, weight and impact to the roadways.
Petrol cars, do not pay a tax, for the destruction they do to the planet, when they pay their share, I will gladly pay a fair road tax.
Yes, but a carbon tax will destroy the economy, jobs, and won't somebody please think of the children?!!?!?!?!

Oh wait...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-insidious-truth-about-bcs-carbon-tax-it-works/article19512237/
 
Tadol said:
It also states that the relative gas tax has remained fixed and as the fuel efficiency of vehicles overall has gone up, that tax per mile driven has gone down substantially, as well as the increase of "alternate fuel vehicles" - without specifically citing electric cars, although it does mention bikes -

I read an article that said the gas tax only covers a percentage of wear and tear on the road caused by motor vehicles while bicycles effectively cause zero wear and tear.

Eventually, we will have to pay a per mile tax as vehicles get away from using so much gasoline/diesel fuel.
 
rickrides said:
Eventually, we will have to pay a per mile tax as vehicles get away from using so much gasoline/diesel fuel.
I think the easiest way to do this is to require odometer reporting through existing service channels and basing the per mile road tax on vehicle weight class. For example, most vehicles in California are required to do bi-annual SMOG Check. Adding an odometer reading to the existing electronic report to the state would be trivial. There could also be self-reporting of the reading, but eventually they would catch up with verified 3rd party reading in case the owner fudged the number lower than actual. Of course, telematics on new vehicles could take care of this automatically with quarterly reporting to the state. Anything based on GPS is inherently a bad idea due to the potential for misuse.
 
miimura said:
Anything based on GPS is inherently a bad idea due to the potential for misuse.
Agreed. The location data is one thing, but it wouldn't be hard to spoof GPS in this application and abuse the system. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science-july-dec13-gps_08-02/

The problem is that if you use odometer readings, then those who drive out of state will be taxed inappropriately. This would be an even bigger issue in places like the Northeast where people routinely drive in other states as a part of their daily activities.
 
Let's suppose we consider the Washington $100/year tax fair.

In California, we pay sales tax on the 7500 that is credited by the Feds as well as on the manufacturer's money that gets thrown into the deal. So even though this money is for other practical purposes a price reduction, it still gets taxed. This is equally true when leasing (we paid tax on the $17,500 or whatever Toyota money). We also pay inflated vehicle registration fees yearly on the artificial high selling price of the car before the Fed rebate.

So we all paid around $1700 in extra state sales taxes already. If you bought the car, you are also pay maybe $70 a year in registration fees on the $10,000 government contribution to the purchase. I will gladly exchange that for $100 a year in road taxes.

And if you drive 1000 miles a month, that's maybe $70 in electricity. My utility tax is 10%, so that's $84 in utility taxes a year, not far off of the $100 road tax

EV's get taxed plenty, just in a different manner than conventional cars.
 
michael said:
EV's get taxed plenty, just in a different manner than conventional cars.
Yes, they do get taxed plenty, but the money goes in a different pot than when you spend money to buy gas. The thread started on the basis of road maintenance. Very little of the "extra" sales tax we paid goes to road maintenance.
 
Just let the EVs self report miles and pay the equivalent tax to match the MPGe rating with the annual registration.
Ok many will cheat some until the car is sold and the actual miles recorded at sale.
Not exactly rocket science.
 
I think y'all are missing the point - the discussion is about 2 things - the deterioration of our roadways, and the need to identify funding sources to pay for their repair. The article, as with so many of the hit pieces of the "Kocj Bros" variety try to explain it all in one simple sentence, and usually mosy public media reporters make a tiny but of effort before writing story, but in this case I think the over-simplification was done by the pres of the Cal State Assoc of Counties, and merely put into the report without doing any of the most basic confirmation -

The problem is 2 fold, and both parts require equal consideration - The first part is the escalated deterioration -

b47dc05ef5838334eb2d214228203be0.jpg


Important to note is that neither electric, nor alternative fuel vehicles are listed as primary causes for the advanced deterioration -

939162d02fea1ce0f83a1258a37f5173.jpg


f1aeb9dca43523b47e39935bc170835a.jpg



c24a864d12038831aeaaa7f58a4d1a4b.jpg


If it weren't such a PITA to post more of the interesting parts of the report I would, but the most important part of all this is to understand that EVS are the red herring in this situation, and any thought that any amount of money they might get from EV drivers could "solve" the maintainance problems is just plain ludicrous - but it would help to slow or even prevent the adoption of efficient and alternative fuel vehicles, which is a well understood agenda being promoted by those also want those who install PVs to pay for the electric grid maintainance and the govenrment to open wilderness areas for more mining, drilling, and fracking -
 
Actually raising the gas tax and having EVs pay a fair share might encourage more adoption of EVs.
To get things fixed we all need to pay more.
 
