Why make the government pay for the entire thing? As oil and gas prices increase, the costs of purchasing an electric vehicle are going to be on parity with the costs of purchasing an electric vehicle. I imagine that the Big 3 in Detroit are wringing their hands over Toyota's success with the Prius.
And, with the bevy of new electric vehicles that are getting released in the next couple of years, you're going to be seeing more and more of them on the roads. even without massive governement intervention.
I for one am actually glad that gasoline prices are increasing. I think that we should tax gasoline heavily like most of Europe does. Do you think they drive around in those tiny little cars because they are comfortable? Increased gasoline prices decrease consumption, and increase innovation in fuel efficiency and alternative energy vehicles.
although they mention increasing efficiency as an explanation for lowering gas-tax revenues, i suspect the rise of electric cars is at least partially behind this initiative.
I suspect that the move to EV will eventually create a revenue hole from reduced fuel taxes necessitating the move to road pricing. Politically unpalatable but I think a necessary step.
Now that we have a viable alternative in electric cars we could just start to tax gas powered cars external effects a bit higher every year. E.g. with city driving permits. Because for pedestrians, reducing airflow aka wind is generally a good thing.
Increased gas taxes would drive behavior change towards electrics. Similar to tobacco and alcohol taxes to discourage their use.
I don't see diesel going away so soon though because of industrial, agriculture, and military use. It will probably be taxed differently according to it's use. In fact it already is taxed differently in the US for home heating, vehicle, and aviation use.
It will be tough to get the public on the side of taxing gas to subsidize electric charging. At least where I am, Teslas and other fancy electric cars are still seen as a "rich person's flex." Poor and middle class people tend to drive gas cars and rich people tend to drive electric. So asking people to vote to increase gasoline tax on themselves so that a few rich EV owners can be subsidized--you can imagine how that will go down.
This is a polarizing opinion, but as someone who exclusively drives electric I firmly support phasing out, and eventually banning consumer gas vehicles. A more realistic approach to do so would be to increase incentives - in the form of rebates for both new and used vehicles, as well as rebates for charging infrastructure.
How about self-driving cars though? No need for an owner. Besides making oil tax that prohibitive probably won't happen until there is a solid alternative which there is not for now given that the majority of electricity is produced in an unclean way.
30 years later, and the electric car market is still miniscule.
There might start to be a market demand for them when petrol is at least twice as expensive as it is now. But there's some wiggle room to reduce the tax on it a lot.
Do what we do in Vic, Australia: Add usage tax for EVs, with only a narrow timed limited vehicle discount for standard range EVs. And not a single ICEV co² tax in sight.
Increased demand for power to charge cars will drive demand for build-out of clean generating capacity.
Decreased use of petrol-powered cars makes voters less sensitive to gas prices, thus desperately needed carbon taxes, and more interested in cheaper, thus renewable, electrical generation.
The current US president is lately hustling eliminating tax on gasoline, instead, in an almost certainly doomed bid to fend off loss of majority in the upcoming congressional election. A big gas tax with monthly cash payouts to people with average and below incomes (i.e. most voters) would go over better.
What if EV owners produce their own solar power or whatever?
Anyway, the whole thing is moot. We shouldn’t be taxing EVs until they’re at least 50% of the vehicle pool. The LAST thing we need is to disincentivize purchase of EVs over ICEs. (Which in many states like Virginia we already do, since punitive higher-than-gas-tax EV fees are applied, have to pay sales and personal property tax on the battery, have to pay regular taxes on electricity… I think policy makers still think EV owners are getting a “free ride,” and aren’t aware of these extra fees.)
Until we have a full carbon tax, we shouldn’t be taxing EVs.
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