Slashdot Mirror
Oregon Testing Pay-Per-Mile Driving Fee To Replace Gas Tax
schwit1 tips news that Oregon will become the first U.S. state to test a program to replace their gas tax with a fee for each mile citizens drive on public roads. The 5,000 people voluntarily participating in the test will be charged 1.5 cents per mile. Revenue from gas tax has been on the decline as vehicles get more fuel efficient and as hybrids and electric cars become more popular. This measure is an attempt to raise the amount of money the state takes in to pay for infrastructure projects. Many owners of those hybrid and electric vehicles are upset, saying it specifically targets them and discourages environmentally-friendly transportation. Others point out that those who drive electric vehicles need the roads maintained just as much as people still driving gas-powered cars.
Why not just tolls? That's a per-mileage solution that doesn't penalize hybrid and electric owners.
The tax burden shifts from low MPG vehicles to high MPG vehicles. Sounds like an environmentally friendly idea to me...
Lower mpg vehicles often tend to be heavier (e.g. trucks & SUVs) which one assumes causes more wear than a lighter vehicle.
with the aim of knowing your where abouts at all times. If you don't want a gas tax, charge a weight based fee at registration. And if you really, really must have a milage based tax, do it at the annual inspection based on total miles over the prior year. Accept that there is no perfect solution but that putting monitors inside people's cars is about as offensively bad as it gets.
They can bike or walk or take the bus.
Electric vehicles create wear and tear on roads, even more than an equivalent car since a battery pack is heavier (but can be better for the environment GHG impact).
The argument that it is targeting them is telling how selfish those hybrid/battery car owners really are (not all of them, just those complaining). Oregon is basically just closing a loophole.
Currently, Oregon has a $0.30 per gallon fuel tax. Plus conversion factors for unusual fuels.
This $0.015/mile tax is equivalent, therefore, to the rate you'd be paying if your car got 20 mpg.
So the volunteers will come out ahead if they have gas-guzzlers, and way behind if they have even reasonably fuel efficient vehicles.
And in exchange for higher taxes on driving, they get the privilege of providing Oregon information on how much they travel and WHERE THEY TRAVEL.
What could possibly go wrong with this idea?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You Americans don't even know gas tax. Try raising it to European levels.
This seems really backward for OR being green and all.
Because the present gas tax is paid by consumption, drivers would be motivated to drive less and drive more efficiently.
But a pay by distance... kind of penalizes someone driving efficiently. Ultra efficient hybrid pays same tax as that asshole driving a Hummer.
My dad is a retired materials science engineer; a road with infinite life for a car, will have a lifetime of something like 10 years for a fully loaded semi... They are the problem, not the cars. Tax the semis much more for the damage done to the road, vs mile driven.
The clear and simple compromise is to tax based on vehicle weight * miles. Taxes those heavier (more damaging to roads) more too. Would also still help discourage people from driving around their empty 3 ton SUVs all day.
If vehicles consume less fuel, raise the fuel tax. It will have the side-effect of giving an incentive to drivers to drive less and/or more efficiently. No need for an expensive, cheating-prone new system...
Assuming there is some transparency to ensure accuracy of the calculations and there is some oversight to ensure the bulk of the money really does go to paying for roads, this seems like a great idea. As a taxpayer, anytime I can see a pretty direct link between my taxes and the taxes being used for something sensical, that's a good thing.
Ideally they'd eventually roll this out to everyone regardless of car type but /also/ leave in place some portion of the gas tax so there's some ongoing incentive towards efficient or alternate fuel vehicles.
for odometer and black box hackers. 14-year-olds with bank.
How do any volunteers who drive gas or hybrids get out of the paying gas tax, since they're paying the mileage tax? It's added right into the pump, yeah?
"Private vendors will provide drivers with small digital devices to track miles"
There are already pretty strict laws for tampering with odometers. Why aren't they a sufficient measure?
Keeping people functioning in a smaller radius concentrates the population, which consolidates income and sales taxes into a single region and subsequently centralizes economic and political power.
But it helps the environment, so pay no attention to that police state behind the curtain!
Road wear is often estimated as the fourth power of axle weight. So I imagine the final regulation will include road wear as a factor. Incidentally, this rule of thumb is sometimes cited as why cyclists aren't taxed. A 200 pound* bicycle causes one ten-thousandth of the wear that a 2000 pound car causes, which means cyclists' contribution to road wear would likely be too small to collect.
* Occupied weight
I just do not believe that someone would voluntarily participate in new tax collection program. I do not. The article says that 5000 voluntiers are needed.
The potential benefit is that if road tax is lower than the tax paid with the fuel, taxpayer will receive reimbursement for the difference paid for the fossil fuel.
This is nothing short of attempt to fleece twice. Initially owners are encouraged to buy fuel saving equipment (e-cars, hybrids), then additional taxation is added "to recoup the money".
And this idea of where someone has driven being collected by government concerns no one? That's the impression you would get from the bang-up job done by the journalist authoring the article.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Ok, I'm mostly just whining, but studded tires are what make Oregon roads kind of sucky. Folks get their tires switched over to studs in mid-fall and ruin the roads from then 'till mid spring, rarely, if ever having need of them (and the rest of us just pull out the chains for the occasional icy or snowy day or trip over the mountains). I often drive as close as I safely can to the center line or almost on the shoulder to try to stay out of the ruts the studded tires make. ...Though the log trucks probably have a big impact too.
