Car Registration renewal: Got hit with a Highway Use Fee because my car is too fuel efficient

[[DHT]Osiris]

Roads aren't gonna build themselves. Perhaps a staged intro into taxation to encourage fuel economy would be better, but eventually, they're gonna have to get road money from somewhere, and it should be the people using the roads.

We should charge drivers relative to curb weight, appropriately adjusted to the amount of damage the weight contributes to the road.

 

[lxskllr]

We should charge drivers relative to curb weight, appropriately adjusted to the amount of damage the weight contributes to the road.

There's a lot of ways to do taxes better, but it's boring to think about, and no one gives a shit what I think anyway. If I somehow got in a position of power to possibly get something done, the usual fuckery would prevent anything from happening. That's why having a good dictator is better than democracy. They get shit done.

 

[yottabit]

We should charge drivers relative to curb weight, appropriately adjusted to the amount of damage the weight contributes to the road.

Yeah, and it’s no where near a linear relationship

It seems fairly commonly accepted that road damage scales with weight to the FOURTH power.

Inside Science

www.insidescience.org

So everyone please spare me the nonsense about somebody paying extra for their 32 mpg compact sedan because they pay less gas tax than a RAM 3500 on mud tires. Doubling vehicle weight with the same number of axles yields about 16x the road wear. Do you think they are paying 16x the gas tax?

In realty this is another way we subsidize things we probably shouldn’t be subsidizing, why it is as cheap as it is to ship things by semi-truck or own a giant personal truck

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Yeah, and it’s no where near a linear relationship

It seems fairly commonly accepted that road damage scales with weight to the FOURTH power.

Inside Science

www.insidescience.org

So everyone please spare me the nonsense about somebody paying extra for their 32 mpg compact sedan because they pay less gas tax than a RAM 3500 on mud tires. Doubling vehicle weight with the same number of axles yields about 16x the road wear. Do you think they are paying 16x the gas tax?

In realty this is another way we subsidize things we probably shouldn’t be subsidizing, why it is as cheap as it is to ship things by semi-truck or own a giant personal truck

Yup, exponential increase. We probably shouldn't have semis at all. They do like 95% of the damage to roads.

 

[Brainonska511]

I would agree but that isn't usually what these fees are about. They might be to slow the bleeding of rapidly draining road maintenance coffers in a few places but it seems like a lot of the time its a cash grab or a way to virtue signal that someone is making the libs 'pay their fair share'

View attachment 90389

Trucks Are Clogging America’s Roads, Delivering Goods and Tearing up Yards

The surge won’t likely die down even once supply chain clogs ease, and the impact is falling heavily on neighborhood streets.

www.wsj.com

A decent graphic, but we should should have one showing more of a breakdown in the "passenger" section, particularly for this registration/cost of road maintenance discussion. From what I've heard, road damage is a function of weight to the 4th power. It would be good to show other common forms of transit, like bike, small sedan, medium passenger vehicle (maybe around 4k lbs), heavier EV, pickup, electric pickup.

 

[Ajay]

I would agree but that isn't usually what these fees are about. They might be to slow the bleeding of rapidly draining road maintenance coffers in a few places but it seems like a lot of the time its a cash grab or a way to virtue signal that someone is making the libs 'pay their fair share'

View attachment 90389

Trucks Are Clogging America’s Roads, Delivering Goods and Tearing up Yards

The surge won’t likely die down even once supply chain clogs ease, and the impact is falling heavily on neighborhood streets.

www.wsj.com

Very interesting. Here is the paywall bypass: https://archive.ph/IWCRu

 

[Torn Mind]

I would agree but that isn't usually what these fees are about. They might be to slow the bleeding of rapidly draining road maintenance coffers in a few places but it seems like a lot of the time its a cash grab or a way to virtue signal that someone is making the libs 'pay their fair share'

View attachment 90389

Trucks Are Clogging America’s Roads, Delivering Goods and Tearing up Yards

The surge won’t likely die down even once supply chain clogs ease, and the impact is falling heavily on neighborhood streets.

www.wsj.com

It's very convenient for journalists to always cherry pick some backwater state or up-and-coming growth city like Atlanta to then dictate that it's a "national trend". The article is better suited for the local Georgia rags for them to figure why the hell traffic restrictions are not in place for certain neighborhoods and streets.

