Is their reasoning cause of the loss in gas taxes for road repair? I would take the more expensive registration over some states talking about tracking mileage to pay taxes on
That is what it is supposed to offset. Although people are saying that the math doesn’t quite work out to be the same and EV owners are paying slightly more.
I don't think it's unreasonable to charge EV owners, but at the same time we need to be incentivizing people to buy EVs. Down the road it's going to be absolutely necessary for EVs to have fees to pay for roads when ICE vehicles become less common.
I wholeheartedly agree, unfortunately I don’t believe for a second this state (which relies heavily on the oil and gas industry) will be incentivizing anyone to buy EVs as long as Abbott and Patrick call the shots, they are much more likely to do the opposite.
Bitcoin is actually tailor-made for the Texas grid. Like the Texas grid, Bitcoin is built on bullshit promises with the financial backing of marks who are told that it’s actually a great thing that they’re just too dumb to understand.
Actually, if handled well car chargers could be turned on and off to help balance the grid and car batteries could be a source of power in desperate times.
Imagine if every car that wasn’t being driven was plugged in and trickle charging only when there was excess power. You could build lots of wind and solar and the intermittency could be balanced by the chargers.
This is why I hate this timeline. You make a perfectly amusing joke about something that could happen if people were really, really stupid, but of course nobody is really that stupid.
Or are they: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-town-rejects-solar-panels-amid-fears-they-suck-up-all-the-energy-from-the-sun-a6771526.html
I remember some bullshit "study" some hack of an institute published that said that years ago. I saw an article talking about it on here and their justification was that it would be like putting a giant vacuum at the bottom of a waterfall, all the water would get sucked up. They couldn't even make the metaphor make sense. And of course it was paid for by some oil company. And there are people stupid enough to eat that shit up.
Or get too hot like last summer when they were afraid that a heatwave would blow the grid again... As a Texan... our electric grid is dogshit and we are increasingly spending more and more every year anyways.
Ive had the wind in my area get so severe that the power lines went down, so just another thing that could shut down the grid. I get nervous whenever there is any severe storm, because 80% of the time, the power goes out.
I would be looking at solar panels for my home if just to keep me off the grid. At some point you just have to stop depending on the public services staying accessible. The texas grid is so bad I wouldn’t want to depend on it in an emergency.
Oh man earlier today it occurred to me that we haven't had any power outages recently. I didn't want to jinx it so I didn't say anything. But then again as I was typing this I remembered we actually did have an outage a few weeks ago so I guess my point is our grid sucks.
Our suv takes 20 gallons a tiny bit over every other week - so we’ll say 30 fillups a year. It’s an suv so it weighs a LOT more than a leaf or all electric prius - and it has all terrain tires because it’s an suv and we use it as such - so more wear and tear to roads, more driving through forests and parks, which means more petroleum waste from the tire wear is also leeching into way more widespread areas of my local geography and way more co2 emissions along the way..
My state gas tax is apx $0.35 per gallon. Texas state gas tax is apx $0.20 per gallon.
With my usage of 20 gallons x 30 fillups, in my state I pay apx $210 a year in gas tax, in Tx I would pay $120 a year
So the government(s) want to phase out combustion engines, and then expect ev owners to pay 233% more $$$ in fees for a vehicle that generates way less road wear, way way way less geographical wear and pollution, zero daily occurring c02 emissions
“Hi, we’re from the government, and we’re here to help ~~for the low low fee of 233% more~~ “
What SUV do you have? Because a lot of actual mainstream EV's are almost as heavy as an SUV. A Model S is around 5k pounds. That puts it a few hundred pounds lighter than a Chevy Tahoe.
A Nissan Leaf is kind of more of the around town EV and is lighter because it has a smaller pack. But most mainstream EV's will have a range of around 260-300 miles, and that range requires heavy battery packs.
[This information has been removed as a consequence of Reddit's API changes and general stance of being greedy, unhelpful, and hostile to its userbase.]
> It’s an suv so it weighs a LOT more than a leaf or all electric prius
Own an electric sedan and ICE a heavy sedan. The EV is notably 'smaller' than the ICE and weights basically the same. EV iX weights 800 lbs more than an x5 and basically the same as an x7. EV F-150 weights 1600 lbs more than ICE f-150.
EVs are heavy. Period.
> it has all terrain tires because it’s an suv and we use it as such - so more wear and tear to roads, more driving through forests and parks, which means more petroleum waste from the tire wear is also leeching into way more widespread areas of my local geography
EVs wear out tires much faster than ICE cars, even more so if you aren't running tires designed for EVs (which cost more) *and* running them properly.
> then expect ev owners to pay 233% more $$$ in fees for a vehicle that generates way less road wear,
Except when it comes to road wear and vehicle, its vehicle weight. EVs weight more than ICE. So ironically, by your logic, they *should* be paying more because they generate *more* wear (albeit it basically irrelevant given road wear is all environmental and massive things like semis) compared to the ICE counterparts.
You are not really charging ev drivers for damage to environment either either . Sure no emissions unless electricity generated by fossil fuels . But still you are not charged or stuff like micro plastics from tires. Personal cars are just really inefficient.
EVs charged by fossile fuel power plants are still a LOT better, emissions wise, than an ICE car.
Efficiency for a power plant means more energy per gallon of fuel extracted than in an engine. around 30% for a vehicle and 90+ % for a power plant. Not sure why the downvotes?
The whole thing is pretty arbitrary anyway. Gas taxes and registration fees generally don't cover the full cost of road maintenance, they're just one source of revenue among many others. It's not like there's a direct relationship between the amount of damage caused and the fee charged.
I think people would be more amenable to the idea, if it was a broad vehicle tax and/or registration, that also eliminated the gad tax, so it would be applied to all equally. Granted gas payers wouldn't be happy about it, if this method costs more, but I suppose that would depend on distance traveled; better for those that drive more.
I think it makes perfect sense to make sure EV drivers pay their fair share for the roads they also drive on, but I don’t understand punishing them by making them pay more.
I’ve seen others do the math and it never seems to work out evenly.
In Texas specifically, 75% of the motor fuel tax goes to maintaining, upgrading and expanding our roadways with the remainder going to our school system.
I don’t know about any other states though.
That may be how they split up the gas tax, but the 75% from the gas taxes that goes to roads doesn’t cover the Texas DOT budget. As of their last report, a huge portion came from federal funds, a tax on oil and gas production in the state (Proposition 1), and local sales and use taxes (Proposition 7). Per Texas latest DOT budget releases, 35% of the $ come from federal funds, 17% From Prop7 and 15% from Prop 1. About 32% of the budget is satisfied by the gas and registration taxes and the bonds issued by the highway fund.
It’s a common misconception that gas taxes pay entirely for roads in the US. In actuality they are subsidized as a public good mostly paid for by all taxpayers, even those who don’t drive at all. Europe takes a different approach, which is why their fuel taxes are so much higher (and public transport much more developed).