That said, it does make sense that all users of roads should be responsible in some way for their upkeep, commensurate with how much those roads are used. How to do this without unfairly taxing those who do long-distance out-of-state travel would be tricky. Its absurd to say that this unfairly targets owners of efficient vehicles. Everyone gets charged the same tax per mile, efficient-vehicle-owners still pay less for gas.
This tax, and the one it replaces, would charge people commuting to McDonalds equally with the owners of McDonalds even though the owners get somewhere between 70-90% of the economic benefit from that road use. Almost all government taxes/fees which are applied with use rather than scaled on revenue share this problem. Pretty much universally, these kind of taxes are a way for people who get only a partial share of the value they create to pay a full share of the cost of the public infrastructure required to create that value, making the poorest among us subsidize the wealthiest.
There are other users in a state than just the locals (e.g. tourists, transport). Do they have a plan to recoup costs from them as well, or do they plan to give them a free ride?
You have to appreciate the sense of entitlement behind the statement "This program targets hybrid and electric vehicles, so it's discriminatory" in the article from an EV owner. "I use the roads, but I don't want to have to pay to maintain them" is a more accurate version of his statement. Given that the gas tax is $0.30 per gallon, the $0.015/mile charge equates to a 20mpg vehicle, so anyone with a conventional vehicle that gets better mileage would see their net costs go up participating in the pilot program, but the basic mechanism is merely ensuring that *every* vehicle on the road is paying the use tax that the gasoline tax was intended to be.
"Others point out that those who drive electric vehicles need the roads maintained just as much as people still driving gas-powered cars."
Sooooo are truck paying proportionally much much more than hybrid ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The gas tax works. It's hard to evade and benefits from existing taxing infrastructure. The only problem is that it was never indexed for inflation. Tell me why we need a completely new system? Are people really less resistant to this than paying a few more cents a gallon at the pump?
Electric vehicles and hybrids can't be the reason. Electric vehicles still represent a tiny portion of vehicles on the road. Hybrids don't really get much better fuel economy than the tiny econoboxes of the 90s. People still drive big trucks everywhere. Since less fuel efficient vehicles also tend to be heavier, they cause a disproportionate amount of road damage (and effectively get taxed more per mile).
The state is at risk of losing the markup on the no self-serve law so they need to figure out if they can get more money like this probably.
They can bike or walk or take the bus.
That depends on 1. signal sets that can detect bicycles rather than leaving them at a dead red, 2. zoning policies that encourage pedestrianism, and 3. paying bus drivers for a minimal level of service even during low-ridership periods, such as nights, Sundays, and holidays. Is Oregon willing to invest in all three of these?
a battery pack is heavier
True, a 500 kg Tesla model S battery is heavier than the 30 kg of gasoline in a 40 L tank. But is an electric motor and drivetrain also heavier than a gasoline engine and drivetrain?
It needs to be a forumula that is based on miles driven AND weight of the car... unless Oregon actually believes that a Civic and a Big Rig cause the same amount of long term damage to a road.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Just put a commissions and transaction tax on Wall Street, and pay off the entire national debt in less than five years and pave the roads with gold.
They should have registration based on vehicle wieght, and other factors which determine how much wear your vehicle does to the road.
The 5,000 people voluntarily participating in the test will be charged 1.5 cents per mile.
If I were driving a hybrid, I wouldn't volunteer for this, knowing that I'd be paying more in taxes per mile than I would per gallon in my fuel-efficient vehicle. That is the stated goal; to increase revenue for the state.
If I were driving a gas-guzzling truck or SUV, I might volunteer for this under the understanding that I would be getting a refund on the gas-tax paid throughout the test period, paying a calculated per-mile alternative instead. Given the per gallon tax rate, a vehicle's MPG, and the per-mile tax rate, it's easy to calculate the break-even threshold.
I hope the state isn't thinking they can make money on this trial using volunteers, as only those who would benefit are likely to volunteer, and they would be losing revenue from those.
Plus, if this were to be implemented, how would they handle out-of-state visitors and tourists? What about people from neighboring states coming in just for the tax-free gas at the pump? Or would they have to present an Oregon ID to get the gas tax-free? Seems like there are just too many potential problems and administrative headaches to buck the gas-tax trend.
I know truckers have to deal with state gas-tax even in states they don't buy fuel in, but they are also required to maintain detailed logs of all stops, rests, and destinations and have them available for DOT audits months after their trips. I'm vehemently opposed to requiring that for those of us who don't drive for a living, and I doubt I'm alone in my opposition...
...you didn't REALLY think that by driving your electric or hybrid car that you were going to permanently somehow avoid the government's rapacious tax-addiction, did you?
It's just like the cigarette taxes or any of the 'sin' taxes: they've worked so hard to get people to stop smoking, they are suddenly realizing they're losing revenue.
There's no question that we need to pay taxes for the roads we drive on.
Formerly, the connection between general road use and gasoline was irrefutable; now they need another mechanism.
-Styopa
Great progress Oregon! Now if you'd only let people pump their own gas...
... would be to have your car registered out of state so you don't pay the mileage tax, but buy gas in Oregon (where it's cheaper due to no tax). At least until the neighboring states follow this same policy.
why can't they roll it up as a flat rate into state/fed taxes and remove the tax on gas? no one wants to be tracked...or feel like they get taxed every time they get in their car.
we all use the roads. even if we don't use them directly, we get mail, we purchase stuff that has been shipped to stores and our homes, we benefit from fire/police services that use roads etc...and more abstractly, we hold jobs that exist largely because we have a efficient economy with good transport of goods.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Now the voyeurs in your state government get to know your driving habits, and there is no public outrage in Oregon. You people are sheep. You disgust me.
