Washington legislators are debating a $100 a year tax on all electric cars. Their logic is that the gas tax pays for roads, electric cars use the roads but pay no gas tax, so by taxing them $100 per year they are now helping pay for their road usage.So what do you think?

NO! These bastids try to screw anyone and everyone.. the State can SUCK IT!

I think they should tax bicycles depending on how much asphalt is reserved for their use only. They didn't pay for those paths, so let's get our money back.
It ain't pretty when the State gets tight on money is it?

Gas has to be pushing 4.00 gallon in S.F?

Charge them $500 per year. Power generation, regardless of the source, end up burning fuel (Think about it), even hydro. Gas taxes pay for road use. There is no free lunch folks.

On the flip side, purchasers of electric vehicles do get up to a $7,500 tax credit.

Tax em. For the money they'll save at the fuel pump....it's the least they could do.

Mf

It has been the unsaid thing about switching from gas to electric and one real reason, until recently as technology advanced, .......... how do you get a gas tax from cars that don't use gas?

Two ways jump out a yearly fee or GPS transponders on all cars & trucks when electric and toll roads electronically or you use you pay so to speak. It will happen sooner or later but until government figures out how to get that tax a all electric transportation system will only inch forward.

Now if gas hits $5 or $6 a gallon then we ( screeching at the top of our lungs ) users will drive the change. Ah only in America!

Clever.

if gas goes up that high again we can kiss our economy that is starting to come around goodbye...you can blame it on the banks but my true feeling is when deisel pushed 5+ bucks a gallon it trickeled down too far before they even realized it...to me thats what screwed the economy...i know its not the only reason but it was my main one...c

oh yeah i meant to say...pretty stupid to push those cars and give huge tax credits and now that people are taking advantage of these cars lets tax em!! i personally dont like those cars, they are too quiet and being someone delivering packages, when i walk outside the truck i cant hear them...if i get hit ill bet you it will be from one of those quiet cars...hahaha...i dont like em but i dont think 100 bucks a year is going to do squat...c

It never fuking ENDS!

If it were called a user fee in the original article, this thread probably wouldn't have a single post in it. But call it a tax, and heads explode. TFF. The ones crying loudest will likely never own an electric car, thus it will never apply to them, but they heard the word tax. Pavlov would be sooooooo proud.

Hey when are those loony bicycles gonna pay their share? Not much ware and tear on the roads but take a bunch of room!

Everyone complains about congested traffic and high gas prices. So we respond by creating economic incentives so that some people will buy electric cars and build bike lanes or paths to encourage some people to use bikes instead of cars. Next phase: complain about electric car users and bike riders not paying enough road tax. You're a tough crowd to please, that's for sure.

Back to the original point, given the paltry low number of electric cars in use, I'm not yet worried about taxing them for their fair share of the road, since we're still trying to convince people to buy electric cars. When electric vehicles become 10% or more of the vehicle fleet, we ought to take another look at it. And bicycles aren't relevant to this thread.

Sg

how about cars that use both

LarryB,

Now you're just complicating the bitching.

Sg

Damn electric car's dams are Killing or salmon!!! LETS GET EM

Sorry Hank, that wouldn't have a significant effect on traffic congestion around here. Traffic engineers who aren't being muzzled by their agencies agree that we simply can no longer build our way out of traffic congestion. They will say, however, that interchanges are the number one cause of freeway congestion and traffic delays. Eliminating most or all urban freeway interchanges would keep traffic moving, instead of vehicles constantly getting on or off the freeway, which causes the slow downs which lead to congestion. However, eliminating all the interchanges wouldn't allow the urban freeway users to get where they are going via freeways, which could be a major traffic improvement, depending on one's perspective.

EVs might have that effect in the Bay area. Here we could charge up our EVs at night using electricity that we otherwise would just transmit to CA, wasting it, as it were.

Sg

What the hell does having an electric car tax have to do with congestion?

Like you said

"Now you're just complicating the bitching."