Let me say in advance that I love the idea of everyone paying his "fair share", if such a thing were possible, and I apologize for ruffling any feathers, but there are some ideas in here which pop up whenever this topic is debated that must be addressed...
TonyWilliams said:
Anything that travels on public roads should pay the taxes to maintain those roads.
I'd say anyone who's a part of the public should pay for public roads! We all benefit by having a strong public infrastructure so we all pay for it, regardless of how much we use it. Taxes in general are not "use fees" - otherwise all our roads would just be private pay-as-you-go toll roads. Do we pay for NASA in proportion with how much we use it? Do we pay for the military in proportion with how much we use it? Do we pay for social welfare in proportion to how we use it? Do we pay for health insurance in proportion with how much we use it? (ok that one - like our healthcare system - is a joke :lol: )
Trucks pay A LOT !!!
I'm sure they do pay a lot in fuel taxes, but it's still not an amount commensurate with the damage they cause, since the damage caused to roads is proportional to the 4th power of mass, while fuel consumption is approximately linearly related to mass. This is the reason the heavy vehicle use tax (HVUT) was enacted, which helps to correct this "injustice", although of course it doesn't suffice.
Currently, except for Washington state, EV's don't pay road taxes. They should [enact] a tax that is equal to the typically gasoline car of similar size, weight and impact to the roadways.
The gas tax is not a road tax. With the exception of tolls and things like the aforementioned HVUT (and the idiot WA state EV tax - don't get me started on that...), there's no such thing as a road tax. The gas tax is a gas tax is a TAX ON GAS! And like all excise taxes, it has the effect of incentivizing reduced consumption of the item taxed (that's kinda the point.) If anyone thinks that a tax with naturally declining receipts over time (by design!) should be counted on for an expense that will naturally increase over time, well you know the rest...

Which brings me to this fallacy:
miimura said:
michael said:
EV's get taxed plenty, just in a different manner than conventional cars.
Yes, they do get taxed plenty, but the money goes in a different pot than when you spend money to buy gas. The thread started on the basis of road maintenance. Very little of the "extra" sales tax we paid goes to road maintenance.
The idea of dedicated tax revenues is a sham. Money is fungible! Assigning this money to that pot and that money to this pot is just a shell game played by politicians to get the public to relent to the idea of taxing themselves. If a politician were to tell Joe Sixpack the truth - that the tax on gasoline is an excise tax that discourages and puts a small price on the negative externalities of its consumption - how long do you think he'd stay in office? Instead the gas tax is branded as a "road tax" because your average voter can feel good about "paying his fair share."

In fact, the allocation of gas tax revenues to road maintenance is purely artificial. Additional revenues have always been and will always be needed to maintain roads, and that money can come from anywhere. Gas tax revenues could be dedicated to anything else or just go to the general fund like other taxes and the amount spent on roads would be exactly the same, since road funding levels are ultimately set by an act of Congress (or some local analogue), not by gas tax receipts. Come to think of it, if gas tax revenues just went to the general fund like they should, I'd wager that you'd see more money spent on roads, since instead of whining about how they need to come after those "tax dodging EVs" politicians would just find the money to get the job done, like they do for other items of vital importance!

So, anyway, Tadol's post did a pretty good job of getting to the heart of the matter: Our failing highway infrastructure has nothing to do with EVs and everything to do with our elected representatives simply not doing their jobs. Tax policy is effective in shaping demand, but is NOT effective in allocating funding. Tax policy can work to discourage deleterious behaviors like burning gasoline and cigarettes and encourage beneficial behaviors like purchasing EVs and giving to charities, but the job of deciding where any and all of those tax dollars are spent is the purview of legislative bodies, not revenue collectors.
 
@fooljoe
"Money is fungible!" Exactly! The link you provided summarizes it succinctly: "The practice of dedicating tax revenues to specific expenditure categories has remained popular in state governments despite empirical evidence that only a small proportion of dedicated revenues actually stick to intended expenditures. I deal with this "fungibility" issue on a regular basis in proceedings before the California Public Utilities Commission.
 
You are so right. Politicians' favorite game is to strip funding from needed services in order to pay for pork, and then add a special tax to fund the necessary service.
 
TonyWilliams said:
Anything that travels on public roads should pay the taxes to maintain those roads. Trucks pay A LOT !!!

Currently, except for Washington state, EV's don't pay road taxes. They should a tax that is equal to the typically gasoline car of similar size, weight and impact to the roadways.

What??!! No way man, I want my cake and eat it too :lol: I kid, I kid; as long as it's mileage based I could stomach something like this. Gas tax is a use tax, not a flat tax.

EDIT: I agree with fooljoe. Dedicating tax money to the specific items taxes are supposed to be for is a huge problem. Fungible, big issue. Vote accordingly.
 
Back
Top