After a quick scan of the comments, I didn't notice any mention of the privacy aspects. A tax on gasoline or other fuels is non-intrusive and barely noticeable: the cost of fuel is just that much higher. But to tax drivers by distance (also perhaps factoring in the weight and nature of their vehicles) requires the state to find out how far they have travelled, which probably requires either a "spy in the car" or detection and tracking of all vehicles on the roads.
From a civil liberties point of view, I would think the fuel tax is a far better solution. (Of course those who thrive on building civil service empires, and those who profit from selling government big computer systems, may disagree).
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
I am not an Oregon citizen. When I drive my car there from Illinois in order to visit family, how are they going to trace me and bill me? LPR's? Mandatory GPS units? Talk about a violation of my privacy, not to mention interference with interstate commerce (illegal and unconstitutional)! Talk about improper governmental interference in our personal affairs, this is just simply unconscionable!
Tax fuel. Tax electricity. Those work.
People without kids pay property tax to fund schools because there's a public good. Why on earth would we want in this case to create a complex and intrusive system to tax precisely according to usage when in others we grossly abstract taxation away from usage?
-Dave
My car doesn't have a 12V outlet, you insensitive clod (and if it did, the polaritity would be reversed) -- car built in '57, with positive ground wiring.
Then reverse the wires going to the receptacle. An ANSI/SAE J563 receptacle in a positive-ground vehicle would have -12 to -15 V on the can and ground on the tip.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion... It's ridiculous that the rest of us have to pay for the damage they cause.
I demonstrate an ability to reduce my expenses by purchasing a fuel efficient car to save money on my commute. The State, rather than figuring out how to reduce their costs, decides it is unfair for me to reduce my expenses, and instead, charges me more money to drive. Now, rather than me seeing purchasing fuel once a week as a necessary evil, I will now be forced to see EVERY MILE as a necessary evil, causing me to drive less, find a job closer to home. I will now have to think twice about driving to a nearby city for the weekend and supporting tourism because it will now cost me more to do so. Then, as people drive less, the State will charge a higher tax for goods and services purchased locally because they are not receiving their pay-per-mile fee.
Wouldn't a simple wheel odometer work just fine for this? All you're tracking is miles traveled. No need to collect all the other location/speed data that a GPS offers up and risk abuse, privacy lawsuits, etc.
I'd rather pay $200/yr tax for infrastructure or something fixed like this than feel like I'm running a tax meter every time I get in my car. I bet a whole lot of people would prefer to do the same. I know, it will never happen, this is socialism at it's worst!
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Assuming the per mile tax were acceptable, no one has mentioned that it assumes that all miles are driven within their jurisdiction. I drive approximately 10K miles per year including commuting and road trips. Being about 20 miles from the state line in one direction and 60 in another, the road trips end up with most of their miles out of state. This plan would have me fill up the car in another state and pay taxes at home.
Also consider the classic "Wally World" vacation driving trip. I live in the southeastern US. It is approximately 2000 miles to LA. In the past, I have done multiple three week driving trips to the west where my total mileage was between 5000 and 6000 miles[1]. All but say 100 miles of that was out of state but would be taxed by both where I actually drove and purchased fuel and by my state.
[1] The first day out and last day home were long driving days in shifts. We would knock out most of the distance to the first point of interest and actually be doing something the next day. Other drives were shorter and in between attractions. The trips would always include at least a couple of three-five day stays somewhere worthy.
The gas tax is $0.30 per gallon. Instead of paying that $0.30, I can choose to pay $0.015 per mile traveled. Paying per mile, I can only go 20 miles for $0.30. Unless I drive a gas guzzler that averages less than 20 mpg, I am being taxed more. Plus this removes one of the benefits to driving an efficient or alternative fuel vehicle. Plus (as many prior posters have pointed out), weight of a vehicle is proportional to the amount of road damage it causes, and would be a far better metric for assessing taxes to repair roads. Dumb.
Electric vehicles without axles?
We really couldn't have worked 'Oregon Trial' into the headline?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
There is plenty of money from gas taxes to maintain the roads. The problem is, the highway "trust" (LOL) fund is used as a personal savings account by politicians for their pet projects. Things like millions of dollars spent on bike trails and other assorted earmarks that have nothing to do with road maintenance.
I live in Oregon and drive an EV (also have a 30 mpg sedan, and a 15 mpg truck), and find the approach awful.
GPS tracking seems needless compared to just doing bi-annual odometer checks and billing based on that (registration requires bi-annual smog checks for all gas cars already). I'm totally fine with the notion of augmenting the gas tax with a penny or so per mile tax, and I have no issue with raising the gas tax as well to properly maintain the roads. GPS tracking is a non-starter for me. Swapping the gas tax entirely for a per mile tax also does not make sense either, I am all for taxing vehicles like my truck off the road.
I am also totally fine with the tax being weight based if the formula used does a decent job being fair relative to the actual burden vehicles cause.
So they encourage people to drive less polluting cars despite high initial purchase prices with the promise of lower running costs, then suddenly raise the running costs?
Justifiable outrage, I'd say.
Just be glad there's less pollution. There must be other taxes they can tweak.
Because in the end it is so vastly expensive commute, each hundred mile commute will drain one's wallet within a week. Folks working for $7.50 an hour will truly appreciate the upcoming whirlwind/tornado in their already depleted wallets.
Electric cars still use the roads, true, but they pollute less and this should be rewarded. Why not a gas tax and a per-mile tax, balanced to each produce about the same amount of revenue?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
A per mile fee doesn't take into account the loading a particular vehicle puts on the road surface. Tolls discriminate for access. I say forget fees, forget tolls, institute trolls! Just have them eat the Hummers and other such offenders! It's just another great spin on the highly regarded "eat the rich" strategy.
