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.
