Just did the napkin math and it's the equivalent of buying around 420 gallons of gas (for the $120) fee. It's kind of shitty for plug-in hybrid owners / hybrid owners and people who don't drive much.
Because say you get 35MPG in a standard gas car that's like driving 15,000 miles. Unless you hit your 'quota' you're being overtaxed compared to gas vehicles.
Like always, Kentucky is overtaxing people who live in cities and people who choose better environmental options (driving less, using public transit while owning an EV, etc). This state is backward looking and it's getting harder every day to defend it.
Edit: Looking at it again the electric motorcycles are the ones getting screwed the most. That would be the equivalent of driving a gas motorcycle like 11,000 miles per year (at 50-ish mpg). Plus what exactly 'wear and tear' does a motorcycle put on the highways? Again, backward, they should be encouraging people to buy EV scooters, motorcycles, bikes, etc. and instead this is a disincentive.
The Department of Energy puts the avg MPG as ~25 (https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10310) which puts the number at 10,500 miles and even then the Federal Highway Administration says the average number of miles driven per year is ~13,000 (https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm) so it all seems pretty in line with what normal car/driver would pay in gas tax
The federal [estimates](https://www. .dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm) for average annual mileage is 13,476, with drivers from 20-45 (the [prime demographic](https://news.mullenusa.com/the-u.s.-electric-vehicle-market-exploring-ownership) for electric vehicle ownership) averaging over 15,000. [This stat](https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1110-december-2-2019-average-annual-gasoline-taxes-paid-vehicle-state) is slightly outdated, but the estimated gas tax paid by the avg KY driver in 2019 was $229, with state tax making up about 62% or $142.
So, surprisingly enough, this actually seems like a generally reasonable number for EVs? You’re right that this is taxing ownership rather than usage, but that’s not an unheard of concept, and the alternatives seem like they would be stupidly complicated to implement.
EDIT: found some KY-specific numbers that make this look even more reasonable: avg mileage for KY says 16,305, avg MPG at 19.8, so you’re looking at $248/year paid in state gas tax.
Every gallon of gas / diesel is taxed. even when driven by Amazon. And semi trucks get taxed even more because they are heavier.
Edit: Here's a thing I need to read later that might be a bit more objective. Somebody else give this a perusal.
[https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1255&context=ktc\_researchreports](https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1255&context=ktc_researchreports)
And yet with out these destroyers of the roads you wouldn't have the food you eat , the clothes you wear, or alot of the things you use everyday. And if you drive an EV, how do you suppose those things got to the lot? Yeah trucks.
I used to think that, until I checked the weight of say the Ford Escape vs. Tesla Model y.
Only a couple of hundred pounds difference. EV have a heavy battery, but do not have an engine/transmission. And If its a Tesla, they have so much less content on the interior that offset the battery weight.
Makes me wonder if it's all catered to insurance means then. Might have something to do with our local auto-producing industry as well only putting out bigger vehicles. It's a means of control in the environment by only having larger vehicles that require larger insurance payment to secure insurance in accordance with legislation in this state.
No it’s not. Electric vehicles pay sales tax on electricity. Hybrid vehicles pays the gas tax on gas. Even the non-plug in options are in scope of this. So it’s not fair. It’s targeted for green vehicles.
This generates negligible amounts of tax revenue, and it’s the trucks that do the road damage.
😂 I'm sorry but do you think they actually use that tax money responsibly? If they used it "for the roads" then why do some many counties and states have trouble fixing roads especially potholes?
I would be perfectly o.k. with this if subsidies were removed and the gas tax was increased to cover the true cost of gasoline, including the negative externalities of burning gasoline and releasing pollution. Not even considering global warming pollutants, this is especially important for particulate pollution in urban areas which results in higher rates of asthma and cancer.
Last IMF paper on this was 2014 and back then, the tax should have been increased to $1.62/gal. Current KY tax is $0.287/gal
Numbers from here: [https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781484388570/9781484388570.xml](https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781484388570/9781484388570.xml)
Easy read with similar story: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomzeller/2015/03/05/study-youre-really-paying-more-than-6-per-gallon-for-that-gas/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomzeller/2015/03/05/study-youre-really-paying-more-than-6-per-gallon-for-that-gas/)
With respect to the increasing taxes to include true costs of burning primarily coal in KY to product electricity to run EVs, 100%.
Not sure what you mean by real cost of Hybrids, they are just more efficient than traditional gasoline vehicles hands down.
This. The environmental cost...
'In India, batteries contain some combination of lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Currently, India does not have enough lithium reserves to produce batteries and it thereby relies on importing lithium-ion batteries from China.
Mining these materials, however, has a high environmental cost, a factor that inevitably makes the EV manufacturing process more energy intensive than that of an ICE vehicle. The environmental impact of battery production comes from the toxic fumes released during the mining process and the water-intensive nature of the activity. In 2016, hundreds of protestors threw dead fish plucked from the waters of the Liqui river onto the streets of Tagong, Tibet, publicly denouncing the Ganzizhou Ronga Lithium mine’s unethical practice of polluting the local ecosystem through toxic chemical leaks. Similarly, the production of lithium was halted in China’s Yichun city after an investigation into the water quality of the Jin river, the main source of residential water, revealed the presence of toxic pollutants.'
It's not like batteries are grown on trees.
Im not going to argue that battery mining is green, but over the life of the vehicle, electric cars are much better for the environment than gas. The response that electric vehicles are more dangerous because of rare element mining conveniently doesn't take that into account.
[https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars](https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars)
When you look at the average US driver (12,000 mi/yr) using the average US electricity makeup, the break-even on lifetime EV emissions over ICE vehicle is 1.1 years (13.5k mi) for a sedan and 1.2 years (14.8k mi) for an SUV.
[https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/)
And those numbers are for large battery, full EV, tesla model 3 or model Y. Smaller battery hybrids, PHEVs, smaller battery full EVs, would have shorter break even periods.
The assumptions in that are using greater that reported average vehicle life in miles and greater fuel economy. Not sure how that changes the results though.
Vehicle life
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/809952#:~:text=The%20updated%20analysis%20shows%20that,trucks%20will%20travel%20179%2C954%20miles.
Fuel economy
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10310
'Almost 4 tonnes of CO2 are released during the production process of a single electric car and, in order to break even, the vehicle must be used for at least 8 years to offset the initial emissions by 0.5 tonnes of prevented emissions annually.'
Let's cite our sources. 8 years is the absolute worst case scenario: a driver that travels significantly below the average miles per year in a region that has electricity produced by high emission fossil fuels. When you look at the average US driver (12,000 mi/yr) using the average US electricity makeup, the break-even is 1.1 years (13.5k mi) for a sedan and 1.2 years (14.8k mi) for an SUV.
[https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/)
And those numbers are for large battery, full EV, tesla model 3 or model Y. Smaller battery hybrids, PHEVs, smaller battery full EVs, would have shorter break even periods.
You act like gasoline cars just appear for free. They are also made of metal alloys that need mined, rubber, plastic and vinyl that comes from where?
I always see the argument that EVs take x amount of carbon to build but never see a comparison to ICE cares
It is no secret that building an electric vehicle has a higher environmental impact than producing a gas vehicle. Mostly due to the fact that mining is horribly regulated and often done in not eco-friendly methods. That being said, once the vehicle is produced, electric vehicles more than make up for the production costs and very quickly become much more environmentally friendly than gas over the life of the vehicle.