They also use Oregon roads but do not contribute.
There's a lot of talk about the fact that this would mean tracking everywhere you went. Why not just track miles driven by your odometer? I don't know about Oregon, but here you report your odometer reading when you pay for your license plate. You could just also pay the estimated tax (you already tell your insurance company how far you're probably going to drive) when you license your vehicle, and then pay/receive the difference when you re-register it next year, plus when you sell it. Seems a lot simpler and less expensive than a GPS tracker.
Also, seems like there should be a per-distance tax for roads, plus a gas consumption tax just to cover the increased societal costs of using gas. Use the gas tax to build out charging stations.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
If you need more money, just raise the tax. If everybody switches to electric and the tax becomes ineffective, then at least the air will be cleaner.
if you actually believe a significant portion of this $$ will ACTUALLY go to supporting road maintenance. In Massachusetts, the turnpike revenue is used for non-Masspike projects.
Does it stop when you drive out of Oregon?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I got into an ideological debate on another forum over whether fuel taxes exist solely for road maintenance, or also as a disincentive for consumption due to environmental concerns and preservation of natural resources (oil reserves). There are strong arguments on both sides. On the one hand the money today goes to roads (or is supposed to) and not the environment, on the other if we don't care about pollution we may as well tax by miles driven or vehicle weight, or both.
Toll roads are such a lame thing.
I can't stand them with all of their toll plazas that cost a bunch to build and maintain and wasted money staffing them.
Will this approach pester people also?
I wonder how penny-ing people to death will work.
A solution needs to be found to maintain good roads.... not sure this is the solution.
My state legislators actually asked this question and got me thinking about a one time tax on tires. It has the benefits of the gas tax (anonymous, based on usage) but the added benefit that you can approximate the weight that a tire will carry on the road.
During a purchase you could either pay all taxes up front and be done with it or set up a monthly billing cycle so that poor can still make ends meet without dreading lost tread. Once taxes have been paid you are done and do not have to pay that tax until your next tire purchase. If a tire is expected to last 100k miles it, it is estimated to carry X weight for Y length of time (miles driven) meaning Z dollars in maintenance. Tax = Z - any other road infrastructure income/subsidies (gas tax still in effect could subsidized the tire tax making it cheaper).
This could also help spur better usage of tires (keeping them properly inflated [increasing MPG], rotating tires, etc). I am not sure how to handle used tires. Also, this doesn't help if you have to travel on dirt roads or poor roads that wear on tires more than pristine new black top.
Just a random thought, I haven't gave it much thought after initially discussing it with legislators.
I can by pass your tax if I border another state, I'll buy gas in another state and drive in state, you can't tax me twice for gas purchased outside the state.
America, you're laws are so weird, glad Germany is this way.
I actually think we do need to address the issue of electric cars skirting the gas tax. Hybrids still use gas.
The nice thing about the gas tax, is that in addition to taxing cars more for how much they drive, it also taxes heavier cars more (because they use more gas per mile), this meant that an 18 wheeler driving a mile pays more tax than a carolla driving a mile. This makes a lot of sense since the big rig does a lot more damage to the road in that mile.
I think a better solution would be a gas tax and an electricity tax (i.e. an energy tax). That way an electric 18 wheeler still pays higher tax than a carolla, and we also incentivize making more efficient cars (both electric and gas powered).
Why not just outlaw fuel-efficient cars?
Oregon can sign up to drive with devices that collect data on how much they have driven and where.
Surprisingly -- no one is making a stink about the State TRACKING THEIR MOVEMENTS.
I guess people just accept surveillance now -- just let the Gov't track and monitor them like good little inmates should.
This should not be allowed -- you want to increase monies to pay for road work? Instead of tracking everyone's movements, hike up Vehicle Registration fees to offset the loss you perceive from the switch to Hybrid -- or increase the tax you charge for electricity.
Go back
Just tax electricity consumption. Or raise a different existing tax. There are many, many better ways to solve this problem.
If they really want to make road taxes usage based, then they need to charge by the ton-mile or something like that. Wear and tear on roads goes by the weight of the vehicle, and if I remember correctly it is a non-linear relationship (square or cube, I can't remember).
It's pretty trivial for a vehicle to compute its own weight, so it is similarly trivial for a vehicle to compute its own road tax as well. Many cars are now coming equipped with GSM modems as well, so your car could simply upload your road impact once/month and you can be billed for your use tax.
Piece of cake.
I don't see how a mileage tax can be applied to visitors (tourists) or transients (triple-bottom long haul truckers.) In fact, a state based mileage tax penalizes citizens who frequently cross state borders or otherwise drive frequently out-of-state.
How are they going to tax out-of-state drivers that are just passing through? As it is, they collect gas tax. Maybe they could tax gas on cars with out-of-state plates but that would require changes at each station/pump to have a tax/no-tax switch.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
It's over complicated and invades privacy. First of all, we should be encouraging people to move to non-gasoline based vehicles and the best way to do that is to keep ratcheting up the gas tax until at least 50% of vehicles switch. Once that happens we should add straightforward weight per axle tax paid at registration time. It's accurate, fair and easy to administer.
Have gnu, will travel.
I see a lot of odometers being rolled backwards. "What? You don't believe I have only driven 5 miles since my last inspection?"
Just plain retarded, and the longer I live in this country, the more retarded it seems to get.