My experience is that Amazon deliveries are done by vans.

The industry itself competes on tight margins and basically lack of labor supply.

Also, the cargo they ship around...well..those companies' business activities do fund the government treasury that way. Commercial tax revenue are larger(some places even charge a "personal property tax", aka wealth tax, on the business property used) and more significant than most residential taxes.

 

[Torn Mind]

We should charge drivers relative to curb weight, appropriately adjusted to the amount of damage the weight contributes to the road.

Trailers registrations wind up being benefit checks to the states of Illinois and Maine.
Similar to how Delaware's gov makes its living being friendly to corporations due to lack of size, those two get money in their coffers from commercial freight business activity.
Truck drivers usually don't own their trailer. They're in the employ of a cutthroat industry with little benefits.

So, your plan won't hit the biggest targets anyway.

 

[IronWing]

Okay, all y'alls convinced me to update my proposal.

Curb weight^4 x miles x rate = tax strikes me as a reasonable way to pay for roads . If we want a sin tax on carbon on top of that to pay for climate change mitigation, okay.

Currently for gas and diesel, the tax is pre-paid before one drives those miles. Finding a method for pre-paying the road tax is probably a good idea as opposed to billing vehicle owners once a year. Not sure how to do this without an invasive system.

 

[MrSquished]

I wonder what high gas mileage is considered in the deep south? something like 15 mpg?

 

[bbhaag]

What is the Highway Use Fee?

The highway use fee (HUF) helps make up for the fuel taxes that drivers with fuel-efficient and electric vehicles spend less on, because they’re not using as much

www.dmv.virginia.gov

You pay the HUF if you register a:
Fuel-efficient vehicle, which is a vehicle that has a combined fuel economy of 25 miles per gallon (MPG) or greater

My Mazda3 is like 32mpg.

$62 registration
$64 HUF

Hybrids and especially EV cars (ie: Tesla's) get hit hard

I understand it but it still seems like they're punishing people who drive fuel efficient cars

That's not bad all things considered. Here in Illinois the yearly registration fee for my Mustang is $251 which I don't mind paying. I honestly think it's on the low side considering I use the same roads as everyone else but get to fill up in my garage. A $100 difference in registration fees pales in comparison to the annual taxes I would be paying on gasoline or diesel fuels if I drove an ICE vehicle.

I think a set registration fee then a tax based on yearly milage would be fair for EVs and hybrids or hell maybe everyone but that gets complicated and I don't see it happening anytime soon.

 

[allisolm]

Shhh! I don't want Florida to get any ideas. I've had a hybrid for 10 yrs that gets over 25 mpg.

 

[MrSquished]

Says the man whose entire existence has been subsidized by urban dwellers.

dude, this shit is way way over that guys IQ scale. I'd say about 30 points over.

 

[AndImSinging]

Wow.

 

[bbhaag]

Shhh! I don't want Florida to get any ideas. I've had a hybrid for 10 yrs that gets over 25 mpg.

Unfortunately it looks like it's even coming to Florida. SB28 is working its way through the legislature right now. While it doesn't apply to hybrids just EVs, PHEVs, and E-cycles it's only a matter of time.

It's not a bad thing though. We can all agree that a push for higher MPG vehicles is a good thing right? As these higher mpg vehicles replace older tech that lost revenue for road maintenance has to come from somewhere doesn't it?

IDK if higher registration fees on certain vehicles is the answer but it might be a starting point I guess?? IDK it's hard to say. 110 years ago I would have gone to the local pharmacy to get gasoline for my vehicle but that is not the case today. We adapt and we evolve as the times change.

