A new road charge mooted for electric vehicle drivers is based on a fundamental misconception.

A specific road use tax on EVs and hybrids makes no sense.

Given the harms caused by traditional vehicles, society should welcome the decline in fuel excise revenue caused by the transition to EVs – in the same way we should welcome declining revenue from cigarette taxes.

Vehicle registration fees make only a modest contribution to road costs. That’s why all motorists should pay a road-user charge. The payment should be based on a combination of vehicle mass and distance travelled

    • pHr34kY@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      3 days ago

      Yep. This is why I think my 900kg hatchback should cost less to register than a 2500kg roadblimp ute.

      I don’t think a quartic tax will scale too well because the impact of a vehicle isn’t just its wear on the road.

      However larger cars burn more fuel and release more particulates such as brake dust and microplastics from tyre wear. Backstreets that once could park on both sides without impeding flow are now reduced to a single lane. Turning lanes will now only hold 4 cars instead of 6, and less cars get through per green. They bring more kinetic energy into a collision, and are not as manouverable. They’re less safe to have around by every measure.

      If the TAC processed their road stats properly, they’d realise that a kei car won’t kill anyone. People in kei cars will still get killed, but that’s a misattributed stat that should go towards the vehicle that brought the most weight into the collision.

      A fair tax would need to be based on size, weight and emissions. They all matter independently.