Louisiana about to impose road tax on EV's

[Althea]

Well, it sure doesn't help that Biden just cancelled two oil and gas leasing bids in Louisiana. That's on top of the ones he cancelled in Alaska...

Nobody's drilling in La. or Ak. on those properties.

Nor do they ever plan to.

[Stringfellow Hawk]

I was in Little Rock last night and saw two EV owners fighting over one plug, it is fucking hilarious when major hotels only have 2-4 plugs. The police took both owners away. They are really saving a lot of money LOL

[Minister of Truth]

This is how not to attract new business or vacationers to your state!

No Gas- No Squeegy!

Hilarious!

Who takes an EV vehicle on vacation?

[floridafan]

I was in Little Rock last night and saw two EV owners fighting over one plug, it is fucking hilarious when major hotels only have 2-4 plugs. The police took both owners away. They are really saving a lot of money LOL

Total bullshit of course

[NiftyNiblick]

It's fucking Louisiana.
With the exception of trad New Orleans music, its disappearance would be a huge addition by subtraction for America.
Bring the good musicians to New York and let the rest of it fall into the ocean. And take all the other cracker states with it.

[Geeko Sportivo]

Who takes an EV vehicle on vacation?

YOU WILL!


SOMEDAY!

[Geeko Sportivo]

They cannot enforce that with visitors. The tax will no doubt be added to your registration cost.

I am just saying when a state rebels and becomes Politically against new technologies like Electric cars as a whole, they would eventually not allow for the Charging Stations or the sale of such vehicles there. There would be no infrastructure for electric cars there.

Business would choose not to re-locate and move their employees there in a state that is moving backwards and not forward- and it would eventually kill tourism to their state!

People would move to more sane and modern states that had more options available for them.

[Althea]

I am just saying when a state rebels and becomes Politically against new technologies like Electric cars as a whole, they would eventually not allow for the Charging Stations or the sale of such vehicles there. There would be no infrastructure for electric cars there.

Business would choose not to re-locate and move their employees there in a state that is moving backwards and not forward- and it would eventually kill tourism to their state!

People would move to more sane and modern states that had more options available for them.

All good points.

[Doc Dutch]

Difference. Your analogy is wrong and amounts to nothing but a thought terminating cliche. There is ZERO technological reason we need to go to battery cars. The ONLY reason they are being pushed is political environmentalism, almost entirely from the Left. That's it. There is no inherent advantage in a EV over a ICE car. If anything, environmentalism aside, EV's are at a disadvantage to ICE vehicles in most respects.

So, for what reason(s) should we adopt EV's other than because of the demands of radical environmentalists?

Just like there was ZERO technological reason we need to go to cordless tools?

Sorry, but while you're entitled to your denials, I'll stick with NASA's assessment.

[T. A. Gardner]

Just like there was ZERO technological reason we need to go to cordless tools?

Sorry, but while you're entitled to your denials, I'll stick with NASA's assessment.

Wrong again. Cordless tools eliminate extension cords and the need for a generator or other power source on a construction site. The convenience of those greatly increases their usefulness. That doesn't extend to vehicles though. There is no advantage to a battery car, and there are several obvious disadvantages.

Battery car disadvantages:

Battery life
Inability to carry extra charge--limits them to locations where charging is available
Charge time
Issues with accessing a charging point.

[Doc Dutch]

Wrong again. Cordless tools eliminate extension cords and the need for a generator or other power source on a construction site. The convenience of those greatly increases their usefulness. That doesn't extend to vehicles though. There is no advantage to a battery car, and there are several obvious disadvantages.

Battery car disadvantages:

Battery life
Inability to carry extra charge--limits them to locations where charging is available
Charge time
Issues with accessing a charging point.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration is your friend.

[Mina]

So, on top of paying more for your car....

Fortunately, those with EV's wind up paying a lot less over the life of their car than people with comparable vehicles that use internal combustion engines. $110/year won't negate that.

Take the Mini Cooper, as an example, since there are directly comparable combustion and EV versions.

