In countries like South Africa just over 50% of fuel cost per litre is made up of various taxes and levies. We know electric vehicles are “filling up” with electricity which does that have that massive tax overhead, so as EVs get more and more popular we can expect that governments will feel the pinch and resort to these alternatives. The challenge may be though that it may not be usage based and then it would be unfair.
The state of Washington is leading the “tax the electric cars” charge with new legislation that would boost the annual registration fee for electric cars from $150 to $350. As GeekWire explains it, “The tax is assessed at a flat rate on all-electric cars, from a fully tricked-out $125,000 Tesla Model X to a $6,000 used Nissan LEAF.” Clearly, this is meant as retribution against people who dare to drive all electric cars.
Okay, drivers of all electric cars pay no gas taxes at all. Surely they should contribute something to maintain the roads they drive on, right? Of course, but as CleanTechnica reader Tim Ellis points out in an e-mail, a gasoline-powered car that gets about 30 mpg would have to drive more than 21,000 miles a year to pay the same amount in gas taxes as an EV owner under the new fee scheme. Since the average number of miles driven by a private vehicle in Washington is less than 10,000 miles a year according to GeekWire, electric car drivers in that state will be forced to pay much more than their fair share to maintain the roads.
See cleantechnica.com/2019/03/04/s…