Yep you can look up a car's MOT status publicly, including their mileage history at each inspection. I wonder if they'll send a bill from that report, or expect garages to act as tax collectors.
Though currently you don't need an MOT until a vehicle is 3 years old, so they'll to add something there.
Does it matter if the car is electric or not so much for road tearing? I'd thought the wheels and engine capabilities would matter more, but I'm not car expert.
EVs on average are heavier than ICE vehicles, and road damage scales with weight very quickly, but that’s not to say EVs are out there tearing up all the roads. Semi-trucks, construction equipment, heavy machinery towing, etc all do way way more damage than passenger vehicles by a wide margin.
> EVs on average are heavier than ICE vehicles, and road damage scales with weight very quickly
So then tax based on weight if that's the differentiator of the damage done? I guess in combination with mileage would make most sense, and add in a scale based on net worth too to make it extra goodie.
I wonder if it makes more sense to just add a tax on tires. Tire wear for most vehicles should be proportional to actual weight [1] and mileage, modulo tire quality. So just slap a tax on each tire quality type and there is no need for a system to record the mileage and weight of every car.
[1] Commercial vehicle weight is strongly determined by the cargo load.
Historically, we've taxed based on gasoline usage, which is a pretty decent proxy for both weight and distance traveled, so it ends up being a road use tax. EVs don't use gas, so we need to introduce new road use taxes specifically for them.
Where this new fee has issues is that it would charge EV owners roughly double the average amount paid by ICE owners in federal fuel tax, and wouldn't consider how much driving a given EV is actually doing.
so $130 for most drivers is actually a bargain in the US too.
I’d have to drive an EV about 35% more miles each year to make it to break even on tax versus our 35 mpg ICE car. It’s no bargain, it’s punishment for driving an EV.
EVs are also much harsher on roads because of their weight.
My Hyundai Ioniq 5 weighs less than the most popular vehicle in the US: the F-150. I don’t see those getting special taxes.
How do you pay more taxes on EVs when you factor in gas taxes?
Huh? Simple math?
$MILES_PER_YEAR/$200 (EV tax in WA) vs. $GALLONS_USED * $0.18 in the ICE car. I pay more in taxes to run the EV in a year than I do for equivalent miles in a 35mpg ICE. IOW, if I drove the Scion xB all the time, I’d pay less tax.
I drove 15,000 miles last year and paid 33.3 cents per gallon to my state. That’s around 833.33 gallons of gas so I paid about $278 dollars. $20 more. Assuming 18mpg.
For an EV I’d pay $258.90 extra to register.
My state must be factoring in average miles driven to come up with the $258 number instead of charging per mile driven.
The alternative is them checking the odometer each year on the EVs, which would be fairer, but I feel like Americans would complain that’s an invasion of their privacy or something. Or it would upset the rural voters who have disproportionate power in this country.
Modern cars are full of phone home shenanigans, many of them with cameras and ToS that allow them to observe everything and sell all of the data to anyone that can rub two cents together. IIRC laws coming into effect next year mandate even more of it. If Americans care about privacy of their cars they have a funny way of showing it. The odometer read would actually be a great privacy improvement compared to that.
I think they should just tax tires. It sounds easier to administer and if it was a natural tax it would alleviate the main weakness it seemed to have: That's you buy your tires in the state with the lowest tire tax.
The weight gap between EV and ICE is often exaggerated.
In fact, within ICE vehicles, the gap between sedans/hatchbacks/compact crossovers and giant SUVs and trucks is larger, and yet for some reason we aren’t taxing drivers of Suburbans and F-150s accordingly.
If we applied this logic fairly we should be pushing people to right-size their vehicles regardless of fuel type.
Keeping things simple and calculating the axle weight to the fourth powers of both vehicles, the F-150 causes 5.4x the road wear of the Honda Accord while using only 1.6x the gas.
The reason this doesn't matter so much, though, is that the types of trucks used for shipping goods, when loaded, cause on the order of 10^4 the road wear, dwarfing any differences between standard commuter vehicles, which is why commercial trucks have to stop at weigh stations.
Redditors claim there is no evidence the weight is relevant to the wear rate of the roads, since weights have become comparable to a similar car and generally less than the average ICE truck, but that the superior acceleration of EV can be harsher on intersections https://www.reddit.com/r/electriccars/comments/1do2rtu/what_...
Absolutely dishonest framing. Road maintenance is funded via gas tax. Thus EV owners should have to pay a different way. They certainly use the roads, so why would this be controversial?
If you want an “honest framing”, raise the federal fuel tax to match inflation, then we’ll talk about EVs. Plain and simple, this is just a move to punish EV use.
> Plain and simple, this is just a move to punish EV use.
People have gotten incentives to buy EVs for a very long time now. Isn't it time they pay their fair share? Or do they plan to pay back all the subsidies?