EV:
Price $30,750
-$7,500 federal tax incentive
-$2,500 Louisiana tax credit
Five years maintenance $4,950
Five-year Fuel cost: $3,232
- remaining value (purchase price less 5 years depreciation): $9,863
Louisiana Road Tax, 5 years: $550

Total cost of five years of ownership: $19,619


Gas-powered:
Price $24,250
Five years maintenance $6,398
Five-year Fuel cost (assuming $4/gallon and 15k per year) $9,600
- remaining value (purchase price less 5 years depreciation): $8,020

Total cost of five years of ownership: $32,228

So, even with the road tax, you'll be shelling out about 64% more over five years to own that internal-combustion-engine. From a personal finance perspective, that's a poor decision, but some people are willing to pay a premium for the satisfaction of knowing that they're doing their part to destroy the environment.

https://vincentric.com/Home/Industry...wnership-Costs
https://www.caranddriver.com/shoppin...heaper-to-own/

That said, what I'd like to see is a move to GPS-based road taxes. Basically, treat all roads as if they were toll roads, and simply distribute the expected costs of maintaining and patrolling each road across their actual users, so that you pay for what you use (possibly with an adjustment based on vehicle weight, since bigger vehicles cause more wear and tear).

The advantage of that would be that it would cut back on the huge subsidy the currently goes to rural people. Costs to maintain roads, per vehicle mile, are much, much higher in areas where roads aren't used as much.... since much of the deterioration of a road is caused by weather and time, and that portion will happen to the same degree whether there's 100 cars using that road per day, or 100,000. That means when taxes to fund roads are paid for by way of what is effectively a per-mile tax (like gas taxes), people who mostly drive on heavily-trafficked roads are overpaying, while those who mostly drive on sparsely traveled roads are underpaying.

[Mina]

There is no advantage to a battery car,....

The advantage, aside from lower cost for the consumer, is the environmental impact. With battery-driven cars, the energy comes in part from low- or zero-carbon generation, meaning less fossil fuel contribution per vehicle mile. Moreover, with battery-driven cars, there is less particulate pollution and chemical pollution going into our neighborhoods (even when it's ultimately powered by fossil fuels at the generator level, that's more likely to be an ultra-efficient combined cycle natural gas station, where the exhaust not only gets scrubbed much more effectively before going into the air, but also tends to go up high smoke stacks and get washed out before winding up in people's lungs the way that happens if the exhaust is being spewed right on roads next to where people live.

There's also less noise pollution with electric vehicles. Although some road noise is from tires on roads and wind resistance, and that happens either way, electric vehicles tend to be MUCH quieter overall, especially at lower speeds. I once lived in an apartment complex sitting next to a stroad with a traffic light, and the traffic noise as people accelerated out of that light could be terrible (especially with motorcycles, big trucks, and sports cars). Electric vehicles are nearly silent when doing that.

[T. A. Gardner]

Fortunately, those with EV's wind up paying a lot less over the life of their car than people with comparable vehicles that use internal combustion engines. $110/year won't negate that.

Take the Mini Cooper, as an example, since there are directly comparable combustion and EV versions.

EV:
Price $30,750
-$7,500 federal tax incentive
-$2,500 Louisiana tax credit
Five years maintenance $4,950
Five-year Fuel cost: $3,232
- remaining value (purchase price less 5 years depreciation): $9,863
Louisiana Road Tax, 5 years: $550

Total cost of five years of ownership: $19,619


Gas-powered:
Price $24,250
Five years maintenance $6,398
Five-year Fuel cost (assuming $4/gallon and 15k per year) $9,600
- remaining value (purchase price less 5 years depreciation): $8,020

Total cost of five years of ownership: $32,228

So, even with the road tax, you'll be shelling out about 64% more over five years to own that internal-combustion-engine. From a personal finance perspective, that's a poor decision, but some people are willing to pay a premium for the satisfaction of knowing that they're doing their part to destroy the environment.

https://vincentric.com/Home/Industry...wnership-Costs
https://www.caranddriver.com/shoppin...heaper-to-own/

That said, what I'd like to see is a move to GPS-based road taxes. Basically, treat all roads as if they were toll roads, and simply distributed the expected costs of maintaining and patrolling each road across their actual users, so that you pay for what you use (possibly with an adjustment based on vehicle weight, since bigger vehicles cause more wear and tear).