The people that are going to be specifically targeted are the people who have not, or cannot yet purchase a fuel efficient or a hybrid car. Because the state will just turn the existing gas tax into an environmental tax, and then all drivers will be paying per-mile AND a gas tax/carbon-offset tax except EV drivers.
"All those moments, will be lost in time...like tears in rain..."
What's going to happen is that instead of "replacing" the gas tax, the politicians will arrive at a "compromise" solution.
Meaning: you're paying two taxes now instead of one.
I know that sounds cynical, but look at the AMT.
The rich live close while the poor have to commute (NYC tried something similar).
NYC is not necessarily reflective of the rest of the country. Very little there resembles how things work east of the Hudson River. Where I live wealthier folks tend to commute farther on average. I am GM for a manufacturing company and I live the farthest away of anyone at the company because frankly the plant is not in the nicest part of town. The lower paid employees tend to live the closest to the factory.
How about this radical idea: Instead of raiding fuel tax revenue for things which are not infrastructure related, create a law that only allows said revenue to be used exclusively for infrastructure? I know, makes too much sense for government...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/states-siphon-gas-tax-for-other-uses-1405558382
Its called a toll road. Tire tax would be retarded for reasons you point out - the most obvious being dirt and gravel roads would wear tires much faster than asphalt / concrete.
The overall desire to track everyone is the goal. In NYC, we had a Congestion Pricing plan put forth. The bottom line was that there HAD to be a financial toll, as they wanted to track everyone. Luckily, Upstate NY didn't think that charging a toll to see NYC was fair, but.... This is the same idea, with a different "reason". Try this one...index fuel taxes to inflation (not that that number is accurate anymore, at least as issued by the Feds). If you drive a prius, less tax. Drive an Escalade, more tax. Drive an 18 Wheeler, still more tax. Fair, anonymous, and fixes the system. Oh, I'm sorry. This is America, land of the Oligarch. We have to give this to a private company, make sure that it is enforced outside the court system, and make some Wall Street guy able to buy a west coast beach house as well as an east coast beach house.
Currently, EVs represent 0.115 % of motor vehicles on US roads and 0.06% worldwide.
That is, roughly 1 out of 1000 vehicles in the US and 1 out of every 1700 vehicles worldwide.
Remember that we are trying to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius and so far epic failing on that.
My proposal, consistent with climate prudence, is to keep using increased gas taxes until EVs become 50% of vehicles on the road, then and only then start transitioning to distance-travelled fees.
You are SUPPOSED to be incentivising the switch away from fossil fuel transportation now, and as you can see, there are miles and miles and miles to go on the transition plan.
Stopping the various EV incentives now is the kind of short term thinking insanity that got us into this mess in the first place.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
> This measure is an attempt to raise the amount of money the state takes in to pay for infrastructure projects
No, it's an attempt to get people to accept surreptitious full-time tracking of their vehicles with a bribe.
It is also an outright lie because there ARE NO "infrastructure projects", there are huge slush funds where these "infrastructure" revenue streams are stashed and used to buy everything the government wants under the sun EXCEPT to actually fund infrastructure. And no matter HOW much money goes into "infrastructure" they will be back next year with rusty bridges and potholes galore calling for more "infrastructure." You want "infrastructure"? Buy an infrared oven and use it to bake the politicians. THAT'S "infrastructure" we can get behind.
PEEP!
In addition it will be interesting to hear how they plan to tax non-residents, including those of us from Canada. The nice thing with taxing petrol is that you are likely to fill up somewhere in Oregon if you are driving through. There is no extra delay and most people passing through will end up paying no matter where they live. With a mileage tax system are they going to stop you at the border and take a reading and a second when you leave? If not then suddenly non-residents will be paying nothing unfairly increasing the burden on those who live there.
remove the cafe standards exemption for SUVs and trucks over 2 tons
*bam*
problem solved in one model year without changing the gas tax
It is an arrangement only the elite establishment could dream up, driven by corrupt politics and vendors looking to push another boondoggle. A bad idea on the very face of it. Yet, it continues to make headlines.
Let's invent an Orwellian Rube Goldberg inspired method of tax collection and put the burdon on the working poor who have to waste more of their lives commuting to their wage slave jobs. Who obviously think they can save some money by driving fuel efficient cars and pocketing the change; we simply can't have that. We can sheer these sheep, whereas the transportation industry that actually consumes the roads might have some fangs, which might be why the registration for heavy vehicles is only %15 more than for a Prius. There is a few people here who have a lot to gain by this arrangement, whereas the pleebs can just suck it.
It reminds me of the same kind of brilliance that instead of guard rails on Cornelius pass, (where yet another driver just went off the cliff and died) TPTB grind rumble strips and install solar powered radar signs which won't work longer than a week. Why do anything sensible when you can waste money on fancy tech? Kickbacks? What kickbacks?
It is as if the 70 mile long 'road construction zone' (minus road cones) south of Portland and its double fines wasn't a big enough clue how untrustworthy the management is, and they expect me to trust them with my GPS info?
Assuming a reasonable pressure (no trains with flanged wheels trying to drive down the highway) then the damage comes from axle load and not pressure for standard road building materials.
Yes but the strength of materials is usually measured by elastic modulus which has the same dimensions as pressure. Hence, although a bike will elastically deform a small area of the surface with the pressure it applies, it will deform it more than a car with lower pressure tyres. However I doubt this is where the damage comes from but rather from the motion of the vehicle. The dynamic load of a car travelling at speed will be many, many times greater than a cyclist who is less massive and slower moving. Similarly for lorry it will be many times larger still than a car. We would need an engineer to confirm but I expect that this is where the damage comes from since the dynamic load can be many times larger than the static one.