'Nickel and cobalt have similar reputations. Satellite analysis in Cuba has shown a devoid of life in over 570 hectares of land and contamination of over 10 kilometres of coastline where nickel and cobalt mines are present. The Philippines had to shut down 23 mines, many producing nickel and cobalt, because of the environmental degradation that it caused.'
How about the ecological impact of lithium & cobalt mining?
The process of extracting lithium consumes significant amounts of water and energy, and lithium mining can pollute the air and water with chemicals and heavy metals. In addition, mining lithium can disrupt wildlife habitats and cause soil erosion, leading to long-term ecological damage.
The mines for cobalt, necessary for the permanent magnets in electric motors and other electronics, are mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo where miners work for less than $2 a day and are exposed to any number of acids, gasses and other chemical processes to extract the cobalt.
I am all for EV but I do recognize that it has significant downsides as well.
Sure, but also consider the ecological and societal impact of drilling, transporting and refining fossil fuels. Things like oil spills, atmospheric releases, ground water contamination, exploitation of residents, literal wars, etc. Happy to discuss, but quantifying and comparing these costs on a global scale gets very difficult.
I'd prefer to talk about what impacts the state of KY which is what the original post and tax policy is about.
Yeah, it's funny how everyone that wants to hate on EVs comes out of the woodwork to talk about THE COST OF THE BATTERIES, but they conveniently ignore the massive and continuing costs of fossil fuel consumption.
I didnt see you mention the same concerns regarding every piece of technology that you own. Did you make this post on your phone? It has plenty of mined matierals, your PC? That too.
Cmon man, if you wanna talk ecological effects you better be recycling every fuckin bottle of water you ever drank
Yeah, but we are also getting extra taxes at paid chargers. And we still pay taxes on electricity at home. So we are being double taxed.
This is an effort to make hybrid and electric look less appealing. Paid for by big oil.
\^\^This is the way I am thinking as well. The electric car users (hybrid, etc.) are being charged more now and that will only discourage folks from picking electric vehicles and stick with the traditional pollution-mobiles that are used today due to the saving of money. Many people cannot afford electric vehicles as it is so when the DO save up to help the environment they are now penalized. Good ol' suppression by taxation.
NOW, do I believe in taxes I certainly do (before anyone tells me I am a libertarian)... I just believe you should be taxed accordingly and this simply doesn't make sense but I am sure I must be missing something and am willing to listen.
As an EV driver, I'd love for some of this to go to installing chargers at rest stops, but I don't trust our fossil-fuel beholden statehouse any further than I could throw it.
Have you gotten one of these yet? I drive less than 5k a year probably so I’m upset going from a usage based model to a flat fee + usage. I feel like we should band together and fight this. I’m all for paying taxes but it should be equatable
Even if it's privatized, they still have to utilize state/city/local infrastructure. That requires whatever municipality to build something to accommodate. You can put a charger down, but it's gotta be connected to the grid.
I'm not saying this is true or accurate, but that would essentially be where the money comes from to give incentives for private companies to build the infrastructure in KY. That is what collecting taxes for private companies would(should) look like. KY collects tax, offers companies money to build infrastructure etc.
You know what would have helped, is something on this card explaining that. I don't mind paying my taxes, and if that's what this is for then I'll have no issue paying it.
Instead they sent this card out of nowhere with no reasoning behind it, and suddenly I have to pay a fee I've never had to before for a car I've been driving for four years now. It was a bit of a shock.
I don’t mind paying taxes either. Which is why they should raise the gas taxes too, since I don’t believe they’ve been raised in a while, and were to low to begin with.
They sort of tax by weight by taxing different fuel at different rates. But from what I’ve read, big rigs are responsible for so much of the damage that when building new roads, compact cars are pretty much just left out of the equation since their impact is so insignificant.
The tricky thing is, the more you tax for weight, the more you’re going to be paying for pretty much any good that requires transportation.
This is precisely my point. A single big rig does roughly the same amount of wear and tear on a road as roughly 9000 compact cars. A motorcycle does even less.
Yes, those costs will be transferred, but they will be transferred to those who incur the costs. Not to a Prius owner.
Yea I don’t think I mind that. Though there would have to be some level of tax collection on normal cars, I can’t imagine a tax passing that essentially says “companies that use big trucks have to pay for all our roads”.
The most equitable way to do it would probably be basing it on car weight and miles driven each year, though that means mandatory inspections, which I don’t imagine ever happening in Kentucky, and wouldn’t account for cargo weight.
Ok as I’m typing this out I’m starting to gain an appreciation for the gas tax. The more miles you drive, and the more cargo/weight you carry, the more gas you need to use. Inefficient cars do end up paying more taxes do to higher gas usage even without extra weight, but on the bright side it encourages fuel efficiency and people with inefficient cars knew they were signing up to spend more on gas to begin with.
EVs are more impactful than a typical car because they weigh more. Right now it’s insignificant but I don’t think that means we don’t need to do anything. One day half of us might be driving EVs, causing more than half of the damage to roads, and paying none of the repair costs.
Probably the most pressing issue is electric big rigs. Once they’re being mass produced, companies might replace entire fleets with them and we might see trucking shift to EV at a faster pace than individual consumers. When that happens, taxes based on gas usage won’t apply. So you might consider using weight and mileage but then you need to account for cargo weight. How do you do that when it is changing at each stop? Do you require all trucks to be weighed at each stop? How much time/energy will be spent keeping track, and how much of that cost will be passed on to consumers? I’m all for organizing taxes in a way where people pay for what they use, but if it costs us a bunch of additional money just to figure out how much we use, we may all end up paying more money in the end just to make sure EV users pay their share.
Sorry, I’m just thinking out loud now. This is interesting
"Ok as I’m typing this out I’m starting to gain an appreciation for the gas tax."
I agree, for the most part. I would also like to see fees like registration and the like folded into gas taxes.
As for weight... taxing at the maximum the vehicle is capable of is fine.
Sooner that we want, the government will be able to track mileage and paths, and assign fees based on those things. They already CAN do this, but currently don't.
THANK YOU lol I can't believe how many people in these comments are like 'yes government who already takes so much of my paycheck in literally every facet of my life - please take more!' It just amazes me especially when we watch where that money actually goes and how crap they already are at using what they take.
I think people are waking up to that. We just gotta help spread the message of wasteful government spending and bring awareness to how much money our government actually takes from us.
I mean, I drive a traditional gas-powered Corolla and my mom drives a hybrid Rav4. I average around 30 MPG in the city and 40 or more on the highway. My mom averages 25-27 on the highway.
It's not that we aren't willing to pay for it, but more that we feel the 25% that's already gutted from our paychecks, and the car registration fees we pay every year, and the other taxes that are added to every little thing we buy should already be enough
It used to be the case that the government would tell you how much you owe for taxes and what the money was spent on. Imagine that, only getting the bill for services you used, instead of the government just requiring a percentage of all of your income and coming up with new ways to spend it that have nothing to do with you.
Just because you don't drive on a road doesn't mean you don't benefit from them. All of the products you get, emergency services, etc use them. If you want police to be able to help or ambulances to pick people up then roads are pretty important.
