SA to start charging EV drivers per km driven

[Aaron]

I don’t know why people are surprised? I mean most “disruptive” changes in the past 10 years have been disruptive in lowering costs by somehow bypassing either taxes or social/employee welfare constructs.

Uber - Disrupts taxis by taking away the fixed pricing model
Tesla - Disrupts luxury cars by lobbying for tax exemptions and also running on a fuel that isn’t taxed.

You know if you use your own Biodiesel or brew your own ethanol fuel you have to pay excise on it? Soon what will happen is the chargers will simply be smart-metered to charge excise per kw/h whether you draw it from the grid OR your own panels.

[Roadsailing]

*something about being doubly pissed off if you were doing a long trip and towing a trailer with a genset in it so you could charge on the fly*

[Nick]

I'm going to say it... I'm surprised they just haven't brought in a subscription service for road use yet..

[Captain_Slow]

DOnt know what the figures are for SA alone but nationally EVs make up less than 1% of the vehicle fleet.

Yeah - so what I was saying is that at some point, there's going to be a problem when there's millions of EVs on the road but only the remaining petrol cars are paying fuel excise and funding road maintenance. One day, that will be a real problem. Today is not that day.

So you've either got to put per-km charges on the EVs, or just decide to pay for road maintenance through the regular tax system and not aim for a user pays model.

There's lots of public goods that aren't user pays. You don't pay police excise for living in a high crime area, or parks excise because you walk your dog more often than the guy next door.

[stb]

I agree that now is the time to venture into EV user pays for road use as a replacement for the petrol excise. Yes it will be a while before it impacts a large portion of the car driving population but it is better to work out the bugs while it is low level. Acceleration of EV uptake can still be through one-off incentives at purchase. Fuel excise etc is a better way to pay for roads than tolls. Of course most road damage/degradation is from heavy vehicles, but that is another topic altogether.

[chartreusehj]

South Australia has electricity?

They mostly steal it from Victoria.

[chartreusehj]

Unless EV's float along on unicorn farts they are still responsible for their fair share of any tax designed to pay for roads.

I would be happy for pay per kay for all vehicles and drop the actual portion from fuel that is used for roads instead of propping up bad spending decisions but everyone knows that everyone will pay more, not less because govco wants their money one way or another.

[Captiva Fan]

Unless EV's float along on unicorn farts they are still responsible for their fair share of any tax designed to pay for roads.

I would be happy for pay per kay for all vehicles and drop the actual portion from fuel that is used for roads instead of propping up bad spending decisions but everyone knows that everyone will pay more, not less because govco wants their money one way or another.

Govco can’t reduce income in one place & increase it somewhere else in order to make things more proportionate to cost, while raising exactly the same revenue ... because 80% of people will be more outraged due to paying more in one area than they’ll be anti-outraged by the amount they won’t pay in the other area.

[Reax]

If they dropped the fuel excise and made everyone pay a road tax = fair. Except fuel prices won't drop at all, or they will initially and then some excuse by the petrol companies and it will be back to business as usual with more profits involved. On a side note: why do you think so many people keep their 4WDs registered in QLD, instead of NSW - QLD charges rego per cylinder not by weight.

[Captiva Fan]

IOn a side note: why do you think so many people keep their 4WDs registered in QLD, instead of NSW - QLD charges rego per cylinder not by weight.

People who can afford to fuel a 4WD go through all that inconvenience to save maybe $50/yr?!

[MZ21]

FFS sake, I'm cancelling me Model 3 order, as no doubt, NSW is probably the other state SA is working with. Someone should tweet this to Elon so he can set up a lobby group to vote the authors of the bill out in the next election, that will get their attention quick smart.

[Slides]

Yeah you need some type of road levy as people move from fuel under existing structures, if you argue this is unfair then the fuel excise should be removed and general tax increased to cover road maintenance if you don't like user pays. They should reinstate the old cost per ton-mile for heavy road transport, get more stuff back on rail, safer, better for the environment.

[Dark Orange]

Doesnt fuel excise go into general revenue anyway?
And could you claim a deduction on kilometers driven on toll roads?

[Captiva Fan]

Doesnt fuel excise go into general revenue anyway?
And could you claim a deduction on kilometers driven on toll roads?

The people like M'Quarry who negotiate to run toll roads probably also negotiate government funding as well, so some of your toll road usage prolly comes outta taxes too ...

[Gats]

Seems like it'll eventually be a pretty regressive tax to me. Those who can't afford to live within 5km of the CBD will be doing bigger kays to get to work, so will be hit the hardest.