For fairness you also take into account that EVs are more expensive so subsidizing EVs isn't just saving the planet, it's punishing the poor.
It's a kind of crab bucket thing in the sense that people see other people getting slightly ahead on something and instead of looking for their own way to get ahead they reach up and try to pull the other person back down into the bucket.
my understand was that the federal govt won't be collecting this tax. they are mandating that the states collect it, and if they refuse there is punitive language about withholding federal transportation grants.
I'm a totally biased EV owner, and I agree that it's only fair that EV owners pay for the roads they use.
But it's annoying to see the US government find a new way to discourage one of the most clear cut ways to reduce fossil fuel usage. If things were fair, we would be taxing gas for its contribution to air pollution and climate change.
We should be doing everything we can to encourage EV adoption, but the current administration is interested in doing the exact opposite. They apparently found a way to do so which gets bipartisan support.
Sounds like a bargain. In the UK we'll be paying £0.03 per mile from April 2028.
More state discrimination against people in Scotland and rural communities...
But how does the government know how much you drove?
Odometer check during annual inspection
Yep you can look up a car's MOT status publicly, including their mileage history at each inspection. I wonder if they'll send a bill from that report, or expect garages to act as tax collectors.
Though currently you don't need an MOT until a vehicle is 3 years old, so they'll to add something there.
That seems like a more logical system? You should be paying miles x vehicle weight since that’s what tear roads.
Does it matter if the car is electric or not so much for road tearing? I'd thought the wheels and engine capabilities would matter more, but I'm not car expert.
I think the idea is with ice vehicles you can tax the gas, which is a convenient roll-up summary of the above. But EVs sidestep all that.
EVs on average are heavier than ICE vehicles, and road damage scales with weight very quickly, but that’s not to say EVs are out there tearing up all the roads. Semi-trucks, construction equipment, heavy machinery towing, etc all do way way more damage than passenger vehicles by a wide margin.
> EVs on average are heavier than ICE vehicles, and road damage scales with weight very quickly
So then tax based on weight if that's the differentiator of the damage done? I guess in combination with mileage would make most sense, and add in a scale based on net worth too to make it extra goodie.
I wonder if it makes more sense to just add a tax on tires. Tire wear for most vehicles should be proportional to actual weight [1] and mileage, modulo tire quality. So just slap a tax on each tire quality type and there is no need for a system to record the mileage and weight of every car.
[1] Commercial vehicle weight is strongly determined by the cargo load.
Historically, we've taxed based on gasoline usage, which is a pretty decent proxy for both weight and distance traveled, so it ends up being a road use tax. EVs don't use gas, so we need to introduce new road use taxes specifically for them.
Where this new fee has issues is that it would charge EV owners roughly double the average amount paid by ICE owners in federal fuel tax, and wouldn't consider how much driving a given EV is actually doing.
Fuel normally includes taxes that pay for roads.
Electricity doesn't, and it's not very fair to just add those taxes.
This is a direct replacement for the gasoline taxes which pay for our roads, so $130 for most drivers is actually a bargain in the US too.
EVs are also much harsher on roads because of their weight.
so $130 for most drivers is actually a bargain in the US too.
I’d have to drive an EV about 35% more miles each year to make it to break even on tax versus our 35 mpg ICE car. It’s no bargain, it’s punishment for driving an EV.
EVs are also much harsher on roads because of their weight.
My Hyundai Ioniq 5 weighs less than the most popular vehicle in the US: the F-150. I don’t see those getting special taxes.
The F-150 is not the most popular vehicle or even truck. The F-Series is, which includes all the bigger versions and fleet models.
How do you pay more taxes on EVs when you factor in gas taxes?
How do you pay more taxes on EVs when you factor in gas taxes?
Huh? Simple math?
$MILES_PER_YEAR/$200 (EV tax in WA) vs. $GALLONS_USED * $0.18 in the ICE car. I pay more in taxes to run the EV in a year than I do for equivalent miles in a 35mpg ICE. IOW, if I drove the Scion xB all the time, I’d pay less tax.
I drove 15,000 miles last year and paid 33.3 cents per gallon to my state. That’s around 833.33 gallons of gas so I paid about $278 dollars. $20 more. Assuming 18mpg.
For an EV I’d pay $258.90 extra to register.
My state must be factoring in average miles driven to come up with the $258 number instead of charging per mile driven.
The alternative is them checking the odometer each year on the EVs, which would be fairer, but I feel like Americans would complain that’s an invasion of their privacy or something. Or it would upset the rural voters who have disproportionate power in this country.
Modern cars are full of phone home shenanigans, many of them with cameras and ToS that allow them to observe everything and sell all of the data to anyone that can rub two cents together. IIRC laws coming into effect next year mandate even more of it. If Americans care about privacy of their cars they have a funny way of showing it. The odometer read would actually be a great privacy improvement compared to that.