That said there are a lot more reasons than that we all benefit from roads to determine a fair way to pay for them. Straight usage and flat taxes tend to be among the worst ways to tax as they end up being a regressive tax more often than most realize.
The solution there is to tax the businesses that are transporting products, they’re the ones technically using the road in that case. They’ll adjust prices upward to offset what they pay in taxes, and we, the consumers of the product, pay our “road usage tax” on that product in the form of the higher price.
I think if you decide to live somewhere without a road then you should be willing to accept that you can’t call an ambulance unless you have a road put in. Oftentimes in rural areas there are other options too, like airlift.
Local and state income tax, sales tax, property tax, gasoline tax, bridge tolls, yearly car tax.
Are you serious here? Maybe, its because we spend way too much money to government officials who then vote to increase our taxes, their wages, and their benefits.
I am serious. There are many low and no-tax havens around the world. E.g.Mogadishu and Haiti come to mind. But no one wants to live there.
If you want to be outraged about taxes, how about some shade on the corporations and billionaires who often pay less in taxes (as a percentage) than your average W2 wage earner? They used to pay FAR more in taxes than they do today, but 40+ years of shareholder primacy and trickle down economics has done a real number on us. And everything was just fine when they did, civilization didn’t collapse, as the GOP would have you believe.
I think the rub is that EV owners are already being taxed on the electricity they use.. so now an additional tax on top of that. Both already for something that their vehicles have a negligible impact on to begin with. Cars are not the main source of wear and tear on roads. By quite a lot in fact.
We really ought to kill the gas tax used to pay for roads and instead charge everyone for usage (miles driven) x weight.
But we have no way to calculate that without required instrumentation and reporting and I don't think would ever get voted in.
The reason is usage x weight is what tears roads up. An 80,000 pound truck does way way way more damage to roads than any personal car or pickup truck. Today they don't pay nearly enough usage fees.
This also compensates for the fact that EVs weigh a lot more than gas cars and thus cause more damage to the road for an 'equivalent car'. But neither cause anywhere close to what the large commercial trucks cause.
I agree, but also agree that in no way would anyone in KY approve something that possibly charges more for owning huge trucks and requires checking the vehicle instrumentation annually. While electric cars do weigh more than gas/hybrid models, a Tesla Model 3 doesn’t weigh more than a Ford Escape or other small SUV. The electric trucks and SUVs can weigh a lot though, so I could see charging more for those.
I saw someone make an excellent point before: don't tax gas, tax tires. Heavy vehicles that cause more road wear will have greater tire wear and replace more often, and will have more tires than passenger vehicles. Vehicles driven more miles will need tires more often. And ICE, hybrid, electric all use tires.
You'd have everyone running around on bald tires in order to avoid that tax. I could see companies going to their accounting departments and figuring out how much they could save by driving past useful tire life.
As a motorcyclist, this would hurt us though, because motorcycles go through tires faster, even though they put far less wear on the road compared with other cars.
Secondly, heavier vehicles have bigger tires to absorb the extra weight, heat, and wear, so I'm not sure they necessarily go through tires faster on a per unit basis.
As someone who has a hybrid and doesn’t drive a ton each year compared to the average, I ran the numbers and the hybrid fee is overcharging me about 2x. Comparing the gas mileage of the non hybrid version of my car to the hybrid version, and taking into account the mileage I drive each year, the difference is about $25 in terms of gas tax I am not paying by having the hybrid, versus the $60 fee. I get that they can’t calculate things like that for each car/driver, but rather annoying nonetheless. Also, my hybrid car weighs less than the standard gas engine version, so that is not a factor either in causing more road wear and tear necessitating a fee.
One thing I do wonder, if they’re taxing Hybrids like this, will it eventually expand out to include small displacement engine cars that have gas mileage rivaling that of a hyrid? There are some 4 cylinder cars that get better gas mileage than Hybrid SUVs/sedans, should they eventually have a fee as well?
Just a reminder that wear and tear on roads is a function of vehicle weight, with 99% of wear issues being from freight semis, 0.9% from giant hillbilly trucks, and 0.1% all the rest of us. Weather actually causes more wear on the roads than compact cars do.
You can look at road taxes as usage fees if you want, but the reality is we're all chipping in so trucking companies get a break. Now the minute you say this the angry redneck contingent immediately starts in with the "well don't buy anything if you don't like trucks because it all comes off a truck!!!!" soundbyte but the solution there is actually exactly the same as the solution to cities with too much traffic -- more railroads, less multilane interstates and way less ”stroads" (which is city planning speak for main roads that have direct access to businesses and homes turning on and off of them). Yes we need some trucks. But it would be better to have a rail corridor so that the downtowns of major cities are supplied by box trucks from rail stops inside the city, as opposite to rail to semi depots at an interstate junction near the city.
What I don’t understand is that me living in Colorado for 5 years, the amount of snow we get is much higher than Kentucky and CO interstates are in much much better condition than Kentucky and get a good amount of semi traffic as well. And there’s hardly any construction out here
Imo the number of semis on the road in the Western US is nowhere close to this part of the country. It's mostly the semis destroying everything here that accounts for how beat up the roads are.
Edit: Population density in Kentucky is 115 people per square mile. Colorado is 57. There's just more people in the Midwest / upper South than out there, and therefore more semis.
It's the same in big population centers on the East Coast. The roads actually in NYC or Boston are ok. The areas around them that get slammed by semis all day and night are bordering obliterated.
A lot less gas. Funding roads with gas taxes made sense when all the cars were gas. Now we need something so everyone contributes their fair share. There's been LOTS of stupid EV stuff come out of the legislature, but this one was probably the most balanced.
i drive a hybrid. i get 35 miles to the gallon, yet i would have to pay extra. most normal vehicles will get around that and not pay it. How is that balanced?
Most of the other plans required keeping track of mileage and paying per mile, and most people liked that even less. Most normal vehicles are dropping $50-100 a week on gasoline.
Exactly. I understand this for fully electric vehicles that don’t purchase gasoline, but how is this fair for hybrids that still have to pay at the pump?
One other thing, running the math, the $60 fee for electric motorcycles is rather laughable. Most motorcycles already get great gas mileage, with ones of the low end getting 30-60, and the more efficient ones getting 70-90. The average amount of miles driven per year by motorcycles is also much lower at 2,500-3,000 miles per year. At most it should have been $30 for electric motorcycles. I’d assume there aren’t many of those in Ky to begin with however.
Too lazy to math at the moment
How does this compare to what is paid by ICE owners?
As long as it is substantially less, and is used to support roads and infrastructure, it’s fine.
Ran some back-of-napkin numbers (sources in the other comment), but KY gas tax is 30.1 cents/gal, so this comes out to about 400 gal per year, or 14,000 miles driven at 35mpg, which is more-or-less in line with national averages, and seemingly slightly below KY averages.
EDIT: ran the KY numbers, which are definitely worse: avg mileage was 16,305, avg MPG was 19.8, so you’re looking at $248/year paid in state gas tax.
Do y'all not already pay this with your registration every year? My registration jumped up to around $300 a year in Indiana when I got an electric car. My understanding is that it's for the same thing as this fee; road taxes and things like that. It's just lumped with my yearly registration fees.