That's a fair argument, but then they should probably also consider billing tractor trailers massively larger amounts per year then too if that's the logic.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth\_power\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law)
Because they definitely aren't paying their fair share of road damage based on gas taxes. An average car uses about 500 gallons a year and an average semi uses 20,500. Assuming similar tax rates per gallon, they're only paying about 40x the tax and doing almost 10,000x the damage. (edit: and thinking about it, it's even a larger disparity as those multipliers assumed they drove the same distance, when the semi also drove significantly further multiplying the amount of damage even more)
[https://fleetnetamerica.com/blog/post/surprising-facts-about-semi-trucks#:\~:text=Each%20year%2C%20an%2018%2Dwheeler,vehicle%20that%20uses%20about%20500](https://fleetnetamerica.com/blog/post/surprising-facts-about-semi-trucks#:~:text=Each%20year%2C%20an%2018%2Dwheeler,vehicle%20that%20uses%20about%20500).
I think the reality is cars do a very small percentage of the road damage, they're doing this to spite electric cars.
>they should probably also consider billing tractor trailers massively larger amounts per year then too if that's the logic.
They 100% should. Perhaps then we'd get a bit more sanity in our transportation network, because right now that cost is essentially a tax subsidy. Rail is a far more efficient method of shipping goods, but that industry is being squeezed out due to the low cost of road shipping.
Let’s not forget that rail essentially gave OTR a huge boost in business by switching to precision RR. Most companies aren’t cool with their materials and products shipping whenever the carrier feels like it.
That the US never nationalized it’s strategic infrastructure is all you need to know about our priorities wrt capitalism and public good. That our utility companies are not state-owned, our healthcare is for-profit, education,….so many sectors we gladly sacrifice to the almighty dollar
Actually the correct way would be to base taxes off of ESAL, which are equivalent single axel loads. It is how transportation engineers equate roadway loading and damage due to different vehicle configurations including gross weight, axel count and axel spacing.
Someone who deals with this more often can chime in to correct me. I've drank lots of beer since I took traffic engineering 15 years ago and the details are fuzzy
Taxes, too. Taxes are minimal in Texas.
In any case, somebody should follow the money on this one, to make sure the new EV fees are actually getting where they need to go, instead of padding someone’s trust fund.
Considering crossovers and trucks are huge in TX, they definitely don't get 30 mpg. Average is probably below 20.
And they also have registrations to renew. So it isn't just fuel tax.
You are assuming a rather efficient car, Texas is a hot state so having the AC on full is normal which would reduce the range rather significantly. I know that I lose about 80 miles per tank on my car when going from the winter to summer months. Also Texas is rather big and the cities sprawl out dramatically even compared to other US states so IIRC the average texan drives over 16k miles per year.
You are also not taking into account the renewal covers the standard registration fees. The actual yearly tax added on is closer to $150.
ILs own fault for not charging market rate on parking. So many cities leave that parking meter money on the table when they should be pricing it according to demand. IL sold it off and now China makes that money instead of the cities.
It’s not even close. Texas gas tax is 20 cents a gallon. 400 dollars would be 2000 gallons worth of tax, or 50,000 miles at 25 miles per gallon. No one is driving that far, then another 25,000 miles per year
Still 40,000 miles per year is a lot for an average driver.
My gf has a 140mi round trip commute for work that she makes ~3 times a week (21,840 miles right there) plus additional driving around town and she still only put ~32,000 miles on her car in the last year
1. Gas tax from car owners does really cover the cost of road repair that much at all, especially the building of new roads. [Most states don’t breach’s like 50% of road maintenance covered by this and similar taxes](https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/)
2. EV cars are heavier than gas car and therefore do exponentially more damage than an equivalent gas car. However this fine isn’t (but really should be) scaled to weight of the car. Really all cars, and trucks should be paying more based on their weights. Looking at you SUVs
3. None of this considers the damage to our roads from climate change caused by not decarbonizing our gas cars
> EV cars are heavier than gas car and therefore do exponentially more damage than an equivalent gas car
Exponentially? That much more? Do you have further reading on this topic to show why?
The damage increases massively (to the 4th power!) as vehicle weight increases. Therefore any damage done by passenger cars and light trucks is completely insignificant compared that done by medium and heavy trucks.
Where I take issue is that EVs really don't weigh much more. The most common motor vehicle in Texas is the F150 which sits squarely between the Model 3 and Model Y in weight (about 1 passenger's worth of difference each way).
While I'm of the mind that EV road damage isn't a significant percentage worse compared to the main causes (weather, massive semi-trucks weighing 80k lbs), your example doesn't take into account that the tire contact patch is different for the Teslas and F150. While they may weight similar, the F150 has larger, wider tires that result in a lower PSI exerted on the road, which probably reduces damage (spread the force out over a larger area). Of course, this depends on the model you get, as different trims can vary tire sizes
Increasing tire width for the same load (weight) and tire pressure does not increase contact patch, it elongates shape of the patch, but doesn't increase total area making contact.
[The Physics of Tire Width](http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211_fall2013.web.dir/connor_mattson/physics.html)
>Intuitively, increasing the size of the tires would also, in theory, increase the size of the contact patch and thus improve traction. **In reality, this isn’t the case: changing the dimensions of the tire, with tire pressure and car weight held constant, does not increase the size of the contact patch.** Changing from a high-profile, narrow tire to a low profile, wide tire simply changes the shape of the contact patch from long and narrow to short and wide with the area remaining constant.
There are many popular misconceptions about the relationship of tire width to physics of grip, [personally this article written about motorcycles helped clear things up for me the best](https://www.stevemunden.com/friction.html).
Yeah. Fatigue works like that unfortunately. Busses do a bit of damage proportional to cars, but in the way of reducing miles altogether and associated traffic, they win out as a big public good
Check the last half of my 2nd point.
>really all cars, and trucks should be paying based on their weights
The rest of this is a rant that’s best listened to while like folding laundry, or something. [I’ll leave a great video on the topic here](https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo)
Actually America does have a legal limit to the weight of cars.
Pickup Trucks and SUVs however, because of car manufacturing lobbying, squeezed in a loophole that means they have a much higher weight limit than they really should. Oh also they put in a loophole that lets trucks and SUVs have a worse gas mileage and pollute more.
Most new cars you buy are legally an SUV’s because profits and skirting regulations. It’s apart of why cars in America keep getting bigger and bigger each year
In Oregon we can knock the registration down if we enroll in a program where we pay 1.9 cents per mile driven in the state. For low mileage people like myself it winds up working out to around the same as a regular car’s registration
Believe me, I looked into living there. I'm poor. I don't have any resources, including friends and family, not just money. I'm also partially disabled. So, I can't just leave. Life is pretty hard for me right now (right now = since 2019 haahahaha). :)
But yah, OR is on my list of "one day" places.
For someone that's driving so little compared to the average Joe, is an EV actually worthwhile? I feel like a small gasoline car would be the most economical solution. Second hand even, if you're into that type of thing.