IDK....I've lost track of what I was trying to say...... I hope part of it makes sense to you but if not I understand.

 

[NFS4]

NC in doing the same damn thing, albeit with fees at registration. When I went to renew the tags on my Model 3 in August, there was an extra $100 or so in fees tacked on just because it’s an EV.

Can’t wait until March when it comes time to renew my wife’s Model Y. 🙄

 

[pmv]

Don't really understand the reasoning of the system described.

Fair enough that if you use the roads you should pay for doing so. It should be a combination, I guess, of a charge on use of a limited resource (road space), which would be dependent on _when_ you drive - so like a variable congestion charge that's higher in peak hours, but perhaps free if it's the middle of the night - plus a charge for the wear you impose on the road, which will depend very much on the weight of your vehicle.

But it seems weird to only charge for that _if_ you have a higher fuel-efficiency vehicle. Low fuel efficient vehicles are still causing road wear, and still clogging the roads, so should still be charged for that, in addition to fuel tax (that would be a charge for the pollution caused, including contribution to CO2 emissions, and maybe just a general addition to taxes to pay for all the things taxes pay for).

 

[IronWing]

Don't really understand the reasoning of the system described.

Fair enough that if you use the roads you should pay for doing so. It should be a combination, I guess, of a charge on use of a limited resource (road space), which would be dependent on _when_ you drive - so like a variable congestion charge that's higher in peak hours, but perhaps free if it's the middle of the night - plus a charge for the wear you impose on the road, which will depend very much on the weight of your vehicle.

But it seems weird to only charge for that _if_ you have a higher fuel-efficiency vehicle. Low fuel efficient vehicles are still causing road wear, and still clogging the roads, so should still be charged for that, in addition to fuel tax (that would be a charge for the pollution caused, including contribution to CO2 emissions, and maybe just a general addition to taxes to pay for all the things taxes pay for).

In the U.S., roads are funded primarily through a sales tax on gasoline and diesel. EV vehicles don't use either so the users don't pay the taxes that fund the roads. The fee at registration replaces these taxes for EV vehicles. Adding fees to high efficiency ICE vehicles because they use less gasoline and therefore pay less fuel tax is stupid. These folks are getting screwed as these high efficiency vehicles are generally lighter and cause less road damage.

 

[sandorski]

NC in doing the same damn thing, albeit with fees at registration. When I went to renew the tags on my Model 3 in August, there was an extra $100 or so in fees tacked on just because it’s an EV.

Can’t wait until March when it comes time to renew my wife’s Model Y. 🙄

Found your lost Login?

 

[NFS4]

Found your lost Login?

Actually, I was searching for Nancy Grace and the Duke Lacrosse scandal on Google and it brought me to a thread I posted over a decade ago here. I logged back in and…

😆

 

[sandorski]

You can't leave, it will just drag you back in.

 

[sdifox]

I see early onset dementia has claimed NFS4

 

[NFS4]

I see early onset dementia has claimed NFS4

LOL, I’m only 43. And to think that I first found this place when I was 17 😮

Speaking of which, talked to Anand a few months back and had a video call with him and other media during the M3 MacBook Pro launch. My, how the time flies!

 

[sdifox]

LOL, I’m only 43. And to think that I first found this place when I was 17 😮

Speaking of which, talked to Anand a few months back and had a video call with him and other media during the M3 MacBook Pro launch. My, how the time flies!

See? By the time you got to dementia you already forgot the first two words.

 

[JEDI]

NC in doing the same damn thing, albeit with fees at registration. When I went to renew the tags on my Model 3 in August, there was an extra $100 or so in fees tacked on just because it’s an EV.

Can’t wait until March when it comes time to renew my wife’s Model Y. 🙄

NFS4:
last post Sep 29, 2017

Welcome back after 6yrs!
Were you the ace reporter or was that someone else?