Georgia raises Gas Taxes July 1st and Drops Tax Credits

[ptjones]

Georgia raises Gas Taxes about 10cents a gallon July 1st.  Also drops Tax Credits for Electric and Alternative vehicles and adds $300 electric/$200 alternative fuel registration fee.  This could hurt sales of these types of vehicles.  Apparently there aren't any deductions for Hybrids/Plugins.  :drop:

 

Paul

[plus 3 golfer]

IMO, the "right" thing to do. Giving tax credits benefits those that can "afford" to pay more for an HEV, EV, and PHEV over a conventional ICE vehicle while also giving the alternative vehicles a "discount" for using the roads based on the road use tax on fuel used.

[ptjones]

IMO, the "right" thing to do. Giving tax credits benefits those that can "afford" to pay more for an HEV, EV, and PHEV over a conventional ICE vehicle while also giving the alternative vehicles a "discount" for using the roads based on the road use tax on fuel used.

I'm not sure that this is true for everyone, I believe some saved money over having a ICE vehicle. Now with no Tax Credit and additional $300 every year might not make economical sense enough to jump from ICE to EV.  IMO ;)

 

Paul

[plus 3 golfer]

I'm not sure that this is true for everyone, I believe some saved money over having a ICE vehicle. Now with no Tax Credit and additional $300 every year might not make economical sense enough to jump from ICE to EV.  IMO ;)

 

Paul

My point is a subsidies generally benefits those that can afford the alternative vehicles absent the subsidy. IMO, one needs to look at this on a macro not micro level.  Why should anyone receive a "wind fall" from a subsidy AND reap the fuel savings of an alternative vehicle over an ICE vehicle. Someone is "paying" for that "wind fall".  It's time for HEV, PHEV, and EVs to pass the economic test absent subsidies.  Let the free market work and raise gasoline taxes to shift the cost / benefit towards fuel efficient, less polluting vehicles.  GA is getting it, IMO.  Of course as the fleet of vehicles becomes more efficient (and the average vehicle uses less fuel), states need to find alternative means to capture road use tax other than on the fuel purchased.

 

This is not much different than what we are seeing in residential PV solar.  PV solar is also coming under fire for subsidies that solar owners receive at the expense of non-solar owners.  State utility commissions are rethinking these subsidies as more customers invest in solar.  Put another way, my annual return on my 1st solar system was in excess of 33% per year (payback of my initial investment was less than 3 years). My solar was being heavily subsidized by others.  So, why didn't more customers put in PV solar if the return was that good?  They simply couldn't afford the upfront cost or be subject to the conditions of a "leased" system should they want to sell their home.  

 

Just like PV Solar, subsidies for PHEV, HEV, and EVs will eventually have to drop / stop as the burden on others increase.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Plus 3 Golfer

[SnowStorm]

IMO, the "right" thing to do.

Only if you consider doubling the tax rate on electric cars "right".  The national average gasoline tax is 49.5 cents/gal - about 1 cent/mile for many hybrid drivers.  Using the "EPA average" of 15,000 miles/year, that $300 is 2 cents/mile!  If you only drive 7500 miles, that's 4 cents/mile making it more expensive to fuel and drive (about 8 cents/mile total) than a hybrid!  I call that "highway robbery"!  I wonder what group of large corporations might be behind this one.  Look out folks, here comes...

 

"Who Killed The Electric Car? - Round Two!"

[plus 3 golfer]

Only if you consider doubling the tax rate on electric cars "right".  The national average gasoline tax is 49.5 cents/gal - about 1 cent/mile for many hybrid drivers.  Using the "EPA average" of 15,000 miles/year, that $300 is 2 cents/mile!  If you only drive 7500 miles, that's 4 cents/mile making it more expensive to fuel and drive (about 8 cents/mile total) than a hybrid!  I call that "highway robbery"!  I wonder what group of large corporations might be behind this one.  Look out folks, here comes...

 

"Who Killed The Electric Car? - Round Two!"

Whatever is fair. ;)

 

It's the EV "cry babies" calling foul when they might lose their "EV only parking spaces", HOV access, their EV and charging station subsidies, and lower registration fee or have to pay for something they use. :)   One poster on the Leaf forum says: "I've just taken the state for $10 k, making it nearly free for me to drive for the last 2 years and the next 2 years. If they want $200/yr, fine... it'll take 50 years at that rate to break even with me."  Even $300 is not even close to fair. :doh:  To some it's okay to others it's "highway robbery".