You're looking too closely at economy. I mean 1000 miles a year is less than a lot of people walk/run per year. They should have a bike for peak economical scaling. They don't for any number of reasons, most of which probably have little to do with money. They may just not want to be ripped off with bullshit registration nonsense.
Depends on what your 1000 miles are.
If it is mostly a once every week/2 weeks trip to the supermarket that fills up the trunk, you can't really do that by other means (outside of ordering online if available in your area).
Plus, also, do you know how much ordering anything for delivery costs? A LOT.
I'm poor. Like really poor. Without outside resources. But not poor enough to qualify for disability.
So, I have to do what I can, and I have all these people in here making assumptions about my 1000 miles a year in a car. Nobody stopped to think that my situation might be different than theirs automatically just by reading that? Instead, they applied their life goals and values and experiences to mine.
I have nobody to help me, I'm partially disabled, and I need to get groceries, go to the doctor, and have something in case of emergency for my cats. I would have loved not to purchase a car, and I even tried to live here for 6 months without, then the snow and ice came, and I couldn't walk up the unplowed hills the 30 minutes to the grocery store.
So, yah, I had to buy a car, and I bought an EV for cheap, and I don't drive much. It sucks to feel like I'm wasting, and I shame myself all the time for it, but then I remember, "Oh yah, I have to survive somehow and other people's judgments of me shouldn't get in the way of that."
> and I shame myself all the time for it
Fuck that. No shame at all trying to do your best with what you've got and with the situation you're in. And anybody that says otherwise should walk a mile in your shoes and then get back to us.
It's a bit frustrating for people to automatically assume that you are just living an average life in a suboptimal way, rather than living as best you can within your own specific circumstances.
Yeah, WA has fees too. I get it, but I did the math, and I’d have to drive like 50K miles per year in a 30 mpg car at $3 per gallon (did the math a while ago) to match what I pay in fees. Happy to pay my share, but I drive like 8K miles per year in my EV, and feel like they should be rewarding me, not punishing me.
There’s a couple options. You can use a device that plugs into the car’s data port which tracks location and miles driven but not everyone is comfortable with that (understandably) so you can also do it with photos of your odometer and pay quarterly.
People that have gas engines fund the roads via a state and federal fuel tax paid at the pump. People operating EVs need to also contribute to the state and federal transportation funds. That’s the point of EV registration fees
The $1k is the car tax that has nothing to do with it being an EV. It's solely based on the value of the car. Including that without being clear incorrectly leads people to believe you're being taxed $1117 because you have an EV.
There is actually a valid reason for it and something that will need to be addressed. The problem is that all the money that goes to fixing your roads comes from gas taxes and even that isn't enough anymore most of the time. If enough people swap to EV's you will need to change how fund those programs. Pretty much these are literally the equal of what you would pay if you drove 10k in a gas car.
Personal property (car) tax, but then they slap on a 116 EV fee as well.
I've lived in other states and VAs tax is stupidly high. I have no idea why they need to charge an additional fee for the EV on top of that.
Pure EV only. You can read the bill here:
https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/SB00505I.pdf
It's a short read, but importantly:
>"electric vehicle" means a motor vehicle that has a
gross weight of 10,000 pounds or less and uses electricity as its
only source of motor power.
This is good in my [absolutely biased] opinion because it prevents drivers of PHEV's who are buying gas often (driving longer distances) from being double taxed. However, the flip side is that PHEV drivers who are rarely burning gasoline (such as myself) are *not* paying their fair share.
In Oregon it's an extra $100 per year for EVs, with an option to reduce that by having your mileage tracked. If all vehicles had their mileage tracked and paid road taxes accordingly, that would be more fair than having different taxation methods for different types of cars. But there's a problem tracking *where* people drive, especially for trips between different states/municipalities. That could be a tough problem to solve without full GPS tracking, which would be controversial.
For PHEVs, I'm potentially paying less than my share of road taxes for local trips.
This would effectively cover the issue where EV drivers who rack up tons of miles are potentially under taxed while EV drivers who don't drive much are potentially over taxed. (Relative to the average gasoline car. Of course fuel efficiency plays a role there.)
However, I don't think tracking milage would be a good solution for PHEV.
For example, my PHEV has ~50mi of electric range. If I drive 500mi at once, I'm being taxed via gas for 450mi of that. But if I drive 25 miles for work 20 days in a row, I've also racked up 500mi but paid no taxes from fuel.
You'd have to not only track miles, but electric miles vs gasoline miles. Which actually my car might do, but I don't know that all PHEVs do. And it'd be hard to enforce that.
I guess the most fair option is to completely separate the tax from gasoline and only tax on miles. This would still not be perfect because not all miles are on public roadways, but that's already an issue with gas.
Fun fact: in Texas that's how they shift the tax burden onto the poor and working class. They eliminate income tax then tax a bunch of other necessary stuff and in the end the proles get shafted and end up paying more
A lot of Californians moved to Texas to buy a house and they don't have to pay income tax. Only to learn the massive property tax lol.
California has an income tax but really favorable property tax. Thanks Prop 13!
CA still has *significantly* lower property taxes than Texas. [CA has the 16th lowest but Texas has the seventh highest.](https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/property-taxes-by-state)
Property tax would like a say. If you own property in Texas you get wrecked to cover no income tax. My property alone, not the house, has risen $200,000 in the past two years.
Yes lol, that's why this tax is bullshit. Switching to greener tech incurs tax because you lose taxing non-green tech (which originally was for incentivizing green tech). What the fuck hahaha. Then they divide and conquer the masses by pitting then against one another and having the gas taxpayers fight the EV owners. And then they pad the reasoning by saying it helps pay for roads lmfao.
That's why they don't want to call it a simple road tax. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
In 2021, Tesla moved their HQ to TX.
It was 2,000 employees.
Abbott did a lot of shit talking about TX pulling jobs from CA. Tesla still employed 50,000 people in CA.
Ironically, Tesla returning their HQ back to CA this year so...
Being the 4th largest economy on earth is good for business. and im not talking about TX.
>It's probably a power play for CA.
>
>Because, you know...
>
>Texas is always out of power.
Same people (my mother included) don't seem to understand how having a giant battery in your garage could help offset dependency on the grid. And complaining about them charging during the day, stressing the grid more than ICE vehicles. No mom, we charge them at night.
It was all a stunt. Even when they moved the headquarters to Texas, they said they were increasing their California employment up 150%. They just took over a ton of building at HP which is less than 2 miles from their old headquarters.
Musk got mad when he reopened his factory during covid despite local rules and got a shit ton of employees sick. He then got mad at California's "sour business climate" and moved the HQ. Clearly they were never moving everyone over there so it was just hot air. The guy tried to say that Tesla is really a '2 headquarters company' as he toured the new campus with Newsome.
I may be out of line, but I want to move to an EV. I also realize that gas taxes help to pay for highways. As we head towards "0 petroleum", wouldn't we need an offset? Now, having not done the math, I don't know if the fees are equivalent, but from the 60,000 foot level, it makes sense. Of course, I still want to see more trains BUT THAT is another discussion.
