New Texas Law will Make EV Ownership More Expensive

New Senate Bill signed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott will cost new EV owners hundreds more per year.

Effective September 1, Senate Bill 505 will cost EV owners  an extra $200 a year for owning an all-electric vehicle. If someone is registering a new EV after the law goes into effect, they’ll be looking at an additional $400 fee to register it. The Lone Star State’s lawmakers says these fees are due to loss of revenue in gas taxes when people switch from gas to electricity. Interestingly enough, the average Texan only pays around $91 a year in gas taxes, effectively making owning an EV in Texas more expensive than a combustion engine-powered car.

“We recognized some time ago that each time an all-electric vehicle does get on the road and displaces a gasoline or diesel vehicle that the state highway fund loses money,” Rep. Senator Robert Nichols said in March. “So the object here is to try to identify how much money do we lose on both state and federal and try to make that up with a fee adjustment.”

Though, Texas isn’t the only state to see it fit to charge extra for clean motoring – 32 other states slap owners with special fees for owning an EV. Additionally, 19 states have special taxes for plug-in hybrids, too. When the bill was proposed back in April, Dylan Jaff of Consumer Reports wrote: “Consumers should not be punished for choosing a cleaner, greener car that saves them money on fuel and maintenance. The fees proposed in this bill will establish an inequitable fee scale for EV owners, and will not provide a viable solution to the long-standing issue of road funding revenue.”

In Williamson County, where the Tax Assessor’s office happens to be located, the county’s tax assessor, Larry Gaddes, says he’s more than ready for calls to roll into the office as to why there’s an added $200 registration fee. To which he’ll say it has a lot to do with how quickly people are transitioning to an all-electric lifestyle.

“If you look back at 2016, there were less than 10,000 EVs on the road. Today, there’s over 100,000 throughout the entire state. We definitely follow that,” said Gaddes.