"In 1984, a German historian compiled 210 explanations historians had suggested for Rome’s fall, from lead poisoning and barbarian invasions to Christianity, moral decline and gout.
After studying dynamic civilizations such as Athens, Rome, Abbasid Baghdad, Song China, Renaissance Italy and the Dutch Republic, I can attest that there is no single explanation. Each golden age had its own character and its own downfall."
I always figured it was a combination of the volcanic winter of 536[1] and the Justinianic plague[2] (which happened right as the eastern roman empire was reconquering the western empire to reunify).
Blame Alfred Nobel, he set up the original categories. According to Wikipedia his goals were prizes "which annually recognize those who 'conferred the greatest benefit to humankind'". Perhaps he didn't consider math as directly benefiting mankind.
"Beginning Oct. 1, motorists with a Clean Air Vehicle decal will no longer be able to drive solo in carpool lanes because the program was not extended by the federal government..."
So it's a special EV privilege that is going away (because of the Feds). Now they'll be treated like other vehicles. Not as bad as the headline could be interpreted.
Well, no, they still won’t be taxed for miles driven per year like gas vehicles are. Not yet, anyways! Probably two or three years left on that watt-o-mobile owner loophole (that Priuses have been exploiting for years, but with far less road damage per mile traveled due to being hybrids). Or maybe less if the feds starve California of transportation funding in petulance at whatever.
Solar charged vehicles, such as with a Tesla powerwall, would pay zero dollars of tax per mile driven if you depended on an electricity tax. Doesn’t really work out in road repair costs to leave a massive tax loophole open.
By weight and by tire count! Have to made sure to deal with four-tire axles and such, not to mention electric semi trucks.
I believe the California pilot determined that odometer reporting and occasional DMV drive-thru checks will be the solution. I’d post the newsletter to HN the next time it comes out but this isn’t really the sort of group that appreciates taxation.
> Solar charged vehicles, such as with a Tesla powerwall
Paying tens of thousands to avoid a few cents per gallon doesn't immediately strike me as a great deal.
"According to Caltrans, Californians with gas-powered vehicles pay about $300 a year in state gas taxes."[1]
This is a tiny minority of EV drivers.
> Doesn’t really work out in road repair costs
For that matter did the gasoline tax ever fully cover repair costs when EVs weren't around? I always had the impression that funds were needed from other sources too. It's interesting to see so many people get religion about "making drivers pay their fair share" after EVs became popular.
I’m not specifically concerned about EVs as I am vehicle mass X tires on road — it’s just that EVs further piled on the problem, and so of course they’re a focus of attention now. doi.org/10.1007/s10098-022-02433-8 estimated 20-40% more road wear for EV vehicles of equivalent passenger capacity as gas vehicles, for example. If someone had started making gas SUVs out of osmium because it’s more crash resistant, I’d be just as annoyed at the loophole exploit of that as I am about that extra untaxed mass-wear on roadways being batteries. (But if you solve the battery mass problem, the flat fee is still unfair in favor of high mileage drivers versus low mileage ones, so a mileage-mass tax will always be the correct outcome.)
However, the real threat to roadways that hasn’t yet been fully realized is EV autopilot tractor-trailers; without gas taxing, without mileage taxing, and without the constrain of having to pay humans to drive them, the state highways are going to get shredded into gravel in a decade.
Both have to be treated; passenger vehicles wear down roadways in residential zones that semi trucks don’t enter, and semi trucks wear down highways vastly more rapidly than any personal vehicle of any weight can.
I participated in two phases of the mileage pilot program described by that ABC article over the past ten years and look forward to its eventual implementation in literally any form whatsoever. I truly hope that their final form ends up being mass-wheel-mileage taxation with a transit credit for public transit and 10+ passenger vehicles, so that lightweight Priuses and buses pay little and heavyweight Rivians and semi trucks pay lots. Whatever their first steps towards that outcome is, I’ll take it, whether it’s gas tax or EV tax or truck tax corrections or any combination thereof. The status quo is unfair in multiple ways and they’ve got their work cut out for them.
Here in California, 20k miles of driving at 30mpg (so, highway only, which is of course unrealistically high) is $600 in gasoline taxes per year, with California state and local taxes at $0.612/gal; meanwhile, the EV registration gas tax makeup fee is $118/yr, which is equivalent to 192 gallons per year of tax, which at 30mpg is merely 6k miles, not 20k. California average miles driven is estimated at 11k.
So: the EV loophole is costing the state half of the road maintenance tax budgeted for road wear in subsidies paid to EV drivers, assuming that all gas vehicles get 30mpg at all times. I don’t expect that gap to last much longer now the Federal government is openly hostile to the state. Hooray for silver linings, I guess.
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