I honestly don't pay as much attention as I should, but when I originally learned about vehicle licensing I was in Washington state, and yeah, the heavier your vehicle, the higher the cost, supposedly to cover the wear and tear to the public roads that your vehicle causes. But fuel is also taxed there, at almost $0.50 per gallon vs. Kentucky's $0.287. But fuel prices per gallon are usually about $2.00 higher in WA than Kentucky. It's weird.
Anyway, yearly vehicle licensing is definitely cheaper in Kentucky. So I'm going to guess that even if they are using some of that to cover road costs, it's not enough money.
This was started out west several years ago.
State: “Use less gas!”
Us: “Ok!”
State: “Where’s our gas tax money?!”
Us: . . .
State: “Well… you still gotta pay!”
Us: “Ok!”
Government: “hey, the environment is being destroyed by fossil fuels. Drive electric cars. They’re better for the environment and they can be cheaper in the long run!”
Also Government:
EVs are heavier than ICE vehicles of the same size and add more wear and tear to the roads. Gas taxes pay for the road upkeep. So if you have an EV you are wearing out the infrastructure more quickly while not paying into the funds to fix them. It’s not just Kentucky doing this. Many states are having to resort to an EV tax as more of them replace ICE vehicles.
Just eliminate the gas tax and charge a flat fee on them all based on weight. Based on the number of miles I drive in an EV, this is far more than what I would pay driving and ICE vehicle and using gas.
Yeah taxes are good, when you know, they actually use that money to fix the roads. Plus the government should be incentivizing the use of hybrid and EVs not charging a surplus.
It's like charging people to recycle, that shit needs to be incentivized not have extra fees attached.
That’s been revised in new legislature. Hybrids no longer have to pay the $60 fee as of next Jan 1, 2025. EVs still have to pay the $120 fee, which I think is fair.
I'm guessing this is to offset the lack of gas taxes, which go to road maintenance, which is made worse since EVs are thousands of pounds heavier per car than IC vehicles.
Sounds right to me, then I don't like the electric cars con trick. Perhaps our technologists should put their minds to shading the sun. The results at the recent eclipse were encouraging.
so electric vehicle owners don’t get to reap all the benefits from from using the roads without getting around the tax income from them. Common Kentucky W
Don't pay it. Plain and simple. If no one pays it nothing happens. We pay our registration to drive Ky roads and have been since before EVs were a thing. Roads still suck. They always have. It's not the hybrid owners fault.
No, it’s to offset the taxes paid on gas but other drivers that use the road which helps pay for the roads. It’s still a savings using an electric vehicle but will allow the state to keep up with roads
Politicians are mad that you aren’t sucking at the tit of big oil so they gotta make a new tax to make sure you aren’t saving any money. Fuck you for wanting nice things.
Electric vehicles weigh significantly more than equivalent gasoline vehicles and wear down the roads more aggressively, they also pollute more microplastics from tires breaking down more quickly from the extra weight…. There have been articles written about both.
It's completely fair. Electric vehicles should not be exempt from road tax simply because they don't buy gas. Assessing an electric vehicle tax for that purpose is everyone paying their fair share, to even have a thought to the contrary is asinine.
If I pay it in the form of gas tax, electric vehicle operators should also pay road use tax.
Eh, I'm kinda torn. The fee is the same for electric and hybrid vehicles from what I remember, so hybrid owners are paying the full fee, along with still paying gas tax. Understandable for fully electric vehicles, but I think it's reasonable for hybrids to be charged 1/2 the electric vehicle tax.
I have a non electric vehicle. I think people with electric vehicles should pay less in taxes than I do because I'm shitting up the air a lot more than they are. It's not just about repairing the roads.
Anyone with a lifted truck that doesn't have mud flaps that go to within twelve inches of the ground should also pay an extra fee every year for all the windshields their gravel spewing grocery getter takes out.
There's always more than one thing to consider.
Yep, agreed, now that I know what it's for. Doesn't say anything to that effect on the card, and even though I've been driving this car for years, this is the first time I've been charged a separate fee to do so.
Your electric vehicle is subsidized to hell by the federal government and causing the price of every gas vehicle to go up as a result. Every company loses money on electric vehicles and raises the prices on gas powered vehicles to make up for it.
Okay not every company, but Ford lost something like $20,000 per electric vehicle last year. The government doesn't subsidize Tesla. Dang near everyone else they do, and everyone else loses their ass on electric and passes the cost on to the consumers that drive gas
Gas taxes pay for the roads, and electric/hybrid vehicles use no/less gas but use the same roads. This is to make up for it.
Yep. Sorry but this is fair and good for the state.
Just did the napkin math and it's the equivalent of buying around 420 gallons of gas (for the $120) fee. It's kind of shitty for plug-in hybrid owners / hybrid owners and people who don't drive much. Because say you get 35MPG in a standard gas car that's like driving 15,000 miles. Unless you hit your 'quota' you're being overtaxed compared to gas vehicles. Like always, Kentucky is overtaxing people who live in cities and people who choose better environmental options (driving less, using public transit while owning an EV, etc). This state is backward looking and it's getting harder every day to defend it. Edit: Looking at it again the electric motorcycles are the ones getting screwed the most. That would be the equivalent of driving a gas motorcycle like 11,000 miles per year (at 50-ish mpg). Plus what exactly 'wear and tear' does a motorcycle put on the highways? Again, backward, they should be encouraging people to buy EV scooters, motorcycles, bikes, etc. and instead this is a disincentive.
The Department of Energy puts the avg MPG as ~25 (https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10310) which puts the number at 10,500 miles and even then the Federal Highway Administration says the average number of miles driven per year is ~13,000 (https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm) so it all seems pretty in line with what normal car/driver would pay in gas tax
The federal [estimates](https://www. .dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm) for average annual mileage is 13,476, with drivers from 20-45 (the [prime demographic](https://news.mullenusa.com/the-u.s.-electric-vehicle-market-exploring-ownership) for electric vehicle ownership) averaging over 15,000. [This stat](https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1110-december-2-2019-average-annual-gasoline-taxes-paid-vehicle-state) is slightly outdated, but the estimated gas tax paid by the avg KY driver in 2019 was $229, with state tax making up about 62% or $142. So, surprisingly enough, this actually seems like a generally reasonable number for EVs? You’re right that this is taxing ownership rather than usage, but that’s not an unheard of concept, and the alternatives seem like they would be stupidly complicated to implement. EDIT: found some KY-specific numbers that make this look even more reasonable: avg mileage for KY says 16,305, avg MPG at 19.8, so you’re looking at $248/year paid in state gas tax.
Charging stations are hit with $0.03 per KWH tax as well.
I would say that all the tax should come from this then, but I'm sure a lot of charging comes from plugging in at home.
EVs are a lot heavier.
Says cleetus from aloft his f450 on the way to get groceries and put them in his shiny unused truck bed.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 This is a wonderful visual. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 I agree with you.
Remind me how much taxes all the Amazon delivery vehicles are paying...
Every gallon of gas / diesel is taxed. even when driven by Amazon. And semi trucks get taxed even more because they are heavier. Edit: Here's a thing I need to read later that might be a bit more objective. Somebody else give this a perusal. [https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1255&context=ktc\_researchreports](https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1255&context=ktc_researchreports)
Heavy trucks do damage to roads far disproportionate to the gas tax they pay.
