Columbus, Ohio exceeded its goal of more than 3,200 new BEVs and plug-in hybrids.
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This Ohio city’s plan to get more people to buy electric cars worked
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Well, this is going to fall off a cliff, because as of 2020 Ohio charges an extra $200 per year on the registration fee for a BEV or plug-in Hybrid. (Standard / non-Plugin Hybrids are an extra $100/yr.)
My dad had been super excited to trade his Cadillac ATS for a Cadillac ELR (PHEV)... then was rudely surprised by this extra $200 fee at registration. In order to "make up" this cost in fuel taxes (which is Ohio's justification for adding this fee, lost gas tax revenue), he'd have to drive something like 18k miles per year. He drives more like 7000-8000 (his daily commute is maybe 15 miles total, which is part of why he was so jazzed to go for a PHEV and "almost never need to buy gas again").
My dad had been super excited to trade his Cadillac ATS for a Cadillac ELR (PHEV)... then was rudely surprised by this extra $200 fee at registration. In order to "make up" this cost in fuel taxes (which is Ohio's justification for adding this fee, lost gas tax revenue), he'd have to drive something like 18k miles per year. He drives more like 7000-8000 (his daily commute is maybe 15 miles total, which is part of why he was so jazzed to go for a PHEV and "almost never need to buy gas again").
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I would say this is correlation without causation and dubious at best. The trends match with US yearly sales and the release of the Model 3.
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10567
The more likely explanation is more choice and the rise of Telsa.
I think public awareness is a very good thing, but saying this program worked... I'm not convinced.
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10567
The more likely explanation is more choice and the rise of Telsa.
I think public awareness is a very good thing, but saying this program worked... I'm not convinced.
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I got to drive a Tesla Model S at work as part of this program! Neat experience.
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I agree that slapping extra taxes on EV is stupid right now. However, 200$ is 50-100 gallons of gas (depending on price of course, which now is historically depressed), which at 30mpg (quite optimistic for the Cadillac), would be 1500-3000 miles. So, unless the electricity is very very expensive where your father lives, he would still come up ahead financially.
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I'm guessing the Ohio legislature is all Republican?
Gotta protect the fossil fuel industry status quo in our crusade to get back to the 1950s.
The correct answer to the question of "how do we make up lost tax revenue from lack of gasoline sales" is to increase the tax on gasoline by a few cents a gallon, thus maintaining tax revenue while providing additional incentive to buy a BEV when it's time to replace your car.
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Statistical
Ars Legatus Legionis
However less financially ahead on a per mile basis and then you have the upfront cost of the PHEV as well so the break even point gets pushed further into the future. It is entirely possible he never breaks even depending on how much a premium the PHEV costs over an ICEV.
Ideally you would just raise the gas tax at least until BEV/PHEV make up 50% of new sales. Still
I don't even have a problem with a BEV "fee" to offset lost gas tax revenue but at best it should be revenue neutral. Ohio (and a number of other states) plan is simply a cash grab. If the average driver in Ohio is paying $50 a year in gas taxes the BEV fee shouldn't be more than $50. Instead they are replacing $50 in gas tax revenue with a $200 fee. Not a $200 fee on everyone because that would get backlash a $200 fee on this small minority who even if angry can't really do anything about it.
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Roads need to be paid for somehow. The traditional "usage" tax came from a gas tax. Cars that dont use gas still use the roads.
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Not ALL Republican, but certainly Republican controlled, and thanks to the number of rural districts there's a large number of way right reps in the state House. Overall Ohio is pretty close to 50/50 but thanks to the same broken formula we use at the national level blue votes definitely aren't counted equally.
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I don't think anyone is adamant about no fee ever but a penalty on PHEV/BEV is shortsighted and smacks of greed.
At this point PHEV/BEV as such a rounding error it likely makes sense to just exempt them to encourage higher rates of adoption. However if you feel you can't wait and absolutely must tax them now charging them MORE than someone will pay in gas taxes is dumb.
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Glad to hear about this, but the estimate that it will "cut carbon emissions by 1,850 tonnes over ten years" further justifies the question that springs to mind:
What are the power sources for the electric grid for Columbus, Ohio and the surrounding area? If it were nuclear and renewables, fan-friggin-tastic! If it's mainly coal, uhhhhhh....
What are the power sources for the electric grid for Columbus, Ohio and the surrounding area? If it were nuclear and renewables, fan-friggin-tastic! If it's mainly coal, uhhhhhh....
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It's not how much gas costs per gallon, it's how much gas tax revenue the state gets per mile driven, and the OPs calculous was pretty close to mine when the rates were announced, it's definitely a regressive tax on clean vehicles.