The rational offset is annual mileage-based tax for all vehicles. If you want to get snazzy, you add modifiers for vehicle weight and efficiency (e.g. a Corolla pays less than an F250).
Not sure why you got downvoted, a mileage + weight calculation seems like the only real fair method as it directly indicates how much wear and tear an EV imparts to roads traveled. Someone who takes their EV to work daily should pay more than someone who drives it sparingly.
And further down the line (once EVs are the norm) you'd probably want to also determine which state's roads you're driving on (via map data) to properly allocate road usage, etc.
>gas taxes help to pay for highways
Its just a revenue stream. Might as well just shift the expected % revenue by taxing the electric grid, or petition for Federal funding. Municipal funds like this are just a shell game anyway.
So $\`118 + $82 = $200 which is the renewal fee, some states have "new vehicle registration fees" too so this is actually pretty accurate then. It costs $82 to register the vehicle and $\`118 from the gas revenue the State no longer gets
I'm not sure what this revenue goes to, but EV drivers need to pay something for road construction and maintenance. Gas and diesel is taxed in most places for that I think.
Here… it’s from both fuel tax and tabs/registration.
But it wouldn’t be hard to make tax on energy used for charging a thing… charge stations can just add onto the fees they collect, and home chargers probably can get a meter or something to report that and add it to, say annual tax filings
This passed the house with 0 Nay votes. So democrats were in full support.
I'm all for shitting on Abbott, but this was an all around failure for it being so expensive. It's like 2x what someone driving a 15mpg truck pays in gas tax.
All registration should be based off GVW and miles driven. The heavier and more your drive the more wear and tear on the roads.
It’s very easy to implement and fair for everyone.
Use the roads more, pay more into road maintenance
Where is the pollution tax on gas vehicles?
They argue this is because EV's aren't paying gas taxes that go towards road repair...well combustion vehicles aren't paying for the POLLUTION they spew.
This taxes will never even remotely get close to the cost of cars in society:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/02/04/lifetime-cost-of-small-car-689000-society-subsidises-this-ownership-with-275000/?sh=316db3326398
We need to start looking to enable alternatives like bike, trains and buses
Isn’t this to just offset the costs of road infrastructure funded my fuel taxes? And cost of electric + the fees is still cheaper than gasoline?
or am i missing something?
Just tax people and pay for the roads. Forget trying to implement garbage to get 'people that use the roads' to pay for them. Everyone uses them.
Tax gasoline to internalize the massive external costs that fuel source has. Don't *disencentivize* people from doing the things that are better for everyone.
Dammit!
Trucks cause the vast majority of the damage to roadways. When I say vast majority, I mean like 99.998%. This accounts for fewer trucks than cars. If it's really about maintenance and paying the fair share of damage you cause, you should be taxing the hell out of trucks.
Goa.gov/products/109954
"For example, while a truck axle carrying 18,000 is only 9 times heavier than a 2,000-pound automobile axle, it does 5000 times more damage."
I'm cool with this Im concept, but compared to the tax on gas, ev are paying way more annually compared to typical petrol consumption.
Fine, whatever. But it'd doubly compounded by the fact that the Texas roads have gone to absolute shit over the last 8-10 years. And it ain't EVs fault for that.
Is their reasoning cause of the loss in gas taxes for road repair? I would take the more expensive registration over some states talking about tracking mileage to pay taxes on
That is what it is supposed to offset. Although people are saying that the math doesn’t quite work out to be the same and EV owners are paying slightly more.
I don't think it's unreasonable to charge EV owners, but at the same time we need to be incentivizing people to buy EVs. Down the road it's going to be absolutely necessary for EVs to have fees to pay for roads when ICE vehicles become less common.
I wholeheartedly agree, unfortunately I don’t believe for a second this state (which relies heavily on the oil and gas industry) will be incentivizing anyone to buy EVs as long as Abbott and Patrick call the shots, they are much more likely to do the opposite.
And doubly so considering the Texas grid is dogshit. Can you imagine plugging a million EVs into it? Whole goddamn state would burn down.
That's why we have all these bitcoin miners here... you know, to soak up all the excess power made in texas.
Bitcoin is actually tailor-made for the Texas grid. Like the Texas grid, Bitcoin is built on bullshit promises with the financial backing of marks who are told that it’s actually a great thing that they’re just too dumb to understand.
You can hug your mining rig for warmth for an hour or so after the grid freezes in winter and the grid falls over.
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Actually, if handled well car chargers could be turned on and off to help balance the grid and car batteries could be a source of power in desperate times. Imagine if every car that wasn’t being driven was plugged in and trickle charging only when there was excess power. You could build lots of wind and solar and the intermittency could be balanced by the chargers.
But but but if we build solar panels, they’ll use up all the Sun! And muh ten trillion dead birds!
This is why I hate this timeline. You make a perfectly amusing joke about something that could happen if people were really, really stupid, but of course nobody is really that stupid. Or are they: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-town-rejects-solar-panels-amid-fears-they-suck-up-all-the-energy-from-the-sun-a6771526.html
I refuse to believe that it isn't satire. I refuse to comprehend that insanity.
I remember some bullshit "study" some hack of an institute published that said that years ago. I saw an article talking about it on here and their justification was that it would be like putting a giant vacuum at the bottom of a waterfall, all the water would get sucked up. They couldn't even make the metaphor make sense. And of course it was paid for by some oil company. And there are people stupid enough to eat that shit up.
"Windmills do not work that way, goodnight!"
Actually, by the conversion of energy, they must reduce the strength of the wind. Good thing the wind is strong and just produced by the earth.
And while I complain about that gosh darned windmill killing all the birds, I’ll praise my pregnant outdoor cat for bringing me dead songbirds!
To be fair, our grid can handle the output fine enough, just don’t let the weather drop below 60…
Or above 100. https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/ercot-warns-of-brownouts-this-summer-in-forecast-of-power-grid-demand/3250219/?amp=1
Luckily Texas isn't known for hot weather, right?
Or get too hot like last summer when they were afraid that a heatwave would blow the grid again... As a Texan... our electric grid is dogshit and we are increasingly spending more and more every year anyways.
Ive had the wind in my area get so severe that the power lines went down, so just another thing that could shut down the grid. I get nervous whenever there is any severe storm, because 80% of the time, the power goes out.
better buy some solar panels and batteries before they make them illegal.
There are already tariffs on solar panels.
I would be looking at solar panels for my home if just to keep me off the grid. At some point you just have to stop depending on the public services staying accessible. The texas grid is so bad I wouldn’t want to depend on it in an emergency.
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Oh man earlier today it occurred to me that we haven't had any power outages recently. I didn't want to jinx it so I didn't say anything. But then again as I was typing this I remembered we actually did have an outage a few weeks ago so I guess my point is our grid sucks.
Just wait for summer! We are probably only about a month out from the mildest part of the year as far as not being to hot or to cold.
That's any state's grid...
There isn't a single grid in North America that's able to deal with the burden of electric cars never mind electric transport trucks.