I think they should just tax tires. It sounds easier to administer and if it was a natural tax it would alleviate the main weakness it seemed to have: That's you buy your tires in the state with the lowest tire tax.
They already check mileage when they do emissions. Not sure if the state gets the info back.
The weight gap between EV and ICE is often exaggerated.
In fact, within ICE vehicles, the gap between sedans/hatchbacks/compact crossovers and giant SUVs and trucks is larger, and yet for some reason we aren’t taxing drivers of Suburbans and F-150s accordingly.
If we applied this logic fairly we should be pushing people to right-size their vehicles regardless of fuel type.
We are discussing a gas tax, and there is a strong correlation between gas consumption and weight, which implies more taxes for trucks and SUVs
That's true, but gas consumption by weight is more of a linear function, while road wear follows the fourth power law by axle weight.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
As an example:
A 2026 Honda Accord LX has a combined gas mileage around 32 mpg and a curb weight of 3,239 lbs.
See: https://automobiles.honda.com/accord-sedan/specs-features-tr...
A 2025 Ford F-150 XLT has a combined gas mileage around 20 mpg and a curb weight of 4,941 lbs.
See: https://www.edmunds.com/ford/f-150/2025/features-specs/
Keeping things simple and calculating the axle weight to the fourth powers of both vehicles, the F-150 causes 5.4x the road wear of the Honda Accord while using only 1.6x the gas.
The reason this doesn't matter so much, though, is that the types of trucks used for shipping goods, when loaded, cause on the order of 10^4 the road wear, dwarfing any differences between standard commuter vehicles, which is why commercial trucks have to stop at weigh stations.
We absolutely are doing that at the state and local level. Vehicle registration fees vary by weight and type of vehicle most places.
Redditors claim there is no evidence the weight is relevant to the wear rate of the roads, since weights have become comparable to a similar car and generally less than the average ICE truck, but that the superior acceleration of EV can be harsher on intersections https://www.reddit.com/r/electriccars/comments/1do2rtu/what_...
Well, that's a US-only argument.
Now do parking
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flat rate taxes are never fair. It should be based on a per use basis. either have a tire tax or some other per mile use tax.
Switch everything to a weight-mile tax, if we want to be fair.
Nonlinear.
Absolutely dishonest framing. Road maintenance is funded via gas tax. Thus EV owners should have to pay a different way. They certainly use the roads, so why would this be controversial?
Road maintenance is funded via gas tax.
Federal gas tax is generally used for new roads, not road maintenance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund
If you want an “honest framing”, raise the federal fuel tax to match inflation, then we’ll talk about EVs. Plain and simple, this is just a move to punish EV use.
I read your link and it does not support your assertion. In fact it implies the opposite:
> […] attempts […] to suspend the federal gas tax, without which […] would have halted efforts to repair and expand the Federal highway system.
(emphasis mine)
Did you have a specific quote you intended to point to to support your claim?
> Plain and simple, this is just a move to punish EV use.
People have gotten incentives to buy EVs for a very long time now. Isn't it time they pay their fair share? Or do they plan to pay back all the subsidies?
For fairness you also take into account that EVs are more expensive so subsidizing EVs isn't just saving the planet, it's punishing the poor.
Or do they plan to pay back all the subsidies
Just as soon as fossil fuel companies pay back their subsidies, I’ll have a check ready to send to the U. S . Treasury.
I still find it difficult to believe people bring up EV subsidies with a straight face, like it’s the only thing the government has ever subsidized.
It's a kind of crab bucket thing in the sense that people see other people getting slightly ahead on something and instead of looking for their own way to get ahead they reach up and try to pull the other person back down into the bucket.
my understand was that the federal govt won't be collecting this tax. they are mandating that the states collect it, and if they refuse there is punitive language about withholding federal transportation grants.
I'm a totally biased EV owner, and I agree that it's only fair that EV owners pay for the roads they use.
But it's annoying to see the US government find a new way to discourage one of the most clear cut ways to reduce fossil fuel usage. If things were fair, we would be taxing gas for its contribution to air pollution and climate change.
We should be doing everything we can to encourage EV adoption, but the current administration is interested in doing the exact opposite. They apparently found a way to do so which gets bipartisan support.
Let in Chinese EVs.
Sure, Detroit which is on life support from making shitty overpriced cars would cease to exist. But EVs would take over the US in just 5 years.
The headline is intentionally inflammatory, but that's pretty much what the article says.
FWIW, the gas tax also only pays a fraction of the actual cost of maintaining roads.
They should get rid of the gas tax and tax all vehicles by weight and miles driven.
This would effectively attack people for living in rural areas, rather than urban sprawl because they have to travel further...
I already get ~fined~ charged an EV tax by my county and state. So now I get to be triple-punished for having an EV?
How many miles of federal roads do you drive in a week?