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Same here in WA. My old gas car was $100 to register. New BEV is over $300. Plus no incentives of any kind. Not preferential parking, not right to use HOV lanes, no free (for now) chargers. Hell you can't even pay with a CC. Every charger belongs to a network, there are about 4-5 disparate networks, and you need their membership and their app to use the chargers. Absolute rubbish. Tesla again have their own network.
Absolutely no incentive at all to buy a BEV other than the federal tax thing. We'll never get anywhere like this.....
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There is nowhere in the US that is mainly coal. There is also nowhere in the US that is mainly nuclear. The grid is a mix and the grid is lower carbon intensity than most ICEV burning gasoline.
Another thing to consider is a gasoline engine will never get more efficient (and thus less CO2/mile) once built. The grid however continues to get cleaner. In Ohio an average BEV was the equivalent of a 42 mpg ICEV in 2009. That improved 20% by 2016. So the same BEV is emitting 20% less carbon per mile without any change by the driver. Numbers aren't out they for 202 but the trend of coal down, nuclear flat, renewables and gas up means the 2020 version of this map will be even cleaner. The 2025 version even cleaner. The 2030 version even cleaner.
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There is nowhere in the US that is mainly coal. There is also nowhere in the US that is mainly nuclear. The grid is a mix and the grid is lower carbon intensity than most ICEV burning gasoline.
How is NY so far ahead of the rest of the country on that chart? Nuclear?
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To be fair, they also upped the gas tax in 2019. Gas went from 28 to 38.5 cents/gallon, while diesel jumped from 28 to 47 cents/gallon. That's a fairly large percentage increase (and probably overdue considering last bump was in 2005).
I'm wondering if BEV/plugin drivers typically put less miles than a normal driver (ie, use it around town mostly, have a gas car for long trips). That would make more sense of people saying they only drive 5k miles a year, given that the latest national average was 13,476 overall, with 16,550/year for men, and 10,142/year for women. I think $100/year would be a fair starting rate honestly.
I'm wondering if BEV/plugin drivers typically put less miles than a normal driver (ie, use it around town mostly, have a gas car for long trips). That would make more sense of people saying they only drive 5k miles a year, given that the latest national average was 13,476 overall, with 16,550/year for men, and 10,142/year for women. I think $100/year would be a fair starting rate honestly.
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Ars Legatus Legionis
There is nowhere in the US that is mainly coal. There is also nowhere in the US that is mainly nuclear. The grid is a mix and the grid is lower carbon intensity than most ICEV burning gasoline.
How is NY so far ahead of the rest of the country on that chart? Nuclear?
Some nuclear, wind, and solar but LOTS of hydro. Some of that hydro is coming from Canada (thanks Canada).
Also even natural gas is a huge improvement over coal. It gets even better if you have a good mix of natural gas and low carbon sources.
Grid 100% coal = 30 mpg (average BEV comparable to a ICEV getting 30 mpg)
Grid 100% natural gas = 70 mpg
Grid 30% natural gas, 20% nuclear, 50% renewables = 200 mpg <- let's do this one
The last one would be ambitious but not impossibly so and would cut co2 emission by light duty passenger vehicles by close to 80%. It doesn't require unobtanium to make a huge reduction in emissions.
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The replacement cost for the bridge you and about 100 of your neighbors drive over every day is 27 million dollars. You want the users to pay for it, right? That's $270,000 each from every one of you. Here is your bill.
What, no? Can't afford? Then you and all your neighbors are fired from your job because old bridge just collapsed and you can't drive to work.
Now let's discuss your kid's school and their budget. Only 100 kids. Divide the budget by..
You know what? I'm wasting my time. Anyone dumb enough to think like you is too dumb to learn something new or correct their misconceptions.
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Must be nice to live in a town that actually uses road taxes to pay for, you know, roads. Unlike my city that collects the tax, dumps it into general revenue and ignores the roads until the asphalt becomes gravel and the mafia are using the potholes to bury bodies.
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Anticipat3
Smack-Fu Master, in training
I have had to pay an extra $100 to register my EV the last 3 years in Wisconsin... guess who controls our state legislature?
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Large amounts of hydro (Niagara) and wind power and a very active decarbonization effort.
There is nowhere in the US that is mainly coal. There is also nowhere in the US that is mainly nuclear. The grid is a mix and the grid is lower carbon intensity than most ICEV burning gasoline.
How is NY so far ahead of the rest of the country on that chart? Nuclear?
*edit*
It's also a bit arbitrary in how it's setup. While those numbers are per regulatory authority the actual grid doesn't stop at the border or the regulatory authorities power. There's a fair bit of Ohio coal plants still providing base power to NY, as was seen in the great NE blackout of 2003, if you take out Ohio generation NY goes down.
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Which is precisely an argument for a weight + miles driven yearly tax instead. The tax on EVs here was wholly shortsighted unless you want to say the majority Republican legislature had ulterior motives.