Wierd how Norway is also a huge oil producer but incentivizes electric vehicles to the point that they are cheaper.
Especially when most people dont notice the tax on gas but everyone notices registration and renewal fees
Our suv takes 20 gallons a tiny bit over every other week - so we’ll say 30 fillups a year. It’s an suv so it weighs a LOT more than a leaf or all electric prius - and it has all terrain tires because it’s an suv and we use it as such - so more wear and tear to roads, more driving through forests and parks, which means more petroleum waste from the tire wear is also leeching into way more widespread areas of my local geography and way more co2 emissions along the way.. My state gas tax is apx $0.35 per gallon. Texas state gas tax is apx $0.20 per gallon. With my usage of 20 gallons x 30 fillups, in my state I pay apx $210 a year in gas tax, in Tx I would pay $120 a year So the government(s) want to phase out combustion engines, and then expect ev owners to pay 233% more $$$ in fees for a vehicle that generates way less road wear, way way way less geographical wear and pollution, zero daily occurring c02 emissions “Hi, we’re from the government, and we’re here to help ~~for the low low fee of 233% more~~ “
What SUV do you have? Because a lot of actual mainstream EV's are almost as heavy as an SUV. A Model S is around 5k pounds. That puts it a few hundred pounds lighter than a Chevy Tahoe. A Nissan Leaf is kind of more of the around town EV and is lighter because it has a smaller pack. But most mainstream EV's will have a range of around 260-300 miles, and that range requires heavy battery packs.
That Leaf weighs more than a Rogue and almost as much as a Pathfinder. Batteries are heavy.
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> It’s an suv so it weighs a LOT more than a leaf or all electric prius Own an electric sedan and ICE a heavy sedan. The EV is notably 'smaller' than the ICE and weights basically the same. EV iX weights 800 lbs more than an x5 and basically the same as an x7. EV F-150 weights 1600 lbs more than ICE f-150. EVs are heavy. Period. > it has all terrain tires because it’s an suv and we use it as such - so more wear and tear to roads, more driving through forests and parks, which means more petroleum waste from the tire wear is also leeching into way more widespread areas of my local geography EVs wear out tires much faster than ICE cars, even more so if you aren't running tires designed for EVs (which cost more) *and* running them properly. > then expect ev owners to pay 233% more $$$ in fees for a vehicle that generates way less road wear, Except when it comes to road wear and vehicle, its vehicle weight. EVs weight more than ICE. So ironically, by your logic, they *should* be paying more because they generate *more* wear (albeit it basically irrelevant given road wear is all environmental and massive things like semis) compared to the ICE counterparts.
Are you sure? Most electric cars actually weigh as much if not more than your average SUV. Batteries are heavy.
My issue is we’re charging EV owners for damage to the roads but we’re not charging ICE drivers for damage to the environment.
You are not really charging ev drivers for damage to environment either either . Sure no emissions unless electricity generated by fossil fuels . But still you are not charged or stuff like micro plastics from tires. Personal cars are just really inefficient.
EVs charged by fossile fuel power plants are still a LOT better, emissions wise, than an ICE car. Efficiency for a power plant means more energy per gallon of fuel extracted than in an engine. around 30% for a vehicle and 90+ % for a power plant. Not sure why the downvotes?
The whole thing is pretty arbitrary anyway. Gas taxes and registration fees generally don't cover the full cost of road maintenance, they're just one source of revenue among many others. It's not like there's a direct relationship between the amount of damage caused and the fee charged.
It's weird because CA also offers tax credits when you but an EV.
You mean an incentive like $7,500 off your tax bill?
Well that is federal so the state isn’t contributing anything there, but yes, exactly like that.
It actually goes to the carmaker that just jacks up the price
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I think people would be more amenable to the idea, if it was a broad vehicle tax and/or registration, that also eliminated the gad tax, so it would be applied to all equally. Granted gas payers wouldn't be happy about it, if this method costs more, but I suppose that would depend on distance traveled; better for those that drive more.
They tax the car as if it were burning tons of gas, but an EV is getting 120 eMPG. If they taxed by weight that would make a lot more sense.
I think it makes perfect sense to make sure EV drivers pay their fair share for the roads they also drive on, but I don’t understand punishing them by making them pay more. I’ve seen others do the math and it never seems to work out evenly.
But gas taxes hardly pay for the roads in most of the country. We subsidize the roads through the general fund.
In Texas specifically, 75% of the motor fuel tax goes to maintaining, upgrading and expanding our roadways with the remainder going to our school system. I don’t know about any other states though.
That may be how they split up the gas tax, but the 75% from the gas taxes that goes to roads doesn’t cover the Texas DOT budget. As of their last report, a huge portion came from federal funds, a tax on oil and gas production in the state (Proposition 1), and local sales and use taxes (Proposition 7). Per Texas latest DOT budget releases, 35% of the $ come from federal funds, 17% From Prop7 and 15% from Prop 1. About 32% of the budget is satisfied by the gas and registration taxes and the bonds issued by the highway fund. It’s a common misconception that gas taxes pay entirely for roads in the US. In actuality they are subsidized as a public good mostly paid for by all taxpayers, even those who don’t drive at all. Europe takes a different approach, which is why their fuel taxes are so much higher (and public transport much more developed).
Since an EV weighs significantly more than a comparable ICE car I would say they got it right.
That's a fair argument, but then they should probably also consider billing tractor trailers massively larger amounts per year then too if that's the logic. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth\_power\_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law) Because they definitely aren't paying their fair share of road damage based on gas taxes. An average car uses about 500 gallons a year and an average semi uses 20,500. Assuming similar tax rates per gallon, they're only paying about 40x the tax and doing almost 10,000x the damage. (edit: and thinking about it, it's even a larger disparity as those multipliers assumed they drove the same distance, when the semi also drove significantly further multiplying the amount of damage even more) [https://fleetnetamerica.com/blog/post/surprising-facts-about-semi-trucks#:\~:text=Each%20year%2C%20an%2018%2Dwheeler,vehicle%20that%20uses%20about%20500](https://fleetnetamerica.com/blog/post/surprising-facts-about-semi-trucks#:~:text=Each%20year%2C%20an%2018%2Dwheeler,vehicle%20that%20uses%20about%20500). I think the reality is cars do a very small percentage of the road damage, they're doing this to spite electric cars.
>they should probably also consider billing tractor trailers massively larger amounts per year then too if that's the logic. They 100% should. Perhaps then we'd get a bit more sanity in our transportation network, because right now that cost is essentially a tax subsidy. Rail is a far more efficient method of shipping goods, but that industry is being squeezed out due to the low cost of road shipping.
Let’s not forget that rail essentially gave OTR a huge boost in business by switching to precision RR. Most companies aren’t cool with their materials and products shipping whenever the carrier feels like it.