The advantage of that would be that it would cut back on the huge subsidy the currently goes to rural people. Costs to maintain roads, per vehicle mile, are much, much higher in areas where roads aren't used as much.... since much of the deterioration of a road is caused by weather and time, and that portion will happen to the same degree whether there's 100 cars using that road per day, or 100,000. That means when taxes to fund roads are paid for by way of what is effectively a per-mile tax (like gas taxes), people who mostly drive on heavily-trafficked roads are overpaying, while those who mostly drive on sparsely traveled roads are underpaying.

I already showed that isn't necessarily true. But when you push ownership out to say 8 to 10 years the ICE vehicle becomes vastly less expensive. That's because in an EV you have a battery replacement costing $20,000 + that is a certainty while a well-maintained ICE vehicle can run for decades. I know, I have one pick up right now, a Nissan Frontier, that is going on 250,000 miles and is old enough to buy a beer. Total repair and maintenance costs amount to maybe $3,000 on it, if that.

As for using GPS to track road use. Not possible so long as there are vehicles with no GPS in them on the roads and no, you can't force a retrofit as that violates making ex-post facto laws. Gas taxes did distribute the costs fairly because the more you drove, the more fuel you used, and the more taxes you paid. The problem with EV's is you can't always tax where they charge.

[Mina]

I already showed that isn't necessarily true. But when you push ownership out to say 8 to 10 years the ICE vehicle becomes vastly less expensive. That's because in an EV you have a battery replacement costing $20,000 + that is a certainty while a well-maintained ICE vehicle can run for decades.

That's certainly a propaganda point the right has been making for a while now, but electric car batteries are actually estimated to last between 10 and 20 years.... and, if you hold onto your car for that long, there's going to effectively be almost zero residual value in either car -- just whatever you get from scrap. So, as between owning an electric vehicle for 15 years and owning an ICE for 15 years, the case for the electric vehicle actually gets stronger and stronger over time, as the importance of that initial price differential becomes ever smaller relative to the lower maintenance and fuel costs of the EV.

As for using GPS to track road use. Not possible so long as there are vehicles with no GPS in them on the roads

No, you could do a hybrid approach -- basically, require those units in new vehicles (it costs as little as $50), and then just charge a road tax for the older vehicles, while those are gradually being phased out. Within a few years, you'd have most vehicles paying by way of the GPS.

and no, you can't force a retrofit as that violates making ex-post facto laws

No, you could definitely require a retrofit. There are examples of legally required retrofits. But, as I said, that wouldn't be needed, since you could just do a road tax for non-GPS units.

Gas taxes did distribute the costs fairly because the more you drove, the more fuel you used, and the more taxes you paid.

Did you not understand the point I made about how only a portion of the decay of a road is proportional to vehicle miles traveled on it?

Here, let's greatly simplify so that the point is clear. Let's say you have two neighborhoods. Each is located at the end of its own one mile private access road. Each road has to be plowed of snow to be useable, at a cost of $10,000 per road per year. One of those neighborhoods has ten people using that road. One has 1,000.

Now, consider two ways of financing it.

(1) Everyone pays in accordance with how many miles they travel on the access roads. For simplicity, say everyone uses their respective road the same amount -- outbound and back once per day for a commute. Total cost, $20,000, divided by total people, 1,010, equals a per person per year cost of about $19.80.

(2) Those who use each road pay for the road they use. So, people in the small neighborhood pay $1,000 ($10,000/10), while people in the big neighborhood pay $10 ($10,000/1,000).

Clearly, going for the first financing approach effectively has the small-community people heavily subsidized by the big-community people. That snow-plowing cost is a fixed cost and doesn't care whether 10 people are using the road or 1,000: the road needs to be plowed either way.

That same principle holds true when you compare roads leading to highly-populous urban areas and remote rural ones. Some of the costs needed to maintain and patrol the roads are fixed whether the roads have a few hundred people using them or a few hundred thousand. So, when you do a per-mile fee regardless of which roads people are using, you wind up with urban people heavily subsidizing rural ones.