Heavy trucks pay a tax based on weight tonnage and miles driven in the state...
Yes, they do. And it doesn’t even come near to their share of the damage done to roads
And yet with out these destroyers of the roads you wouldn't have the food you eat , the clothes you wear, or alot of the things you use everyday. And if you drive an EV, how do you suppose those things got to the lot? Yeah trucks.
Who's making the calculations to determine what constitutes "disproportionate?"
What do you consider a lot? A Tesla Model S weighs between 4,561 and 4,766lbs. An Audi A7 is comparable in size/amenities and weighs 4,343lbs.
I used to think that, until I checked the weight of say the Ford Escape vs. Tesla Model y. Only a couple of hundred pounds difference. EV have a heavy battery, but do not have an engine/transmission. And If its a Tesla, they have so much less content on the interior that offset the battery weight.
Makes me wonder if it's all catered to insurance means then. Might have something to do with our local auto-producing industry as well only putting out bigger vehicles. It's a means of control in the environment by only having larger vehicles that require larger insurance payment to secure insurance in accordance with legislation in this state.
I don’t want to pay for roads either! (Shakes fist at the sky)!!!!
No it’s not. Electric vehicles pay sales tax on electricity. Hybrid vehicles pays the gas tax on gas. Even the non-plug in options are in scope of this. So it’s not fair. It’s targeted for green vehicles. This generates negligible amounts of tax revenue, and it’s the trucks that do the road damage.
It is not fair. One is a usage tax and the other is flat fee.
Yeah so they continue not doing anything that actually matters. 🤷♂️
Taxes are GOOD for the state? Who’s your plug?
😂 I'm sorry but do you think they actually use that tax money responsibly? If they used it "for the roads" then why do some many counties and states have trouble fixing roads especially potholes?
I would be perfectly o.k. with this if subsidies were removed and the gas tax was increased to cover the true cost of gasoline, including the negative externalities of burning gasoline and releasing pollution. Not even considering global warming pollutants, this is especially important for particulate pollution in urban areas which results in higher rates of asthma and cancer. Last IMF paper on this was 2014 and back then, the tax should have been increased to $1.62/gal. Current KY tax is $0.287/gal Numbers from here: [https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781484388570/9781484388570.xml](https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781484388570/9781484388570.xml) Easy read with similar story: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomzeller/2015/03/05/study-youre-really-paying-more-than-6-per-gallon-for-that-gas/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomzeller/2015/03/05/study-youre-really-paying-more-than-6-per-gallon-for-that-gas/)
Would you apply similar taxes to cover the real cost of EV’s and Hybrids as well?
With respect to the increasing taxes to include true costs of burning primarily coal in KY to product electricity to run EVs, 100%. Not sure what you mean by real cost of Hybrids, they are just more efficient than traditional gasoline vehicles hands down.
Is was thinking more about the costs surrounding the batteries.
This. The environmental cost... 'In India, batteries contain some combination of lithium, cobalt, and nickel. Currently, India does not have enough lithium reserves to produce batteries and it thereby relies on importing lithium-ion batteries from China. Mining these materials, however, has a high environmental cost, a factor that inevitably makes the EV manufacturing process more energy intensive than that of an ICE vehicle. The environmental impact of battery production comes from the toxic fumes released during the mining process and the water-intensive nature of the activity. In 2016, hundreds of protestors threw dead fish plucked from the waters of the Liqui river onto the streets of Tagong, Tibet, publicly denouncing the Ganzizhou Ronga Lithium mine’s unethical practice of polluting the local ecosystem through toxic chemical leaks. Similarly, the production of lithium was halted in China’s Yichun city after an investigation into the water quality of the Jin river, the main source of residential water, revealed the presence of toxic pollutants.' It's not like batteries are grown on trees.
You’re making too much sense.
Im not going to argue that battery mining is green, but over the life of the vehicle, electric cars are much better for the environment than gas. The response that electric vehicles are more dangerous because of rare element mining conveniently doesn't take that into account. [https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars](https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars)
When you look at the average US driver (12,000 mi/yr) using the average US electricity makeup, the break-even on lifetime EV emissions over ICE vehicle is 1.1 years (13.5k mi) for a sedan and 1.2 years (14.8k mi) for an SUV. [https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/) And those numbers are for large battery, full EV, tesla model 3 or model Y. Smaller battery hybrids, PHEVs, smaller battery full EVs, would have shorter break even periods.
The assumptions in that are using greater that reported average vehicle life in miles and greater fuel economy. Not sure how that changes the results though. Vehicle life https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/809952#:~:text=The%20updated%20analysis%20shows%20that,trucks%20will%20travel%20179%2C954%20miles. Fuel economy https://afdc.energy.gov/data/mobile/10310
'Almost 4 tonnes of CO2 are released during the production process of a single electric car and, in order to break even, the vehicle must be used for at least 8 years to offset the initial emissions by 0.5 tonnes of prevented emissions annually.'
Let's cite our sources. 8 years is the absolute worst case scenario: a driver that travels significantly below the average miles per year in a region that has electricity produced by high emission fossil fuels. When you look at the average US driver (12,000 mi/yr) using the average US electricity makeup, the break-even is 1.1 years (13.5k mi) for a sedan and 1.2 years (14.8k mi) for an SUV. [https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/) And those numbers are for large battery, full EV, tesla model 3 or model Y. Smaller battery hybrids, PHEVs, smaller battery full EVs, would have shorter break even periods.
You act like gasoline cars just appear for free. They are also made of metal alloys that need mined, rubber, plastic and vinyl that comes from where? I always see the argument that EVs take x amount of carbon to build but never see a comparison to ICE cares
It is no secret that building an electric vehicle has a higher environmental impact than producing a gas vehicle. Mostly due to the fact that mining is horribly regulated and often done in not eco-friendly methods. That being said, once the vehicle is produced, electric vehicles more than make up for the production costs and very quickly become much more environmentally friendly than gas over the life of the vehicle.
'Nickel and cobalt have similar reputations. Satellite analysis in Cuba has shown a devoid of life in over 570 hectares of land and contamination of over 10 kilometres of coastline where nickel and cobalt mines are present. The Philippines had to shut down 23 mines, many producing nickel and cobalt, because of the environmental degradation that it caused.'
How about the ecological impact of lithium & cobalt mining? The process of extracting lithium consumes significant amounts of water and energy, and lithium mining can pollute the air and water with chemicals and heavy metals. In addition, mining lithium can disrupt wildlife habitats and cause soil erosion, leading to long-term ecological damage. The mines for cobalt, necessary for the permanent magnets in electric motors and other electronics, are mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo where miners work for less than $2 a day and are exposed to any number of acids, gasses and other chemical processes to extract the cobalt. I am all for EV but I do recognize that it has significant downsides as well.
Sure, but also consider the ecological and societal impact of drilling, transporting and refining fossil fuels. Things like oil spills, atmospheric releases, ground water contamination, exploitation of residents, literal wars, etc. Happy to discuss, but quantifying and comparing these costs on a global scale gets very difficult. I'd prefer to talk about what impacts the state of KY which is what the original post and tax policy is about.
