Electric-Car Charging Network Proposed

[Loren Pechtel]

Just in case you are being serious here, bicycles weighing just a couple hundred pounds with the rider included, certainly cause little to no road wear as compared to vehicles weighing a ton or more. You might was well charge a walking tax as well.

A bicycle causes no meaningful wear but the road needs to exist in the first place and needs a certain amount of upkeep, although just how much is quite climate dependent.

 

[KeepTalking]

Older cars do not have IO ports, would they then be exempt from the mileage tax once it is switched over from a gas tax? Also, given that the State is no longer doing emissions tests, when would the IO port get checked? It still seems like an unmanageable system. Collecting tax at charging stations, just like tax is currently collected at the pump seems like a much more workable solution.



The simple solution would be to collect a fuel tax at the pump, and an electric charging tax at the charger.



Just in case you are being serious here, bicycles weighing just a couple hundred pounds with the rider included, certainly cause little to no road wear as compared to vehicles weighing a ton or more. You might was well charge a walking tax as well.

Half serious. If all we had was bikes who pays for roads?

If all we had was bikes, we would not have the current road infrastructure that requires extensive maintenance. We would have a much smaller road "footprint", and less wear on the surfaces that would be required. On the other hand, I would imagine that governments would add a tax to all bicycle purchases that would then be used to build and maintain the surfaces required for bicycles. Attempting to track individual bicycle mileage in order to tax each person for how much they use those surfaces would be an exercise in futility.

Everybody wants services but nobody wants to pay. The Sanders platform, no problem everything is free.

I'm not sure what this topic has to do with the Sanders platform, and I am not here to endorse or defend that platform.

As to implementations, it is all in the proposal stage. The Puget sound area already has automatic tolls by reading license plates.

That's great, but how do they handle tolls for those from outside the Puget sound area who also use those roads. I doubt they are giving them a free ride. Now take that situation and multiply it by every road in the Puget sound area having to be a toll road moving forward. Then multiply it again for every road in the State of Washington. Sounds like huge undertaking, and one that is likely going to not only not work, but also piss off nearly every driver who lives in or visits the State. Seems like the easier solution is to tax the power coming out of the charger that EVs need to use.