We all know we pay money in taxes for gas and diesel fuel and most of that money goes back into the state or federal highway for the transportation budget.
Who doesn’t love the idea of dirt cheap CNG or LNG for fuel savings over diesel fuel prices? Let’s not forget those trucks or cars will do the same kind of damage to roads and bridges as diesel fuel fleets or gas fleets.
As it is today, I hate to say but either someone is stealing fuel money for the roads or the states and federal government aren’t collecting enough because our infrastructure has not kept up with demand. Roads have potholes, bridges have cracks and if you wanted to put people to work, you could raise that fleet fueling tax just a little and everyone in the long run would save money.
Well now comes this out of Washington State starting February 1, 2013 they are going to charge an extra $100 a year to drive electric cars. If you estimate that the average person drives 12,000 miles a year, then the $100 comes out to $.008 so not even a penny.
Interesting enough the current gas tax in the State of Washington is $.375. Therefore the gap between electric car tax and gas tax is 36.7 cents. Average driver, drives about 12,000 miles, times 36.7 is $4,404 in missing road fuel tax. Ok, I have to take away the $100 they paid so it is $4,304 for 1 car that goes away to help fix the roads.
I guess it’s a good thing that Washington State only has 1,600 electric cars currently registered because with that kind of number they are only losing $6.8 million dollars in fuel taxes per year.
I guess the electric car won’t do as much damage to the roads and bridges, right? No, wrong they will but since the idea is to go green and I am all for that, nobody wants to tax these green ideas the way they will need to be. But don’t worry nobody beats the tax man. Those highway fuel road taxes will catch up to all of these things green because there is no other way around it unless we walk.
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