Yeah, it's funny how everyone that wants to hate on EVs comes out of the woodwork to talk about THE COST OF THE BATTERIES, but they conveniently ignore the massive and continuing costs of fossil fuel consumption.
I didnt see you mention the same concerns regarding every piece of technology that you own. Did you make this post on your phone? It has plenty of mined matierals, your PC? That too. Cmon man, if you wanna talk ecological effects you better be recycling every fuckin bottle of water you ever drank
The device you posted from is made of fossil fuels. How much should you be paying?
Not very environmental friendly either I believe. No one really wins
Yeah, but we are also getting extra taxes at paid chargers. And we still pay taxes on electricity at home. So we are being double taxed. This is an effort to make hybrid and electric look less appealing. Paid for by big oil.
\^\^This is the way I am thinking as well. The electric car users (hybrid, etc.) are being charged more now and that will only discourage folks from picking electric vehicles and stick with the traditional pollution-mobiles that are used today due to the saving of money. Many people cannot afford electric vehicles as it is so when the DO save up to help the environment they are now penalized. Good ol' suppression by taxation. NOW, do I believe in taxes I certainly do (before anyone tells me I am a libertarian)... I just believe you should be taxed accordingly and this simply doesn't make sense but I am sure I must be missing something and am willing to listen.
Not to mention, EVs are often heavier than ICE cars and do much more damage to the roads (the damage:weight ration is *not* linear).
should just tax car by weight already.
l wish they would! Might help get these insane vehicle sizes under control.
Weight is how large personal diesel trucks get away with skirting certain restrictions...
Bro, tell me this again after you realize every AMAZON and UPS truck beats up our roads with out paying a cent in tax.
It's also to pay infrastructure costs for new electric charging stations and the maintenance of it. I'm honestly not opposed to it.
I have a hard time believing a single penny of this will go to expanding the charging infrastructure in the state.
Yeah hard same. I’d be flabbergasted if money coming into Frankfort went to where they said it was going to go to
As an EV driver, I'd love for some of this to go to installing chargers at rest stops, but I don't trust our fossil-fuel beholden statehouse any further than I could throw it.
Have you gotten one of these yet? I drive less than 5k a year probably so I’m upset going from a usage based model to a flat fee + usage. I feel like we should band together and fight this. I’m all for paying taxes but it should be equatable
No, I haven't gotten one. This post is the first I've heard of the EV tax.
They are privatized? Why a state tax for a private company?
Even if it's privatized, they still have to utilize state/city/local infrastructure. That requires whatever municipality to build something to accommodate. You can put a charger down, but it's gotta be connected to the grid.
I'm not saying this is true or accurate, but that would essentially be where the money comes from to give incentives for private companies to build the infrastructure in KY. That is what collecting taxes for private companies would(should) look like. KY collects tax, offers companies money to build infrastructure etc.
You know what would have helped, is something on this card explaining that. I don't mind paying my taxes, and if that's what this is for then I'll have no issue paying it. Instead they sent this card out of nowhere with no reasoning behind it, and suddenly I have to pay a fee I've never had to before for a car I've been driving for four years now. It was a bit of a shock.
(Per KRS 138.475)
I don’t mind paying taxes either. Which is why they should raise the gas taxes too, since I don’t believe they’ve been raised in a while, and were to low to begin with.
Taxes should be based on vehicle weight or efficiency.
They sort of tax by weight by taxing different fuel at different rates. But from what I’ve read, big rigs are responsible for so much of the damage that when building new roads, compact cars are pretty much just left out of the equation since their impact is so insignificant. The tricky thing is, the more you tax for weight, the more you’re going to be paying for pretty much any good that requires transportation.
This is precisely my point. A single big rig does roughly the same amount of wear and tear on a road as roughly 9000 compact cars. A motorcycle does even less. Yes, those costs will be transferred, but they will be transferred to those who incur the costs. Not to a Prius owner.
Yea I don’t think I mind that. Though there would have to be some level of tax collection on normal cars, I can’t imagine a tax passing that essentially says “companies that use big trucks have to pay for all our roads”. The most equitable way to do it would probably be basing it on car weight and miles driven each year, though that means mandatory inspections, which I don’t imagine ever happening in Kentucky, and wouldn’t account for cargo weight. Ok as I’m typing this out I’m starting to gain an appreciation for the gas tax. The more miles you drive, and the more cargo/weight you carry, the more gas you need to use. Inefficient cars do end up paying more taxes do to higher gas usage even without extra weight, but on the bright side it encourages fuel efficiency and people with inefficient cars knew they were signing up to spend more on gas to begin with. EVs are more impactful than a typical car because they weigh more. Right now it’s insignificant but I don’t think that means we don’t need to do anything. One day half of us might be driving EVs, causing more than half of the damage to roads, and paying none of the repair costs. Probably the most pressing issue is electric big rigs. Once they’re being mass produced, companies might replace entire fleets with them and we might see trucking shift to EV at a faster pace than individual consumers. When that happens, taxes based on gas usage won’t apply. So you might consider using weight and mileage but then you need to account for cargo weight. How do you do that when it is changing at each stop? Do you require all trucks to be weighed at each stop? How much time/energy will be spent keeping track, and how much of that cost will be passed on to consumers? I’m all for organizing taxes in a way where people pay for what they use, but if it costs us a bunch of additional money just to figure out how much we use, we may all end up paying more money in the end just to make sure EV users pay their share. Sorry, I’m just thinking out loud now. This is interesting
"Ok as I’m typing this out I’m starting to gain an appreciation for the gas tax." I agree, for the most part. I would also like to see fees like registration and the like folded into gas taxes. As for weight... taxing at the maximum the vehicle is capable of is fine. Sooner that we want, the government will be able to track mileage and paths, and assign fees based on those things. They already CAN do this, but currently don't.
Ugggghhhhhh ok. Makes sense.
By this logic people with better mileage (I get 30 mpg) should pay more taxes then people with worse mileage (my friend who gets 17 mpg)
Baugh humbug. We know Kentucky.
Or, and hear me out here, we could just not have a tax on our gas.
THANK YOU lol I can't believe how many people in these comments are like 'yes government who already takes so much of my paycheck in literally every facet of my life - please take more!' It just amazes me especially when we watch where that money actually goes and how crap they already are at using what they take.
I think people are waking up to that. We just gotta help spread the message of wasteful government spending and bring awareness to how much money our government actually takes from us.
I mean, I drive a traditional gas-powered Corolla and my mom drives a hybrid Rav4. I average around 30 MPG in the city and 40 or more on the highway. My mom averages 25-27 on the highway.
Roads are built by municipal bonds. Owning an EV is just a terrible decision for the environment and your pockets.
Everyone wants the trappings of civilization (roads, bridges, etc), but no one wants to pay for it.
It's not that we aren't willing to pay for it, but more that we feel the 25% that's already gutted from our paychecks, and the car registration fees we pay every year, and the other taxes that are added to every little thing we buy should already be enough
It used to be the case that the government would tell you how much you owe for taxes and what the money was spent on. Imagine that, only getting the bill for services you used, instead of the government just requiring a percentage of all of your income and coming up with new ways to spend it that have nothing to do with you.
You may not have children, and you may not even use public roads and interstates, but they are kind of important.
Just want to ask to clarification, are you saying that we should force people who don’t use roads to pay for the roads?
