New Mexico government had decided they hate electric vehicles

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Oilpan4

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Jan 9, 2019
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The government has decided that the less than 1,500 electric vehicles registered in the state (as of 2018) aren't paying for their fair share of road wear and tear.
That's BS because I guarantee that there are at least thousands of unregistered or expired registration gas burners in the state on the roads daily not paying their obligatory share of fees and taxes.

So far it's not even a bill yet just talk from a state rep who belongs to the party that never heard of a tax they didn't like the sound of.
He says it should be a weight and milage tax.
 
I think your title is overly dramatic. The second generation of EVs has been on the market since 2011 here in CA, and has had an 8 year run of little to no road taxes or other fees.

I don't think it's fair for my neighbors to have to pay my share of road taxes. I'm driving two EVs and I think it is time to pay. Here in CA, they are starting a $100 fee next year for EVs. It's a simple start; if they calculated the fee individually by mileage some people would pay less because of reduced mileage and some would pay more.

Not charging any EVs road maintenance fees is unsustainable as the numbers grow. There is lots of road work to be done, so revenue has to go up and not down. Here in San Diego, we have almost 50,000 EVs on the road. It's time to pay for our share of road maintenance fees...It has nothing to do with EV hate....
 
cars pay tax per gallon of gasoline, EVs dont pay that tax. Here in WA i have to pay 150$ a year for my gas tax that i am skipping out on.. a bit lame, because that is more than a normal car would pay in gas taxes, but it is a reasonable approach. i would much rather prefer a flat fee over a mileage based one.

Since cars are getting more fuel efficient, then the gas tax realistically needs to go up, but that is political suicide to most so that is unlikely to happen soon.
 
Oilpan4 said:
He says it should be a weight and milage tax.

A fair tax would be based on the wear and damage a vehicle does to the roads.

A fair tax would be something like axle weight cubed times number of axles times mileage times speed squared.

Yet recording mileage isn't realistic. Recording speed less so.

Yes, EVs should pay somewhat more than gas cars. Trucks and buses should pay most of the tax, as they do most of the wear and damage.
 
estomax said:
cars pay tax per gallon of gasoline, EVs dont pay that tax. Here in WA i have to pay 150$ a year for my gas tax that i am skipping out on.. a bit lame, because that is more than a normal car would pay in gas taxes, but it is a reasonable approach. i would much rather prefer a flat fee over a mileage based one.

Since cars are getting more fuel efficient, then the gas tax realistically needs to go up, but that is political suicide to most so that is unlikely to happen soon.

No more on EV car fees, if results hold up.

https://results.vote.wa.gov/results/current/State-Measures-Initiative-Measure-No-976.html

Eastern Washington has again repealed Seattle area car tabs to fund mass transit. Oh, and repealed the EV tab fee.
 
Randy said:
I think your title is overly dramatic. The second generation of EVs has been on the market since 2011 here in CA, and has had an 8 year run of little to no road taxes or other fees.

I don't think it's fair for my neighbors to have to pay my share of road taxes. I'm driving two EVs and I think it is time to pay. Here in CA, they are starting a $100 fee next year for EVs. It's a simple start; if they calculated the fee individually by mileage some people would pay less because of reduced mileage and some would pay more.

Not charging any EVs road maintenance fees is unsustainable as the numbers grow. There is lots of road work to be done, so revenue has to go up and not down. Here in San Diego, we have almost 50,000 EVs on the road. It's time to pay for our share of road maintenance fees...It has nothing to do with EV hate....
FYI at my states 25.5c/gallon, figuring 30mpg which I consider to be a conservative figure for an ICE equivalent MPG to the Leaf, the amount of gas tax I'd pay per year figuring 10,000 miles which again I consider very conservative as most people probably only drive the Leaf in town due it it's very limited 70 mile range(I average a little over 6k miles/year) would come to $95 in MN gas tax, $159 in CA with their 47.3/gal gas tax.
MN implemented a $70 "EV" tax a few years back which I figure costs me slightly more than if I drove an equivalent ICE!
I'll let you decide if it's fair that someone who drives an EV should pay more gas taxes/year than an equivalent ICE, keeping in mind the overall health benefits to everyone when someone drives an EV and not a noxious belching ICE. I won't even get into the US propping up(providing military aid) to countries where the only reason we're there is because of oil, to feed our never-ending thirst......
I'm not saying EVs should pay no tax, just not more than ICEs.
 
I agree that the majority of road fees should be weight based. Add in a penalty for polluters if you wish.

But most of the damage to our roads and highways are from heavy trucks, not a Nissan leaf.
Over the years they have closed all the weight stations around the country so I'm always curious how they properly tax trucks based on their weight.
Do companies self report weight? I'm SURE that would be done honestly...
Or are they just not taxing trucks on weight anymore?

One of the few weight stations I have still seen open in my area is going up CA-58 toward Tehachapi from Mojave.
I'm not sure why that one has survived - BUT my guess is that CA (or the county) has recognized that trucks are tearing up 58.
That freeway is a mess and needs serious work. Especially to meet CA's plan to turn it into an I-40 extension.
Trucks have torn the crap out of the right lane on 58 up there.

Don't get me wrong, we need trucks, they bring us everything. But we need to pay for the fact they are tearing up our roads.
 
Replacing fuel taxes with a weight-distance charge is probably premature, but it makes sense when the time comes to stop subsidizing EVs.

WetEV said:
A fair tax would be based on the wear and damage a vehicle does to the roads.

A fair tax would be something like axle weight cubed times number of axles times mileage times speed squared.

Yet recording mileage isn't realistic. Recording speed less so.