Commercial Trucks should be paying their way, not personal transport. They are the ones that destroy the roads. It is just ANOTHER way corporations use tax money to make themselves more profit.
There is a reason why they are referred to as warehouses on wheels, and just in time delivery. It used to be that companies would have to have hubs, and warehouses, and keep product and stock on hand for availability. Now everything exists constantly on wheels, and those go over highways. Who pays for the highways? Taxpayers. Who increases their profits? Corporations.
It will never happen however because of: OMG! JOBS! You must hate 'Merica and Job creators! Making corporations pay more taxes will destroy the economy! Etc...
I am really looking forward to this. Spinning the wheels on my H1 Hummer with studded snow tires all day is really getting expensive with all the gas taxes. I look forward to Prius and scooter owners paying the same for road maintenance as me finally, it's only fair!
It bums me out to see so many people clamor over how to and the right way to give government more of their hard earned money.
You haven't figured out that it will be wasted yet? Yeah, but its for YOUR own good... lol
This is exactly what happens when you conflate two unrelated things: revenue and incentives. There's no reason a particular type of spending should be linked to a particular tax. That just leads to making bad decisions.
You need money to pay for services. Fine. Pay for them out of the state's general budget. So now you have to decide how to fund that budget. A good default is an income or wealth based tax. Something where everyone pays what they can afford to pay. But in any case, you don't need a separate revenue source for every item in the budget.
Independent of that, you may want to create incentives to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. You want people to buy more efficient vehicles. You want them to consume less energy. You want them to put less wear on the roads. There are lots of ways to create those incentives. A gas tax. A tax on the purchase price of a car, based on the total distance it will be driven over its lifetime. Tolls. And so on. Decide what behaviors you want to encourage, then identify the best incentives to encourage them.
But these two decisions should be completely separate. The gas tax is there to encourage efficiency, not to produce revenue. Any money it does bring in should go directly toward decreasing income taxes. There's the question of how much money you need, and the question of what incentives you want to create, and they should never be linked together.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
The IRS holds that you can deduct vehicle registration fees as taxes if they are based upon the value of vehicle or if they are flat fees. If they are based upon vehicle weight you cannot deduct them.
So states moved away from taxing on weight.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
They sell the taxes using themes of efficiency, environment, etc. but when push comes to shove, it's all about the cash.
That's true of any government tax. It's sold on one premise and as soon as they have the cash in hand, priorities change, promises are broken, and ultimately, a claim that it's still not enough.
You can Bank on it. And if I'm wrong, well, the government will bail you out.
Maybe we should just nix the idea that road infrastructure needs to be paid for with gas or vehicle taxes, and start paying for it from the general fund.
I came here to say this.
Pay-per-use means we have to track use, which means extra billing/administrative costs/HR involved, which means less of the money is actually going to what it is supposed to. Unless the tax hike is higher than what it is now. It's so much complication for no reason.
I'd say this: we all go to the supermarket roughly once a week to get groceries, clothing, whatever. Those things generally speaking come in by truck, which is much more damaging to the road than personal vehicles. So, no matter your personal habits, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of your goods coming in. So how about we say: everyone needs to eat, buy new clothing, etc., and we just call it even and hike everyone's income tax by 0.1% or whatever. Everyone uses about the same because everyone needs goods trucked in, young, old, rich, poor. End of story. Earmark that money for transportation, and you're done, the tax is collected quarterly/biweekly automatically with no extra taxation infrastructure.
With an appropriate tax rate, we might even be able to offer free buses and shuttles and light rail for our citizens. It would be good for everyone, especially the poor, whom might pay less money with a 0.1% tax than current bus fare.
Based on Oregons pricing schedule, my tax would be $150 / year, just driving to and from work.
This will impact the poor much more than the upper-class since the poor typically can't afford to live close to work.
Homes start at the half-million dollar range if I want to live withing walking / cycling distance to where I work, so that's not an option.
Curious how they plan to implement such a thing in the larger States where you can drive for hours before you reach a major city.
The only people that would voluntarily sign up for this are people that would end up paying less in the end - i.e. people with really poor gas mileage. The state is going to make less money off of them, not more. Also, how are these volunteers not paying gas tax? Do they have a special card?
Just up the registration renewal fee. I'm assuming Oregon already has an annual registration fee similar to other states. The vehicle weight, age, and fuel type are already information the state has. You could tax electric vehicles just slightly more, but not so much that it hurts. This could be phased in gradually, until we might get to a point where there are few gasoline-powered cars on the road, and infrastructure is funded mostly from registration fees. It would also be a helluva lot less Big Brother.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Maybe someday in the future we will have the technology to insta-poll everyone but sadly we're not there yet. Until then, we will have to settle for talking about politics in gross generalities, like left and right.
BTW, I agree with the OP. The left are delusional.
I would very much support a per-mile tax on all vehicles as long as it doesn't require tracking my vehicle in ANY way. If they can just take a meter reading during the annual state vehicle inspection, that will work nicely.
Otherwise, this is opening the door for the government to put mandated tracking devices in cars... and I find that totally unacceptable.
are you smart enough to wake up NOW?
When governments started encouraging electric cars to "save the planet", they knew that feel-goodism would only go so far in encouraging people to act against their own economic interests; they had to add-in big government subsidies to help in the purchase of these rolling luxury-item/status symbols. Even the subsidies were not enough, so they made lots of other arguments too - one of which was that people who moved to electric cars would save money by not having to purchase gasoline which is heavily taxed. A big selling point for electric cars was: drive an electric car and you will re-fuel from the grid, thereby escaping all the high gas taxes (which in most states are a larger percent of the price of a gallon of gas than the oil company's profit margin).