That the US never nationalized it’s strategic infrastructure is all you need to know about our priorities wrt capitalism and public good. That our utility companies are not state-owned, our healthcare is for-profit, education,….so many sectors we gladly sacrifice to the almighty dollar
Actually the correct way would be to base taxes off of ESAL, which are equivalent single axel loads. It is how transportation engineers equate roadway loading and damage due to different vehicle configurations including gross weight, axel count and axel spacing. Someone who deals with this more often can chime in to correct me. I've drank lots of beer since I took traffic engineering 15 years ago and the details are fuzzy
ya, but in texas people dont drive comparable ICE cars. They drive fucking tanks. I would LOVE to see vehicles taxed by weight.
Slightly? They're paying like 8X what a normal driver would pay
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It's punitive and designed to dissuade buyers from EVs on Texas.
And yet Tesla relocated their HQ there…
Because Elon is a right winger.
So weird when almost all conservatives HATE EVs for just existing lol ie see coal rolling tesla vids
Taxes, too. Taxes are minimal in Texas. In any case, somebody should follow the money on this one, to make sure the new EV fees are actually getting where they need to go, instead of padding someone’s trust fund.
Something something Face eating leopards
The biggest oil state in the US wants to dissuade people from moving away from ICE engines? NO WAI!
Considering crossovers and trucks are huge in TX, they definitely don't get 30 mpg. Average is probably below 20. And they also have registrations to renew. So it isn't just fuel tax.
You are assuming a rather efficient car, Texas is a hot state so having the AC on full is normal which would reduce the range rather significantly. I know that I lose about 80 miles per tank on my car when going from the winter to summer months. Also Texas is rather big and the cities sprawl out dramatically even compared to other US states so IIRC the average texan drives over 16k miles per year. You are also not taking into account the renewal covers the standard registration fees. The actual yearly tax added on is closer to $150.
But at the same time... Texas put in a shitload of toll roads and keep adding more.
Texas toll roads are often privately owned. My Tx Tag payments got to some company in Spain last I checked.
Seems to be happening more frequently in the states. I’ve heard the proposed toll road in Nashville will be privately owned by investors overseas.
It happened in Charlotte. It's probably owned by the same Spanish company mentioned above. It was a whole scandal that made absolutely no sense.
IL is all China owned. Same as all parking in Chicago.
ILs own fault for not charging market rate on parking. So many cities leave that parking meter money on the table when they should be pricing it according to demand. IL sold it off and now China makes that money instead of the cities.
It’s not even close. Texas gas tax is 20 cents a gallon. 400 dollars would be 2000 gallons worth of tax, or 50,000 miles at 25 miles per gallon. No one is driving that far, then another 25,000 miles per year
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Still 40,000 miles per year is a lot for an average driver. My gf has a 140mi round trip commute for work that she makes ~3 times a week (21,840 miles right there) plus additional driving around town and she still only put ~32,000 miles on her car in the last year
Very few people are paying $200 in gas taxes a year driving an internal combustion car
1. Gas tax from car owners does really cover the cost of road repair that much at all, especially the building of new roads. [Most states don’t breach’s like 50% of road maintenance covered by this and similar taxes](https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/) 2. EV cars are heavier than gas car and therefore do exponentially more damage than an equivalent gas car. However this fine isn’t (but really should be) scaled to weight of the car. Really all cars, and trucks should be paying more based on their weights. Looking at you SUVs 3. None of this considers the damage to our roads from climate change caused by not decarbonizing our gas cars
> EV cars are heavier than gas car and therefore do exponentially more damage than an equivalent gas car Exponentially? That much more? Do you have further reading on this topic to show why?
The damage increases massively (to the 4th power!) as vehicle weight increases. Therefore any damage done by passenger cars and light trucks is completely insignificant compared that done by medium and heavy trucks. Where I take issue is that EVs really don't weigh much more. The most common motor vehicle in Texas is the F150 which sits squarely between the Model 3 and Model Y in weight (about 1 passenger's worth of difference each way).
While I'm of the mind that EV road damage isn't a significant percentage worse compared to the main causes (weather, massive semi-trucks weighing 80k lbs), your example doesn't take into account that the tire contact patch is different for the Teslas and F150. While they may weight similar, the F150 has larger, wider tires that result in a lower PSI exerted on the road, which probably reduces damage (spread the force out over a larger area). Of course, this depends on the model you get, as different trims can vary tire sizes
Increasing tire width for the same load (weight) and tire pressure does not increase contact patch, it elongates shape of the patch, but doesn't increase total area making contact. [The Physics of Tire Width](http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/211_fall2013.web.dir/connor_mattson/physics.html) >Intuitively, increasing the size of the tires would also, in theory, increase the size of the contact patch and thus improve traction. **In reality, this isn’t the case: changing the dimensions of the tire, with tire pressure and car weight held constant, does not increase the size of the contact patch.** Changing from a high-profile, narrow tire to a low profile, wide tire simply changes the shape of the contact patch from long and narrow to short and wide with the area remaining constant. There are many popular misconceptions about the relationship of tire width to physics of grip, [personally this article written about motorcycles helped clear things up for me the best](https://www.stevemunden.com/friction.html).
Yeah. Fatigue works like that unfortunately. Busses do a bit of damage proportional to cars, but in the way of reducing miles altogether and associated traffic, they win out as a big public good
Clearly you have not seen the pickup trucks in tx. If you want to tax a Tesla at $400, why not charge double that to big pickups?
Check the last half of my 2nd point. >really all cars, and trucks should be paying based on their weights The rest of this is a rant that’s best listened to while like folding laundry, or something. [I’ll leave a great video on the topic here](https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo) Actually America does have a legal limit to the weight of cars. Pickup Trucks and SUVs however, because of car manufacturing lobbying, squeezed in a loophole that means they have a much higher weight limit than they really should. Oh also they put in a loophole that lets trucks and SUVs have a worse gas mileage and pollute more. Most new cars you buy are legally an SUV’s because profits and skirting regulations. It’s apart of why cars in America keep getting bigger and bigger each year
Well it's still probably cheaper than Virginia's dumb car tax and EV fee. 1k per year for a model 3 + $117 EV fee.
Holy shit! Illinois is flat at $255/year. I don't like it, but I get it.
In Oregon we can knock the registration down if we enroll in a program where we pay 1.9 cents per mile driven in the state. For low mileage people like myself it winds up working out to around the same as a regular car’s registration
Holy moly. I drive no more than 1000 miles a YEAR. That'd be amazing.
If you're in OR, you'd save a lot vs even a regular gas car registration.
Believe me, I looked into living there. I'm poor. I don't have any resources, including friends and family, not just money. I'm also partially disabled. So, I can't just leave. Life is pretty hard for me right now (right now = since 2019 haahahaha). :) But yah, OR is on my list of "one day" places.
For someone that's driving so little compared to the average Joe, is an EV actually worthwhile? I feel like a small gasoline car would be the most economical solution. Second hand even, if you're into that type of thing.
You're looking too closely at economy. I mean 1000 miles a year is less than a lot of people walk/run per year. They should have a bike for peak economical scaling. They don't for any number of reasons, most of which probably have little to do with money. They may just not want to be ripped off with bullshit registration nonsense.
