I sent this email to my house rep. Other EV owners are free to copy and paste this and change wording as needed. Let’s get this regressive BS changed.
I recently purchased an EV and was required to pay an ‘Alternative Fuel Vehicle Fee’ upon renewing my vehicle registration. In this pivotal moment where domestically-manufactured EVs and batteries represent a huge opportunity for Georgia in terms of jobs and economic impact, it is extremely counterproductive to impose an additional fee on EV owners. As Kia, Hyundai, and Rivian bring vital jobs and opportunity to the state through EV manufacturing, Georgia is sending the wrong message to EV owners that they are not welcome or appreciated for their personal financial investment in this budding technology. I understand that the purpose of this fee is to fund road repairs due to the weight of EVs and the fact that EV owners do not pay a tax on gasoline. However, we pay taxes on electricity when we charge at our homes as well as when we utilize public chargers. If the weight of EVs is the primary concern, perhaps all vehicles regardless of fuel type should pay an annual fee if they gross over a certain weight. It is doubly regressive to impose the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Fee on EV owners when the Georgia gas tax has been repealed for the majority of 2023.
its fair, gas taxes pay for the roads.
my latest experience is Wyoming paying 200 for the privilege. There is like 5 ev’s in wyomingIn Oregon it’s based on fuel economy of the car so it is $192 for a full EV but $101 for a car older than 1999 or with a 0-19 MPG. I’m fine with it since we end up paying no fuel tax https://www.oregon.gov/odot/dmv/pages/fees/vehicle.aspx
Your link says registration is $316 for full EV and $126 for older vehicles. You’re looking at the price of the title, which is paid when purchasing.
PHEVs are in the sweet spot here, as their registration is based on fuel economy still at $156, plus I can drive most of my miles on battery.
Forgot to say the amount of the fee. It’s $210 per year in Georgia.
it’s literally call “alternative fuel tax”, and then they say “it’s because it’s heavy and hard on the roads”. sounds like a backpedal to me. Just come out and charge a “heavy vehicle tax”, oh wait, the supercab people that voted you in to keep us in the stone-age would whine about it. boo-hoo. I’m fine with subsidizing the road-taxes because I no longer pay for gas, because it makes sense to me. Don’t drive? don’t pay the tax. Drive? pay them. But to blame vehicle weight is basically calling us EV-ers morons while protecting their delicate voters egos.
And the negative extra nailities span so much further than road repair. We need a tax on mass and VMT to take into affect all the huge for harmful aspects that we are now finding out or that people have not paid attention to for so long.
Replaces gas taxes that one would otherwise have paid - they gotta get their money from somewhere so I’ve no issue with that. I’d prefer something more equitable (mileage based) rather than a flat fee, but don’t have an issue with having to pay something. It’s $150 here but going up to $220.
improving the actual economic situation in your area is too much to ask.
And the gas tax needs to be 5x to actually cover roadway growth.
What if I only drive a 1K or 2K miles per a year. Does that mean I should have to pay taxes equivalent to 20,000 miles?
Are you replying to me? I literally wrote, “I’d prefer something more equitable (mileage based) rather than a flat fee” …
The government isn’t going to track exactly how much people drive in order to tax them equitably and precisely. There’s no system in place for that, and it would be time and labor intensive. Yes, I know some people deduct work mileage but that’s a different ballgame. States don’t want to deal with this stuff. Flat taxes collect revenue efficiently.
It sucks, but we’re just going to have to pay it. Taxes aren’t fair and as we all know, other cars put plenty of wear on the road and also cause a lot of environmental problems, but it is what it is.
Actually normally taxes are pretty fair. You buy a more expensive car you pay more taxes.
The weight of an EV is irrelevant next to a commercial vehicle when it comes to road wear. Cyclic loading fatigue is related to total weight exponentially. Cars are like 1.0 earthquakes, EV’s 1.5 earthquakes, 18 wheelers like 7.0 earthquakes. Below a threshold weathering is a much bigger factor in road wear than small esals.
If users were charged for wear proportionally though taxes commercial vehicles would pay 100% of the cost to maintain roads.
Interesting to look up the 4th power law. Established in the 1950’s, it shows the relationship of axle weight to road wear. And yeah, big 80,000 lb trucks would pretty much pay all the road taxes if they were based on wear.
God it sucks to see this parroted about so much
Oregon has this too, but we have a road use fee system that allows us to just pay for the miles we drive. So we can pay the standard registration fee that an ICE car pays, and just pay our road usage fees quarterly.
Here is a novel idea. Tax the fucking oil companies that have fought EVs, MPG regulations, etc instead of the people. But this is GA where I like and politicians suck the corporate teat so it will never happen. For the record, I drive both ICE and EVs.
Yeah, that’s what
bribeslobbying gets the oil industry . Barriers to EVsMore than half the states have near identical registration fees for EVs. Along with all the other fees, my renewal is $700-800 per year here in North Carolina.
Dam that is bad.
Wait until you find out how much the highways cost
toll roads are a great option also.
While I do agree with your points and EV owners should get some cost off their registration, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. The tax vacation was due to high fuel prices, because you don’t buy the fuel that is subject to high prices, why would you get a tax break? It would be the same as ICE vehicle buyers wanting a tax break on vehicle purchases because EV buyers got one.
I do think the registration fees are high in most places, they should be the normal registration plus the average mileage of your state ÷ average fuel economy of a vehicle X gas tax. So in GA (using some national averages) it would be about 13.5k ÷ 25.4 X 31.2 = $166. This would also help to couple EV taxes to current fuel taxes.
In GA its $211 and one of the highest in the nation. I’m actually fine with the flat fee, they just need to do it for all cars and not just EV. Now would be the perfect time since we haven’t collected gas taxes for the 2nd year now.
Is that on top of or included in your registration? In Oregon, we have different prices to renew your registration $126 for the worst fuel economy vehicles up to $316 for EVs, so an extra “tax” of $190.
Road maintenance is typically paid for with taxes levied on gasoline. This will need to change eventually. Personally I think it should wait in order to speed the transition.
I live in Georgia and have zero issue paying the two hundred odd dollars to drive my EV. Sorry, man up. Many of us were given seventy five hundred dollars from the tax payers to assist in buying our cars so that two hundred plus per year thirty seven years to go back into another government coffer.
It is part of being on the leading edge of a change to society. EVs cost more and frankly anyone who can afford the EV can afford the piddly two hundred dollars.
So it is not an additional fee. Is it high relative to the overall gas tax in Georgia, possibly, depends on how many miles you drive each year.
I’m sort of with you but why not do it for all cars?