Critics of big government, myself included, warned many times that government was going to NEED that gas tax money and would simply find another way to back out of that deal and apply the tax to electric cars. Most states siphon-off money from their gas taxes for things other than road maintenance, and those other things (like union retirement funds) have VERY powerful constituencies.
Here it is: A tax that will hit electric cars for their use of the roads (a tax the buyers of these cars were indirectly promised they'd never have to pay) AND in all likelihood it will end up being IN ADDITION TO the gas tax, rather than a replacement (poorly-run corrupt governments hove a voracious appetite for other people's cash)
Offer no benefit for saving gas, are they out of their F'n minds?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
That's $15,000 more than I paid for my used car that gets 22 mpg. Poor nerds like me can't afford that extra 15k any more than than they can afford a Hummer.
So: No, it isn't easy for poor people to have fuel efficient cars.
By their $.015/mile metric I would pay less than I do now. Though I don't know what I would pay if I were in Oregon. I Utah I paid about $160 last time. I'd pay about $126. I say go for it.
The government should just pay to maintain the roads out of the general funds and tax income/sales/etc appropriately.
Why? Everyone benefits from a good road system regardless of what they drive, how much they drive, or how far they drive. Even people who do not own a vehicle at all are presumably benefiting from goods and services that are very much dependent on roads for delivery.
Hybrid cars do more damage to the road.
They're heavier than the equivalent non-hybrid. Road damage goes up exponentially with axle weight.
They also tend to have narrow tires to reduce rolling resistance. Narrow tires cause more deflection in the road surface, leading to more damage.
Yet they use less petrol and pay less tax to maintain the roads they're causing more damage to.
Like most states, Oregon doesn't have a budget problem. it has a spending problem. It used to be that the gas tax was a dedicated fund for maintaining highway infrastructure. However after decades of corrupt politics there are many pork-barrel projects feeding off the gas tax that shouldn't be. If Portland wants to build a new bike path through a city park (I'm not talking about a bike lane that shares the roadway, but a private road for non-motorized vehicles) then let the citizens of Portland put up a bond measure and pay for it themselves. Likewise highway beautification or noise abatement walls along I5 only benefits a few, I don't consider those to be necessary infrastructure. Those homeowners knew I5 was there long before they bought the house. Everyone likes to blame trucks, well guess what, the state of Oregon issues overweight PERMITS up to 105,500lbs so they can get more general fund money to spend. Not a dime of that goes into infrastructure maintenance to pay for the added wear and tear on the road surface. On a whim in 2010, Governor Kulongsoki renamed Beltline highway after one of his rich political contributors, causing $250,000 cost to replace all the highway signs. After a lot of protesting this cost is now being spread out and the current signs are being replaced as they wear out. I don't consider this to be a necessary infrastructure project.
This scheme only benefits the rich with their 15mpg Cadillac Escalades. And then there is the GPS tracking of every Oregon resident's vehicles (which I personally think is the actual goal of this). The article claims "Law enforcement, for example, won't be able to access the information unless a judge says it's needed." I don't believe that will last for more than a second after the ink on the governor's signature dries. It used to require a warrant to listen in on phone conversations and conduct home searches too.
I know someone who bought a prius to save money. First they bought it used. The gap closes quite a bit compared to other cars. Two, they do mostly city driving. There is not one simple formula. Of course you do have to be careful about the dealer charging 275 dollars for a headlight... 30 on amazon though...
Mark Dsaulnier. Congress critter from Contra Costa County.
He's worried that better fuel efficiency will take its toll on tax income for the state. He too is proposing a "tax by the mile" scam.
So here we have it folks. The land yacht gets taxed as much as the Honda Civic that may get twice or more per mile.
Why don't we vote these people out of office?
Japan uses a road tax system. Every year, you pay a flat rate road tax. Smaller engines pay a reduced road tax, but its still flat rate. If you don't pay, you don't drive on public roads.
Why did politicians in their infinite wisdom ever make the gas taxes a specific pennies per gallon amount? That was plainly stupid. Convert the gas tax to a percentage of the price per gallon. Then as gas prices go up, so will the amount of tax collected. Most taxes are figured as a percentage, not as a fixed amount.
The situation where this solution fails is for electric vehicles. So maybe the best solution is to charge everyone, driver or not, a road fund tax. I have to pay school tax even though I have no kids. So people who have no car should still have to contribute to roads.
But this tax per mile scheme clearly sucks. Plus, once again it makes the stupid mistake of setting the tax at a fixed amount which does not adjust for inflation.
Register your car in a different state, buy your low tax fuel in Oregon.
Its a win/win!
Wow...and I thought I was pushing the hyperbole... I bow to your oblivious superiority!
Funny you mention dealer service for anything other than the battery (which is a dealer-only part that they will not sell you without installation). It's also funny that you can get a Corolla headlight for $80 at the dealer or less than $16 off the shelf at any parts store. There's a reason I didn't compare common regular maintenance; I had assumed those costs would be similar between the two models. Thank you for pointing out yet another way a Prius actually costs more over time.
You and he think he saved money. Just like I ignored the $4000 battery replacement (those batteries have a high-end working life of 1 decade), you're also ignoring that. A new Prius costs $7250 more than a new Corolla; let's find out what the difference is when they're 5 years old. So, let's assume he bought a 5 year old Prius today and I bought a 5 year old Corolla (LE since there is no 2010 L model) today, he'll spend $11793 on a vehicle that gets 50 MPG on average and I'll spend $9279 on a vehicle that gets 29 MPG on average (according to KBB, both cars stock and in "Good" condition). He's going to pay $2514 more for that Prius which, you're right, does cut the difference down by nearly 2/3. So, what's the payoff point? I won't ignore the battery this time.