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As others have stated, but doesn't seem to be getting much traction in this conversation ---> it's to replace the fuel tax.
If you want to read about the disbursement: https://www.tax.ohio.gov/government/mvf_overview.aspx
ICE Cars -- all gas, thus all "fuel" is taxable
Hybrids -- less gas, less tax.
BEV -- no gas, no tax --> thus registration fee.
If you want to read about the disbursement: https://www.tax.ohio.gov/government/mvf_overview.aspx
ICE Cars -- all gas, thus all "fuel" is taxable
Hybrids -- less gas, less tax.
BEV -- no gas, no tax --> thus registration fee.
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It's also something I wrote about earlier this year: https://meincmagazine.com/cars/2020/01/to ... -road-use/
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I feel the same way in many respects, but the issue is that tax revenue goes to pay for stuff- usually items we need but don't really appreciate (e.g., snowplowing, road maintenance, removal of dead animals/trash from roadways).
If the government looses money due to loss of tax revenue from gas, how is it going to maintain the services it provides that we come to expect?
I like my tax bill to be as low as possible, but it should be a shared responsibility based on usage rather than the type of vehicles one person drives. There's no easy solution to do that, but I would still rather pay $200 per year to help pay for my fare share, than supporting the oil industry and hurting our environment even it means paying a little more than I might in the loss of gas revenue.
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My city actually tried this for a decade. Overpasses, bridges and bypasses they paid for but all city streets were billed to the owner of the frontage. Called it the Civic Improvement Initiative. On my street it worked out to a special levy of about $12,000 over and above the regular taxes, which we had to pay unless all homeowners (or business owners) on the stretch of street petitioned the city *not* to repair the road, in which case the city just let it rot.
Guess how many streets were repaired in that ten year stretch? Yeah. Next to zero. Some people *did* pay, but not very many had thousands of dollars to spare, even on a multi-year payment plan.
City then scrapped that about ten years ago and went with a 2% tax increase year after year (still!) to pay for some of the worst roads...and the gas tax is *still* going who the heck knows where...
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Statistical
Ars Legatus Legionis
Large amounts of hydro (Niagara) and wind power and a very active decarbonization effort.
There is nowhere in the US that is mainly coal. There is also nowhere in the US that is mainly nuclear. The grid is a mix and the grid is lower carbon intensity than most ICEV burning gasoline.
How is NY so far ahead of the rest of the country on that chart? Nuclear?
*edit*
It's also a bit arbitrary in how it's setup. While those numbers are per regulatory authority the actual grid doesn't stop at the border or the regulatory authorities power. There's a fair bit of Ohio coal plants still providing base power to NY, as was seen in the great NE blackout of 2003, if you take out Ohio generation NY goes down.
The map takes into account consumption not generation. So New York is getting power from outside the state but that is already taken into account. Yes coal plants from Ohio are in the mix but so is lots of hydro from Canada.
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I think one of the most important factors that made me get a Nissan Leaf was the fact that I had two friend who owned hybrid for years, who later on got onto electric. I was given rides on EV and hybrid and test drives enough times so I am familiar with this different type of car.
As for now, I am very happy owning an EV.
As for now, I am very happy owning an EV.
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The solution to falling tax revenue from gasoline sales is not to raise the tax (which should have been done federal 20years ago) and its not surcharging the electrics. Its going to strict mileage/gross weight based tax. A PITA to administer but fair.
Exempting EVs from any road tax is a handout to the well to do. Registration fees for electrics and hybrids discourages something we should be encouraging.
Bite the bullet and do it right.
FYI I am an owner of 2 Prius (is that Priai?) in OH.
Exempting EVs from any road tax is a handout to the well to do. Registration fees for electrics and hybrids discourages something we should be encouraging.
Bite the bullet and do it right.
FYI I am an owner of 2 Prius (is that Priai?) in OH.
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Photon_plumber
Ars Tribunus Militum
There is nowhere in the US that is mainly coal. There is also nowhere in the US that is mainly nuclear. The grid is a mix and the grid is lower carbon intensity than most ICEV burning gasoline.
How is NY so far ahead of the rest of the country on that chart? Nuclear?
Niagara Falls. Step by step...
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I'm not the idiot who is ignoring that gas tax does pay for road repairs (or should) even if it isn't paying the whole amount. The fact that additional money comes from another source doesn't mean that the money coming from the users shouldn't come from *all* users.
Just out of curiosity, where do you think state governments get their money from? You do realize that most of it comes from state taxpayers, right? (34% comes from the Feds in Ohio's case)
EDIT: fixed URL
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Why divide by gross weight? It is heavy traffic that causes most of the damage.
To help a desirable transition, there should be perks for those who are front runners and those inevitably pay more than those who come later and benefit from further developments and production at a Larger scale.
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