Yes, EVs should pay somewhat more than gas cars. Trucks and buses should pay most of the tax, as they do most of the wear and damage.
Recording mileage isn't that difficult, though there is the possibility of increased odometer fraud. Why count speed in the formula though? In addition to the difficulties and privacy implications of monitoring it, the worst damage to roads from heavy vehicles happens in front of traffic lights where they sit in one place for a while, then apply large forces to the road to get moving again.
 
One politician makes a reasonable (on its surface, anyway) suggestion that road repair costs should be tied to use and related damage and OP is off to the rant races.

This thread is a waste of time.
 
Titanium48 said:
Replacing fuel taxes with a weight-distance charge is probably premature, but it makes sense when the time comes to stop subsidizing EVs.

WetEV said:
A fair tax would be based on the wear and damage a vehicle does to the roads.

A fair tax would be something like axle weight cubed times number of axles times mileage times speed squared.

Yet recording mileage isn't realistic. Recording speed less so.

Yes, EVs should pay somewhat more than gas cars. Trucks and buses should pay most of the tax, as they do most of the wear and damage.
Recording mileage isn't that difficult, though there is the possibility of increased odometer fraud. Why count speed in the formula though? In addition to the difficulties and privacy implications of monitoring it, the worst damage to roads from heavy vehicles happens in front of traffic lights where they sit in one place for a while, then apply large forces to the road to get moving again.

I am not a mechanical engineer, and it shows.

Axle weight should be not not to the third power, but to the fourth power.

Speed matters, but low speed stopping/acceleration matters more.

Things like type of suspension matter as well.

Your challenge got be doing some reading. Such as this:

http://www.nvfnorden.org/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=261
 
WetEV said:
I am not a mechanical engineer, and it shows.
Axle weight should be not not to the third power, but to the fourth power.
Correct, to the 4rth power.

I also lack engineering skills but when I have read about this topic before I got the impression that winter damage is a separate matter from mass related damage. Some people argue that since weather related damage affects everybody, and everybody buys truckable goods, that we might as well pay for roads from general funds. This is not a bad argument since administration costs are minimized but it takes away the motivation to advance road technology; and more importantly to me, it sweeps the true cost of trucking under a rug. When trucks pay for road damages then e.g. rail becomes more competitive.

Externalized costs lead to bad choices. Use of fossil fool is a leading example.
 
If I thought better services would be given if I paid more taxes i would pay more taxes.
 
This taxing by mileage idea is ridiculous....

I can see that a gasoline tax can pay for roads and such, but EVs are only about 1-2% of the cars on the road. I still feel that they should be exempt from taxes as an incentive for more people to get them.

If they want to tax based on mileage, then they are creating more Big Brother laws. We have the right to drive around the world at our leisure without having to report to anyone.

I could see a tax PURELY for the purpose of the road infrastructure on car registrations, based on weight... That is it..
 
In new Mexico in 2016 there were 661,197 registered private and public vehicles on the roads.
DoE estimates that in 2018 there were 1,500 registered electric vehicles in nm, they don't say if that's private only or what.
We got a ways to go before we are even near 1%.
 
Now NM wants to adopt California style EV mandate.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-emissions-california-minnesota/minnesota-new-mexico-to-adopt-california-vehicle-emissions-rules-idUSKBN1WA2SJ

So they are going to get the tax in place first then try to force people to buy them.
 
Oilpan4 said:
Now NM wants to adopt California style EV mandate.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-emissions-california-minnesota/minnesota-new-mexico-to-adopt-california-vehicle-emissions-rules-idUSKBN1WA2SJ

So they are going to get the tax in place first then try to force people to buy them.

Mandates can work, the biggest problem is unfunded mandates that people can't actually afford to do.
I do not feel bad for a company, say Toyota, who refused to invest in future tech and now gets behind the eight ball.
But if there is a mandate that says "consumer can't own ICE vehicles by 2030" and that mandate gives no funded viable alternatives, then yeah, that's not right.

on the other hand, a mandate like "no more incandescent bulbs" I don't have an issue with. Because there are plenty of affordable alternatives that are as good or superior. LEDs are now a viable alternative and here is no real excuse to be making inefficient old bulbs.

My evaluation would be if it drastically impacts the consumer.

However, in this case, I haven't seen CA set anything unreasonable. I have not seen CA emissions standards say something like "all ice vehicles will be illegal by 2030". Europe is making us look like chumps. Granted the use-case here is quite different. As I pointed out, the top three selling vehicles in the US are trucks, and there are no viable, affordable, EV trucks right now.
 
Oilpan4 said:
Seems like no one is really trying to be first to release the first electric pickup.

Well they are coming, but I don't think they will (yet) compete with the mainstream truck market, which again, is the top three vehicles. They will get some of it but how much?

The Rivian is looking quite nice but for its what, 80k for the smallest battery? Yes indeed some people buy 60-70k Ford F150 Platinum trucks.
But they also sell a ton more of the entry level trucks for 30-40k.

I have an old f150 and as much as i would like to replace it with an EV, I have some specific requirements that must be met.
It needs a 6.5' bed.
It needs a good amount of range while towing.
It needs to be affordable. Somewhere south of 45k out of my pocket.
It needs some of the newer safety features.


You can march into a ford dealer today and get an entry level f150 that does most of this for close to 30-40k if you haggle. The STX has good value on their entry level XL line.

So while the new EV trucks might start skimming the top of the crop, which is indeed awesome, I don't think it will get mainstream right away.

As a comparison, one can build and price a 2020 F150 XL 6.5' BED Supercrew 2WD with STX package for 41k msrp.
That's a 2020, so realistically, you could expect that later in the model year with discounts and negotiation for about 36-38k? Less?

That's what the EV truck is going to eventually need to compete with for many Americans, like myself.
 
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