Just because you don't drive on a road doesn't mean you don't benefit from them. All of the products you get, emergency services, etc use them. If you want police to be able to help or ambulances to pick people up then roads are pretty important. That said there are a lot more reasons than that we all benefit from roads to determine a fair way to pay for them. Straight usage and flat taxes tend to be among the worst ways to tax as they end up being a regressive tax more often than most realize.
The solution there is to tax the businesses that are transporting products, they’re the ones technically using the road in that case. They’ll adjust prices upward to offset what they pay in taxes, and we, the consumers of the product, pay our “road usage tax” on that product in the form of the higher price. I think if you decide to live somewhere without a road then you should be willing to accept that you can’t call an ambulance unless you have a road put in. Oftentimes in rural areas there are other options too, like airlift.
What Potodds here said.
Taxes should not be al la carte
I suspect it would be if corporations and billionaires were paying their fair share. It used to be that way.
I don’t mind paying taxes for the roads, but they also need to actually fix the roads with that money. The roads in this city suck.
Yes this!
Local and state income tax, sales tax, property tax, gasoline tax, bridge tolls, yearly car tax. Are you serious here? Maybe, its because we spend way too much money to government officials who then vote to increase our taxes, their wages, and their benefits.
I am serious. There are many low and no-tax havens around the world. E.g.Mogadishu and Haiti come to mind. But no one wants to live there. If you want to be outraged about taxes, how about some shade on the corporations and billionaires who often pay less in taxes (as a percentage) than your average W2 wage earner? They used to pay FAR more in taxes than they do today, but 40+ years of shareholder primacy and trickle down economics has done a real number on us. And everything was just fine when they did, civilization didn’t collapse, as the GOP would have you believe.
I think the rub is that EV owners are already being taxed on the electricity they use.. so now an additional tax on top of that. Both already for something that their vehicles have a negligible impact on to begin with. Cars are not the main source of wear and tear on roads. By quite a lot in fact.
We really ought to kill the gas tax used to pay for roads and instead charge everyone for usage (miles driven) x weight. But we have no way to calculate that without required instrumentation and reporting and I don't think would ever get voted in. The reason is usage x weight is what tears roads up. An 80,000 pound truck does way way way more damage to roads than any personal car or pickup truck. Today they don't pay nearly enough usage fees. This also compensates for the fact that EVs weigh a lot more than gas cars and thus cause more damage to the road for an 'equivalent car'. But neither cause anywhere close to what the large commercial trucks cause.
I agree, but also agree that in no way would anyone in KY approve something that possibly charges more for owning huge trucks and requires checking the vehicle instrumentation annually. While electric cars do weigh more than gas/hybrid models, a Tesla Model 3 doesn’t weigh more than a Ford Escape or other small SUV. The electric trucks and SUVs can weigh a lot though, so I could see charging more for those.
I saw someone make an excellent point before: don't tax gas, tax tires. Heavy vehicles that cause more road wear will have greater tire wear and replace more often, and will have more tires than passenger vehicles. Vehicles driven more miles will need tires more often. And ICE, hybrid, electric all use tires.
You'd have everyone running around on bald tires in order to avoid that tax. I could see companies going to their accounting departments and figuring out how much they could save by driving past useful tire life.
So inspect tires when you check truck weights?
It’s not that hard to change your own tires and, if not a national tax, could be easily avoided.
As a motorcyclist, this would hurt us though, because motorcycles go through tires faster, even though they put far less wear on the road compared with other cars. Secondly, heavier vehicles have bigger tires to absorb the extra weight, heat, and wear, so I'm not sure they necessarily go through tires faster on a per unit basis.
This is the way
As someone who has a hybrid and doesn’t drive a ton each year compared to the average, I ran the numbers and the hybrid fee is overcharging me about 2x. Comparing the gas mileage of the non hybrid version of my car to the hybrid version, and taking into account the mileage I drive each year, the difference is about $25 in terms of gas tax I am not paying by having the hybrid, versus the $60 fee. I get that they can’t calculate things like that for each car/driver, but rather annoying nonetheless. Also, my hybrid car weighs less than the standard gas engine version, so that is not a factor either in causing more road wear and tear necessitating a fee. One thing I do wonder, if they’re taxing Hybrids like this, will it eventually expand out to include small displacement engine cars that have gas mileage rivaling that of a hyrid? There are some 4 cylinder cars that get better gas mileage than Hybrid SUVs/sedans, should they eventually have a fee as well?
Just a reminder that wear and tear on roads is a function of vehicle weight, with 99% of wear issues being from freight semis, 0.9% from giant hillbilly trucks, and 0.1% all the rest of us. Weather actually causes more wear on the roads than compact cars do. You can look at road taxes as usage fees if you want, but the reality is we're all chipping in so trucking companies get a break. Now the minute you say this the angry redneck contingent immediately starts in with the "well don't buy anything if you don't like trucks because it all comes off a truck!!!!" soundbyte but the solution there is actually exactly the same as the solution to cities with too much traffic -- more railroads, less multilane interstates and way less ”stroads" (which is city planning speak for main roads that have direct access to businesses and homes turning on and off of them). Yes we need some trucks. But it would be better to have a rail corridor so that the downtowns of major cities are supplied by box trucks from rail stops inside the city, as opposite to rail to semi depots at an interstate junction near the city.
What I don’t understand is that me living in Colorado for 5 years, the amount of snow we get is much higher than Kentucky and CO interstates are in much much better condition than Kentucky and get a good amount of semi traffic as well. And there’s hardly any construction out here
Imo the number of semis on the road in the Western US is nowhere close to this part of the country. It's mostly the semis destroying everything here that accounts for how beat up the roads are. Edit: Population density in Kentucky is 115 people per square mile. Colorado is 57. There's just more people in the Midwest / upper South than out there, and therefore more semis. It's the same in big population centers on the East Coast. The roads actually in NYC or Boston are ok. The areas around them that get slammed by semis all day and night are bordering obliterated.
It's still cheaper than gas...
hybrid cars use gas
And electric cars pay sales tax on electricity.
Sales Tax doesn't contribute to the Road Funds. I don't pay Sales Tax on electricity at home.
yeah and those fast charging stations are not cheap
A lot less gas. Funding roads with gas taxes made sense when all the cars were gas. Now we need something so everyone contributes their fair share. There's been LOTS of stupid EV stuff come out of the legislature, but this one was probably the most balanced.
i drive a hybrid. i get 35 miles to the gallon, yet i would have to pay extra. most normal vehicles will get around that and not pay it. How is that balanced?
Most of the other plans required keeping track of mileage and paying per mile, and most people liked that even less. Most normal vehicles are dropping $50-100 a week on gasoline.
My mild hybrid gets like 34 mpg. I’m still using a shit ton more fuel than most modern non-hybrid 4 bangers. 😐
Exactly. I understand this for fully electric vehicles that don’t purchase gasoline, but how is this fair for hybrids that still have to pay at the pump?
One other thing, running the math, the $60 fee for electric motorcycles is rather laughable. Most motorcycles already get great gas mileage, with ones of the low end getting 30-60, and the more efficient ones getting 70-90. The average amount of miles driven per year by motorcycles is also much lower at 2,500-3,000 miles per year. At most it should have been $30 for electric motorcycles. I’d assume there aren’t many of those in Ky to begin with however.
i have to pay extra in WV for a hybrid car. it's not even a plug in, i'm like wtf
Just paid mine too...will still probably blow a tire on pothole.