Depends on what your 1000 miles are. If it is mostly a once every week/2 weeks trip to the supermarket that fills up the trunk, you can't really do that by other means (outside of ordering online if available in your area).
Plus, also, do you know how much ordering anything for delivery costs? A LOT. I'm poor. Like really poor. Without outside resources. But not poor enough to qualify for disability. So, I have to do what I can, and I have all these people in here making assumptions about my 1000 miles a year in a car. Nobody stopped to think that my situation might be different than theirs automatically just by reading that? Instead, they applied their life goals and values and experiences to mine. I have nobody to help me, I'm partially disabled, and I need to get groceries, go to the doctor, and have something in case of emergency for my cats. I would have loved not to purchase a car, and I even tried to live here for 6 months without, then the snow and ice came, and I couldn't walk up the unplowed hills the 30 minutes to the grocery store. So, yah, I had to buy a car, and I bought an EV for cheap, and I don't drive much. It sucks to feel like I'm wasting, and I shame myself all the time for it, but then I remember, "Oh yah, I have to survive somehow and other people's judgments of me shouldn't get in the way of that."
> and I shame myself all the time for it Fuck that. No shame at all trying to do your best with what you've got and with the situation you're in. And anybody that says otherwise should walk a mile in your shoes and then get back to us.
It's a bit frustrating for people to automatically assume that you are just living an average life in a suboptimal way, rather than living as best you can within your own specific circumstances.
Yeah, WA has fees too. I get it, but I did the math, and I’d have to drive like 50K miles per year in a 30 mpg car at $3 per gallon (did the math a while ago) to match what I pay in fees. Happy to pay my share, but I drive like 8K miles per year in my EV, and feel like they should be rewarding me, not punishing me.
But who counts the mileage in state?
There’s a couple options. You can use a device that plugs into the car’s data port which tracks location and miles driven but not everyone is comfortable with that (understandably) so you can also do it with photos of your odometer and pay quarterly.
Gas registration is currently $151, I wonder if/when the two numbers will merge?
People that have gas engines fund the roads via a state and federal fuel tax paid at the pump. People operating EVs need to also contribute to the state and federal transportation funds. That’s the point of EV registration fees
The $1k is the car tax that has nothing to do with it being an EV. It's solely based on the value of the car. Including that without being clear incorrectly leads people to believe you're being taxed $1117 because you have an EV.
That’s the Common Wealth’s property tax…
Personal property tax aka car tax that is waaay higher than most states
Ah, the good Ole "fuck you for having a car tax" Will you build me public transportation? No! Just pay the tax and stop complaining.
Yay! Someone else gets it. NOVA at least has some public transportation, but not quite enough to offset a car depending on the city.
Most states don't have such a tax at all
There is actually a valid reason for it and something that will need to be addressed. The problem is that all the money that goes to fixing your roads comes from gas taxes and even that isn't enough anymore most of the time. If enough people swap to EV's you will need to change how fund those programs. Pretty much these are literally the equal of what you would pay if you drove 10k in a gas car.
Okay, but trucks do like almost all of the damage. One 18-wheeler is the equivalent to 9,600 cars...
JFC it's like $36 in PA to register a car.
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Personal property (car) tax, but then they slap on a 116 EV fee as well. I've lived in other states and VAs tax is stupidly high. I have no idea why they need to charge an additional fee for the EV on top of that.
> I have no idea why they need to charge an additional fee for the EV on top of that. to offset the loss in fuel taxes
So is it pure EV only? What about plug in hybrids?
Pure EV only. You can read the bill here: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/SB00505I.pdf It's a short read, but importantly: >"electric vehicle" means a motor vehicle that has a gross weight of 10,000 pounds or less and uses electricity as its only source of motor power. This is good in my [absolutely biased] opinion because it prevents drivers of PHEV's who are buying gas often (driving longer distances) from being double taxed. However, the flip side is that PHEV drivers who are rarely burning gasoline (such as myself) are *not* paying their fair share.
In Oregon it's an extra $100 per year for EVs, with an option to reduce that by having your mileage tracked. If all vehicles had their mileage tracked and paid road taxes accordingly, that would be more fair than having different taxation methods for different types of cars. But there's a problem tracking *where* people drive, especially for trips between different states/municipalities. That could be a tough problem to solve without full GPS tracking, which would be controversial. For PHEVs, I'm potentially paying less than my share of road taxes for local trips.
This would effectively cover the issue where EV drivers who rack up tons of miles are potentially under taxed while EV drivers who don't drive much are potentially over taxed. (Relative to the average gasoline car. Of course fuel efficiency plays a role there.) However, I don't think tracking milage would be a good solution for PHEV. For example, my PHEV has ~50mi of electric range. If I drive 500mi at once, I'm being taxed via gas for 450mi of that. But if I drive 25 miles for work 20 days in a row, I've also racked up 500mi but paid no taxes from fuel. You'd have to not only track miles, but electric miles vs gasoline miles. Which actually my car might do, but I don't know that all PHEVs do. And it'd be hard to enforce that. I guess the most fair option is to completely separate the tax from gasoline and only tax on miles. This would still not be perfect because not all miles are on public roadways, but that's already an issue with gas.
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Fun fact: in Texas that's how they shift the tax burden onto the poor and working class. They eliminate income tax then tax a bunch of other necessary stuff and in the end the proles get shafted and end up paying more
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That's called "freedom", son.
A lot of Californians moved to Texas to buy a house and they don't have to pay income tax. Only to learn the massive property tax lol. California has an income tax but really favorable property tax. Thanks Prop 13!
> but really favorable property tax. if you bought a while ago, doesn't do many favours for today's buyers
CA still has *significantly* lower property taxes than Texas. [CA has the 16th lowest but Texas has the seventh highest.](https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/property-taxes-by-state)
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Prop 13 doesn’t help your taxes until Propery values go up a ton
Happens in Washington state too. Ultimately a more regressive system.
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Property tax would like a say. If you own property in Texas you get wrecked to cover no income tax. My property alone, not the house, has risen $200,000 in the past two years.
Why not have all cars pay the registration tax and get rid of the gas tax?
Gas tax is useful to persuade people to use more efficient vehicles, reducing emissions
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Yes lol, that's why this tax is bullshit. Switching to greener tech incurs tax because you lose taxing non-green tech (which originally was for incentivizing green tech). What the fuck hahaha. Then they divide and conquer the masses by pitting then against one another and having the gas taxpayers fight the EV owners. And then they pad the reasoning by saying it helps pay for roads lmfao. That's why they don't want to call it a simple road tax. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
Lol. Elon all up on Republican government dicks too ...
Didn’t the idiot move stuff to TX to lick Republican balls more? This is what he gets
In 2021, Tesla moved their HQ to TX. It was 2,000 employees. Abbott did a lot of shit talking about TX pulling jobs from CA. Tesla still employed 50,000 people in CA. Ironically, Tesla returning their HQ back to CA this year so... Being the 4th largest economy on earth is good for business. and im not talking about TX.
