http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...-road-funding/

 

Any claims that hybrids or EV's don't pay their fair share is BOGUS! When an engineer is doing the calculations for road life, cars and light trucks are barely counted. The majority of road damage due to vehicular traffic (essentially ALL of it) comes from LARGE trucks.

 

Look at the reality, highways need to be maintained.
The gas tax funds maintenance and repair.
When I drive on the highway, it seems that >80% of traffic (total guessing here) is passenger cars, so they are the ones paying the majority of the gas tax. If all passenger cars were replaced by non-gas vehicles, what would that do the the highway trust fund revenues?
It's plain and simple, they need a certain amount of revenue to fund the repairs, etc.

 

Is it FAIR to send the bill for damage to the people that don't cause it? The repair cost due to cars is 0/.1 cent for rural/urban interstates. A 40,000lb 4-axle truck has a cost of 1/3.1. The numbers get even worse as the weight/axle goes up! http://ssti.us/wp/wp-content/uploads...ce%20Costs.pdf

Is it FAIR to push for higher mileage vehicles and then tax them over everyone else when people start to buy them?

Is it FAIR to build a road that most people in the area don't see a need for? Our local DOT has wanted to expand a two lane country road to four lane with wide shoulders through farm land from our regional airport (Tri-cities) to the local vacation spot (Gatlinburg) for years. They tried to tell us that people would fly in up here & drive there when the Knoxville airport is about 75 miles closer. It would cut a slight corner on the Interstate route that already exists but wouldn't be limited access.

 

My daughter is a civil engineer working in pavement design. She agrees with your thinking. However, if there were no highways we would not drive far at all. So, while trucks may cause the damage, we do need to pay for highways in the first place.

I still think hybrids should have no special charge as they are just fuel efficient gas engine vehicles. It is the electric cars that are getting off for free. There should be an EV road tax applied to their monthly electric bills.

 

Then lets put new road construction to the vote. New roads or major expansions would have to pass a binding referendum of the population they will serve (i.e. the cities and counties they pass through). If the project has merit, it should pass easily. There are two in this region that I think most people would think were long overdue.

I agree that EV's should be paying something above the sales/property taxes they already pay. Given the damage numbers, EV's should have to reach a financially viable portion of the market for that to take effect (that means the Federal subsidies end as they have for most hybrids) and the definition of an EV is based on range w/o using gas under real world conditions.

Edit: (added post script)

P.S. If the revenue from the gas taxes has declined so much, how come we have projects that get names like "Bridge to Nowhere" ? IIRC there are at least two of them. One's in Alaska & one's in a local county. DOT recently built a new four lane bridge and widened the road leading from the local main street to it near here to replace a two lane bridge. After you get across the bridge, it reduces to a two lane rural local road.

 

Just a few more thoughts.

• Trucks already pay significantly higher tolls, gax taxes, etc., so they're already contributing greatly towards the cost of highway maintenance.
  • The cash rate for the full length of the NJ Tpke for a car is $13.85, for trucks it's four times as much $56.85
  • Diesel fuel gas tax is 33% higher than the tax on gasoline, not to mention that they get significantly worse mileage. Assuming 5 MPG for an 18 wheeler versus 35 MPG for a hybrid. Per mile driven, the trucks are already paying over 9 times the fuel tax that the Camry owner pays.
• The amount of the hybrid tax is less than the cost of a decent bottle of wine ($50 fee for hybrid drivers)
• Many hybrid owners and all electric car owners got paid to purchase their car (tax rebates). Where is the indignation when the tax payers are being forced to subsidize a Tesla S owner ($7,000)? The S is an $80,000 car, the only people that can afford the car (typically a second car) are the extremely affluent.
• Final point...if everyone purchased an electric car and the highway trust fund was nearly empty...where would maintenance funds come from? Should we just stick it to the truckers?

IMHO...an annual $50 fee for hybrids (when a truck pays more than that in tolls for a two hour drive in NJ) is extremely fair. No one likes to pay, but this one isn't going to kill anyone. The money has to come from someone.

 

The truck will be doing between 40x and 400x the damage than a car will on that same trip depending on its weight if the whole route is taken as urban Interstate.

The amount is beside the point. DOT's are wanting me to pay for new roads/expansions of roads that I don't want and damage that I didn't cause!

Yes, some of us got a small discount on the price from a tax rebate. We also paid a premium on the price with the higher sales tax even after the rebate. When I bought it, TCH was in the low $30k's. IIRC one dealer said a similar, non-hybrid car would be in the low $20k's.

As far as the Tesla, I agree it maybe shouldn't be getting the rebates. Also, there is a big difference between won't and can't

If EV's were a significant portion of the driving population, it would be a different matter. By that argument, bicycle riders and pedestrians should also be taxed. Including sidewalks, bicycle lanes, and wide paved shoulders where they will be little used just drives up the cost of the road for no gain. Rural roads have performed well for over 100 years without such added expenses.