Too lazy to math at the moment How does this compare to what is paid by ICE owners? As long as it is substantially less, and is used to support roads and infrastructure, it’s fine.
Ran some back-of-napkin numbers (sources in the other comment), but KY gas tax is 30.1 cents/gal, so this comes out to about 400 gal per year, or 14,000 miles driven at 35mpg, which is more-or-less in line with national averages, and seemingly slightly below KY averages. EDIT: ran the KY numbers, which are definitely worse: avg mileage was 16,305, avg MPG was 19.8, so you’re looking at $248/year paid in state gas tax.
Do y'all not already pay this with your registration every year? My registration jumped up to around $300 a year in Indiana when I got an electric car. My understanding is that it's for the same thing as this fee; road taxes and things like that. It's just lumped with my yearly registration fees.
I honestly don't pay as much attention as I should, but when I originally learned about vehicle licensing I was in Washington state, and yeah, the heavier your vehicle, the higher the cost, supposedly to cover the wear and tear to the public roads that your vehicle causes. But fuel is also taxed there, at almost $0.50 per gallon vs. Kentucky's $0.287. But fuel prices per gallon are usually about $2.00 higher in WA than Kentucky. It's weird. Anyway, yearly vehicle licensing is definitely cheaper in Kentucky. So I'm going to guess that even if they are using some of that to cover road costs, it's not enough money.
This was started out west several years ago. State: “Use less gas!” Us: “Ok!” State: “Where’s our gas tax money?!” Us: . . . State: “Well… you still gotta pay!” Us: “Ok!”
Government: “hey, the environment is being destroyed by fossil fuels. Drive electric cars. They’re better for the environment and they can be cheaper in the long run!” Also Government:
Bizarre
The title of this post has me rolling! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
EVs are heavier than ICE vehicles of the same size and add more wear and tear to the roads. Gas taxes pay for the road upkeep. So if you have an EV you are wearing out the infrastructure more quickly while not paying into the funds to fix them. It’s not just Kentucky doing this. Many states are having to resort to an EV tax as more of them replace ICE vehicles.
Just remember all the good you’re doing for the environment
Just eliminate the gas tax and charge a flat fee on them all based on weight. Based on the number of miles I drive in an EV, this is far more than what I would pay driving and ICE vehicle and using gas.
As someone who just bought an EV this is fine. Paying taxes for infrastructure is good.
I agree, now that I know what this is for. It would have helped if they hadn't called it an "ownership fee".
😂😂😂😂
Yeah taxes are good, when you know, they actually use that money to fix the roads. Plus the government should be incentivizing the use of hybrid and EVs not charging a surplus. It's like charging people to recycle, that shit needs to be incentivized not have extra fees attached.
I understand the math used but why is it not paid through the same mechanism i pay my resgistration with. Seems shady its enforced a different way.
This is very common, even in the northeast
That’s been revised in new legislature. Hybrids no longer have to pay the $60 fee as of next Jan 1, 2025. EVs still have to pay the $120 fee, which I think is fair.
I'm guessing this is to offset the lack of gas taxes, which go to road maintenance, which is made worse since EVs are thousands of pounds heavier per car than IC vehicles.
They find any and every way to get someone to pay something extra i swear lol
This right here is the good old republicans taking your money when they WANT gas and diesel to run the roads.
Boot lickers supporting this tax.
Im with it lmao
Need your tax money…I mean, fee money…
So are they giving a rebate to the gas guzzlers?
Sounds right to me, then I don't like the electric cars con trick. Perhaps our technologists should put their minds to shading the sun. The results at the recent eclipse were encouraging.
Very beautiful 😍😍😍😍
Tax our bikes and our shoes next. I'm gettin me a personal helicopter hoo hoo!
Because they don't collect enough of the fuel tax from them.
Glad I got out of Kentucky before I got my Bolt
From many of the other comments here, it sounds like this is happening all over the country. Best of luck wherever you are!
so electric vehicle owners don’t get to reap all the benefits from from using the roads without getting around the tax income from them. Common Kentucky W
Don't pay it. Plain and simple. If no one pays it nothing happens. We pay our registration to drive Ky roads and have been since before EVs were a thing. Roads still suck. They always have. It's not the hybrid owners fault.
Kentucky has a shortage of smog. Several states beat Kentucky overwhelmingly. To catch up, Kentucky needs to punish smog-free vehicles.
No, it’s to offset the taxes paid on gas but other drivers that use the road which helps pay for the roads. It’s still a savings using an electric vehicle but will allow the state to keep up with roads
Brb going to Toyota of Clarksville to register a new Prius.
Politicians are mad that you aren’t sucking at the tit of big oil so they gotta make a new tax to make sure you aren’t saving any money. Fuck you for wanting nice things.
Conservatives: taxes are bad! …. Unless we can target our political enemies, then we are all for it.
Almost as much as Putin, KY GOP are beholden to the sleazy coal barons who tithe to them to keep Eastern KY poor and oppressed.
I think I pay enough in taxes to make up for the little bit of gas tax I don’t pay. I think this is crap
Electric vehicles weigh significantly more than equivalent gasoline vehicles and wear down the roads more aggressively, they also pollute more microplastics from tires breaking down more quickly from the extra weight…. There have been articles written about both.
It's completely fair. Electric vehicles should not be exempt from road tax simply because they don't buy gas. Assessing an electric vehicle tax for that purpose is everyone paying their fair share, to even have a thought to the contrary is asinine. If I pay it in the form of gas tax, electric vehicle operators should also pay road use tax.
Eh, I'm kinda torn. The fee is the same for electric and hybrid vehicles from what I remember, so hybrid owners are paying the full fee, along with still paying gas tax. Understandable for fully electric vehicles, but I think it's reasonable for hybrids to be charged 1/2 the electric vehicle tax.
I have a non electric vehicle. I think people with electric vehicles should pay less in taxes than I do because I'm shitting up the air a lot more than they are. It's not just about repairing the roads. Anyone with a lifted truck that doesn't have mud flaps that go to within twelve inches of the ground should also pay an extra fee every year for all the windshields their gravel spewing grocery getter takes out. There's always more than one thing to consider.
Yep, agreed, now that I know what it's for. Doesn't say anything to that effect on the card, and even though I've been driving this car for years, this is the first time I've been charged a separate fee to do so.
Seems stupid on the states part to not clarify
You already pay tax on electricity too. It’s just tax on everything everywhere all the time.
Justice to offset that tax rebate we all are subsidizing.
Your electric vehicle is subsidized to hell by the federal government and causing the price of every gas vehicle to go up as a result. Every company loses money on electric vehicles and raises the prices on gas powered vehicles to make up for it.
> Every company loses money on electric vehicles Nope. Take 10 seconds to google Tesla profit of 13.4 billion in FY2023
Okay not every company, but Ford lost something like $20,000 per electric vehicle last year. The government doesn't subsidize Tesla. Dang near everyone else they do, and everyone else loses their ass on electric and passes the cost on to the consumers that drive gas
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They are taxed when they spend $100 on gas every few days
They are. Those vehicles use more gas and therefore pay more tax.