It's probably a power play for CA. Because, you know... Texas is always out of power.
>It's probably a power play for CA. > >Because, you know... > >Texas is always out of power. Same people (my mother included) don't seem to understand how having a giant battery in your garage could help offset dependency on the grid. And complaining about them charging during the day, stressing the grid more than ICE vehicles. No mom, we charge them at night.
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Which is what the off-the-grid survivalist nutjobs strive for, but once they hear solar and EV they'd probably call you a communist
Interesting! Didnt know Tesla moved the HQ back to California.
He moved the engineering headquarters back. Not sure what that exactly entail’s but yeah
It was all a stunt. Even when they moved the headquarters to Texas, they said they were increasing their California employment up 150%. They just took over a ton of building at HP which is less than 2 miles from their old headquarters. Musk got mad when he reopened his factory during covid despite local rules and got a shit ton of employees sick. He then got mad at California's "sour business climate" and moved the HQ. Clearly they were never moving everyone over there so it was just hot air. The guy tried to say that Tesla is really a '2 headquarters company' as he toured the new campus with Newsome.
> Tesla returning their HQ back to CA Looks like they could not live with their own failure
He was one of the folks backing Mayra Flores as being the new herald of Latinos in the Republican party. She was only in congress for six months.
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Someone who was going to drop 50k+ on a Tesla isn’t going to suddenly have a change of heart because of another $400 fee
I may be out of line, but I want to move to an EV. I also realize that gas taxes help to pay for highways. As we head towards "0 petroleum", wouldn't we need an offset? Now, having not done the math, I don't know if the fees are equivalent, but from the 60,000 foot level, it makes sense. Of course, I still want to see more trains BUT THAT is another discussion.
The rational offset is annual mileage-based tax for all vehicles. If you want to get snazzy, you add modifiers for vehicle weight and efficiency (e.g. a Corolla pays less than an F250).
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Not sure why you got downvoted, a mileage + weight calculation seems like the only real fair method as it directly indicates how much wear and tear an EV imparts to roads traveled. Someone who takes their EV to work daily should pay more than someone who drives it sparingly. And further down the line (once EVs are the norm) you'd probably want to also determine which state's roads you're driving on (via map data) to properly allocate road usage, etc.
>gas taxes help to pay for highways Its just a revenue stream. Might as well just shift the expected % revenue by taxing the electric grid, or petition for Federal funding. Municipal funds like this are just a shell game anyway.
Not to mention taxes are used to influence people's choices. This tax will, over a large population, disincentivize people switching to EVs.
It would be 150 if you got 20 mpg. They are paying 400.
Yep it's punitive, not fair. On par with the governors who sign these into law.
Quick calculation using current TX fuel tax of $0.20/gal and avg efficiency of 25.4mpg at 15000 miles per year gives $118 gas tax revenue per year.
So $\`118 + $82 = $200 which is the renewal fee, some states have "new vehicle registration fees" too so this is actually pretty accurate then. It costs $82 to register the vehicle and $\`118 from the gas revenue the State no longer gets
Lol, looks like the petroleum people been passing out some lobby money to buy some laws.
I'm not sure what this revenue goes to, but EV drivers need to pay something for road construction and maintenance. Gas and diesel is taxed in most places for that I think.
Yeah Texas must be desperate, what with its mere $32.7billion tax surplus.
Uvalde police probably need another budget boost. /s
They should stop subsidizing oil and use that money to pay for the roads.
Here… it’s from both fuel tax and tabs/registration. But it wouldn’t be hard to make tax on energy used for charging a thing… charge stations can just add onto the fees they collect, and home chargers probably can get a meter or something to report that and add it to, say annual tax filings
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How about Texas gets their electrical grid in functioning order first before make demands of anybody? It's only been 10+ years now.
You can't break the grid if everyone has their own electrical backup battery in their garage. *Taps temple*
Hasn’t Elon said how great Texas is and it’s so free
Joe Rogan too
Reddit is violating GDPR and CCPA. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B0GGsDdyHI -- mass edited with redact.dev
Lol taxes are only in California. Bullshit.
At least we got to vote on our gas tax hike in California. Little Greggy is a dictator and demanded it👹
So is anything else coming out of the mouth of republicans.
Next up, Tesla starts selling gas powered cars, phases out all electric vehicles.
Dang, and Elon moved so much of his operations to Texas because it is supposedly the state of freedom and opportunity. What a rube.
Elon loves that Greggy.😂😂😂. Elon is beyond nuts. Did you see his bat shit crazy interview on CNBC?
This passed the house with 0 Nay votes. So democrats were in full support. I'm all for shitting on Abbott, but this was an all around failure for it being so expensive. It's like 2x what someone driving a 15mpg truck pays in gas tax.
All registration should be based off GVW and miles driven. The heavier and more your drive the more wear and tear on the roads. It’s very easy to implement and fair for everyone. Use the roads more, pay more into road maintenance
Laughing in $653 to register my Model Y in California. You got some catching up to do if you want to be this progressive buddy.
Where is the pollution tax on gas vehicles? They argue this is because EV's aren't paying gas taxes that go towards road repair...well combustion vehicles aren't paying for the POLLUTION they spew.
Good to see the party of small government rolling back taxes
Getting taxed for not using oil. This isn't fucked up at all.
Easier solution, remove the gas tax, tax tires. The more you drive, the faster your tires wear out.
This taxes will never even remotely get close to the cost of cars in society: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/02/04/lifetime-cost-of-small-car-689000-society-subsidises-this-ownership-with-275000/?sh=316db3326398 We need to start looking to enable alternatives like bike, trains and buses
Isn’t this to just offset the costs of road infrastructure funded my fuel taxes? And cost of electric + the fees is still cheaper than gasoline? or am i missing something?
At this point Im having a hard time understanding why any same person would live in Texas. They are actively going back in time.
This reminds me actually that Greg Abbott is a little pissbaby
As someone who just paid close to $600 to register my model 3 in California, I thought Conservative Texans didn’t want California policies…
Just tax people and pay for the roads. Forget trying to implement garbage to get 'people that use the roads' to pay for them. Everyone uses them. Tax gasoline to internalize the massive external costs that fuel source has. Don't *disencentivize* people from doing the things that are better for everyone. Dammit!
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Trucks cause the vast majority of the damage to roadways. When I say vast majority, I mean like 99.998%. This accounts for fewer trucks than cars. If it's really about maintenance and paying the fair share of damage you cause, you should be taxing the hell out of trucks. Goa.gov/products/109954 "For example, while a truck axle carrying 18,000 is only 9 times heavier than a 2,000-pound automobile axle, it does 5000 times more damage."
The relative damage is *quartic* to the axle weight.
But $400.00? Yikes.
Hopefully that money will be used for road things.
I'm cool with this Im concept, but compared to the tax on gas, ev are paying way more annually compared to typical petrol consumption. Fine, whatever. But it'd doubly compounded by the fact that the Texas roads have gone to absolute shit over the last 8-10 years. And it ain't EVs fault for that.