Average miles driven per year: 13346 - Fuel for Prius: 266.92gal - Fuel for Corolla: 460.21gal
Fuel cost @ $4.00/gal - Prius: $1067.68 - Corolla: $1840.84
Prius fuel cost savings per year: $773.16
So, the 2010 Prius actually fares quite a bit better against the 2010 Corolla than the comparison between the 2015 miles, the Prius should have this one in the bag, right?
Wrong.
Payoff on that price difference is roughly 3.25 years (a few days longer, actually) and, assuming the Prius' battery holds up for the full 10 years of expected life (note: this is rare), the Prius actually will be ahead of the Corolla at that point. However, at the end of 10 years, when the Prius should be $1353.03 ahead of the Corolla, the $4000 battery needs to be replaced, putting the Corolla back in the lead by $2646.97. It'll take the Prius another 3.5 years to catch up to the Corolla at that point. That all assumes that the electric motors in the Prius last 13.5 years without replacement; remember, this is not common maintenance between the two models, like a headlight, but maintenance that is specific to one model, like the $4000 battery. At any rate, a 5 year old Prius will be 13.5 years old before it catches up, cost-wise, to a 5 year old Corolla bought at the same time; that's an 8.5 year payoff when you actually consider the battery, assuming no other Prius-specific maintenance is necessary in that time. While that is an almost 35% reduction from the original 13 year payoff, it's also unlikely that either vehicle will be kept for that duration. More likely, when the Prius needs a new battery, it'll be traded in for something new; after all, at the 10 year mark, the Prius won't be worth the cost of the battery anymore, anyway.
It does look a bit more favorable when you raise the price of gas to $5, though. The Prius will have a yearly fuel cost of $966.45 less than the corolla at that point, giving it a (pre-battery) payoff time of 2.6 years (plus a handful of hours), putting it $2319.18 ahead of the Corolla at the 10 year mark. Factoring in the battery, the Corolla is actually $1680.52 ahead at the 10 year mark, but the Prius does catch up after roughly another 1.75 years. If gas costs 25% more, the used Prius beats the used Corolla after 6.75 years rather than 8.5. It's still unlikely the Prius will see that new battery at the 10 year mark, though, when it's KBB value will be less than the cost of the battery in the first place.
The economics of the Prius just don't work from a financial perspective. When you consider what goes into producing, and disposing of or recycling, large lithium batteries, the environmental economics don't work either. Especially given the frequency with whic
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I like pay per mile. Everyone should pay for what they use. It was easy to tax gas when 100% of the cars used gas. This doesn't "target" electric cars, it simply includes them, and they should be included.
We need to tax the amount that is needed to maintain the roads. Everyone who uses the roads should pay. Those who use the roads more, should pay more.
If you have a 50 mile commute, you pay $0.75 each way ($1.50 a day). You also need 50 miles of road to be maintained. You also are increasing the load on the roads for 50 miles.
If you have a 4 mile commute, you pay $0.06 cents each way for a ($.12 a day).
At 1.5 cents/mile, this is 45 cents for 30 miles. A car with average 30mpg pays 40 cents/gal in tax. A car at 22mpg(SUBs, trucks) pays 54 cents for 30 miles in gas taxes. A break for gas guzzlers, electric and hybrid owners are screwed.
As soon as I posted that, I realized I should clarify why I didn't compare only city mileage, given that you mentioned mostly city driving. It's simple though, really; the Prius got better mileage 5 years ago and the Corolla got worse, so it would have been unfair to the Prius to use 2015's city mileage numbers and KBB only provides the combined value. To be as fair as possible to the Prius, that is what I used.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
In my state, if a traffic signal is not working it is to be treated as a 4-way stop. For all intents and purposes, a dead red is not a working traffic signal
You don't decide what "is not a working traffic signal". A judge does, based on whatever traffic statutes are in effect for a particular jurisdiction. For example, I've read that in Great Britain, a cyclist or motorist at a stuck signal is expected to make a U-turn and find another route, or call the police and wait for whatever they call police officers there to flag the road user through the intersection. I don't claim to be an expert on traffic signal laws in all fifty U.S. states, but I am not aware of anything prohibiting a U.S. state from adopting a hard-line approach like that of Great Britain. This article lists sixteen states that allow cyclists to proceed with caution against an overly long red light; I presume the others do not. So unless and until there comes to be more agreement among states on the conditions under which a signal is legally "in a state of malfunction", such as inclusion of guidance in a revision to the Uniform Vehicle Code, this will cause cyclists who cross state lines to inadvertently commit crimes.
The average American drives 13,476 miles per year. This translates to a $202/vehicle tax. I'm sure it would be more for commercial drivers.
And as they said, you gotta have roads. They don't grow themselves.
So actually the cost of using your vehicle will go up. If about 30 center per gallon is state tax and your vehicle gets about 25 mpg, you cost for a gallon of gas just increased by 7.5 cents per gallon. Funny.
So when it comes to roads and tax everyone should pay their fair share.
And when it come to health care???
What do they plan to do about inaccurate odometers?
Under sized, oversized wheels affect the reading. Or like my car, it just plain doesn't work and is difficult to find a replacement for (1986 and bought it years ago with the odometer broken at 480k miles. It's never broken down, older Saabs are built to last!).