 

Why should EVs use the roads for virtually nothing (note highlighting below)?   "States are also addressing concerns regarding the effect that the growing use of electric vehicles may have on funding for transportation infrastructure, which relies heavily on gasoline taxes. Colorado, Nebraska, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington have adopted fees for electric vehicles and several more states have considered legislation. In Michigan, the legislature also passed a measure in 2014 that would create a new fee for certain hybrid and electric vehicles. However, Michigan's proposal must first be approved by the voters and it will be included on a state ballot measure in May 2015. Additionally, Oregon has agreed to a 5,000-vehicle opt-in program beginning in 2015 that allows drivers to pay a fee based on miles driven rather than gallons of fuel purchased. The Road Usage Charge System adopted in Oregon has the potential to separate transportation revenues from gasoline consumption." - from National Conference of State Legislatures.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Plus 3 Golfer

[Kelleytoons]

Clearly there aren't nearly enough electric cars to put even the slightest dent in pollution, so removing the "push" to get more folks to use them is very short-sighted and smacks of either cronyism or (worse) stupidity, two things I would think are most likely very prevalent in that state (sorry, but when I think of "The South" I think of Georgia and not my own home state <g>).

 

The road infrastructure is definitely something that needs consideration, but at the expense of the far greater and more pressing issue of nonrenewable resources and pollution?  Um, not so much.  In fact, I would argue that perhaps what we need are much *worse* highways (yeah, it's controversial, but remember the interstate system was designed very specifically for war and is really obsolete in that light).

 

And, folks, you DO know that truckers are the most abusive of the roads by such a wide margin it isn't even funny?  Yeah, they pay "their share" of the road tax, but hardly.  If you looked at the ratio of how much abuse the far heavier trucks put on the roads versus what they pay it isn't even close.  There's a reason the truck lanes are always the most degraded part of any highway (that's assuming they even stay in those lanes).  If someone starts arguing about the need for road taxes and ignores raising them greatly for truckers (and I mean GREATLY) they are just self-serving.  Putting the hit on truckers would raise shipping prices, but I'd also argue that isn't such a bad thing either (perhaps we need to just go back to a simpler time in life where local goods are the norm rather than the exception).

 

I'd suggest those voters in Georgia "vote the scoundrels out", except that most of them are likely scoundrels themselves (so consider moving).

Edited May 7, 2015 by Kelleytoons

[Bugblndr]

Raising the taxes on truckers is just raising everyone's taxes but making the trucker the tax collector instead of the government.  The job of truckers is to transport goods not collect taxes.

 

Pretty much everything we use is shipped via truck, including the gasoline used in your car, the food you eat, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the milk you drink, the furniture you sit on, the soap you clean with, the electronics you use to browse forccmaxhybridforum.com, the solar panels that go on your roof, etc, etc, etc.  If you raise the cost of shipping, you raise the cost of all goods.

[plus 3 golfer]

IMO, the simple solution (albeit not a popular one) would be to raise road use taxes for everyone.  Even if the truckers might not pay their fair share, the deficit would be a subsidy by the consumers for the lower shipping costs of consumer goods.  The Oregon mileage based program has merit especially for PHEV and EV vehicles.  Thus, higher retail fuel prices should provide increase revenue for road infrastructure and provide incentives for consumers to purchase fuel efficient, smaller vehicles.   With respect to current fuel taxes, the US ranks virtually at the bottom of countries with the lowest fuel taxes added to a gallon of fuel.   Just look at the fuel taxes the EU countries pay.

 

Giving incentives like the GA $5000 or CO $6000 subsidy to promote alternative fuel vehicles is the "easy way" out for legislators.  The legislators look good and the programs "work" for a small % of the total number of vehicles but it is not a long term viable solution.  Increase road use taxes from the around $0.50 per gallon to $2.50 a gallon (yes, over time). :)  That $2 increase should go a long way in infrastructure improvement, put lots of people to work, and reduce pollution.

 

BTW, I'll take advantage of any subsidies / rebates and so forth that makes economic sense for me. If AZ offered a charger subsidy and 20% of the retail price subsidy ($5000 limit) on EVs like GA, I'd likely own a Focus Electric.   But that doesn't mean such is fair.  Those $ have to come from someone.

[stevedebi]

I could not have afforded my Energi if not for the rebates, but that is beside the point. If the rebates had not been there I would have simply bought something else. I pay a lot in taxes, and I'm just getting some of it back, in my view.

 

I think that all vehicles should pay only for the miles they drive, based on the weight of the car. However it is critical that they simply check the odometer each year, not invade privacy like Oregon is doing by putting GPS in the vehicles. That is just too prone to abuse.

Edited May 7, 2015 by stevedebi

[ptjones]

No easy solution here, gas prices here have gone up $.40/Gal. Biodiesel could be the cheapest solution in the future.

 

Paul

[edward stewart]

Sadly the 300 fee is a magic number. They doubled the miles driven and rounded up to 300 on the loss of estimated fuel tax.