Electric Car registration fee Pennsylvania

Drivers of EV’s don’t pay highway use taxes through the purchase of gasoline or diesel, therefore, they are not paying for the maintenance of the roads that they are driving on. The government is going to have some way to get revenue to pay for new construction and maintenance of the current roadways. Just think; if everyone goes to electric vehicles, how will they pay for new construction and maintenance unless taxes are imposed on their use?

Are you surprised politicians have not thought about and acted on this problem LONG ago when the first hybrids (Prius) and EVs (Tesla) hit the market???? When was that.......12/10/1997. Duh, 26 years ago. Let's not be proactive -- let's wait till we have a full blown fire to react. Doing things to prevent fires creates no accolades or atta boy awards.
Ask me how I know.

See my reply to ruggb below

They did think of it, sort of, they imposed a tax people are supposed to figure out based on home charging and voluntarily send the tax in to the state to make up for not paying at the pump. The bill addresses the fact that not everyone is playing by the honor system so the forced fee or you don't get a current registration card.

This is just the beginning of that slippery slope for electric 'everything'.

Now is not the time to promote this bill with the current slump in EV sales.

Yes, everyone needs to pay their fair share for road maintenance but this fixed tax will penalize those who don't do a lot of driving.

My wife, for example, puts less than 4K miles per year on her sub compact ICE vehicle. She pays around $80 per year in gasoline taxes. If we replaced her car with an EV, this proposed tax would cost us an additional $300 per year.

We were considering an EV to replace her car next year but we will probably not do so until this tax situation is finalized.

At one point, someone proposed a use tax for EV's. It would be based on miles driven and recorded during the annual vehicle inspection. The service station doing the inspection would either collect the tax
or forward the mileage reading to the state.

To me, this seems like a fairer way to impose such a tax.

That has the merit of simplicity, for states that have an annual inspection. I think it could be made even better, while still only relying on available data, by making it related both to mileage and to vehicle weight.

Weight is imperfect in capturing the big differences in road damage, but has the advantage that the GWV is right there in the registration data. It would seem fair that a Leaf or a Prius travelling low mileage should pay a lot less than than an electric F-150 or Cybertruck putting in 35,000 miles a year.

Decades ago the 1950s era road tax system included weight-related charges for heavy trucks, so this is not a new idea.

By the way I'm a current Tesla owner, and a former Prius owner, and support the idea of usage-related taxation supporting road work.

I have a powerful disdain for telematics in cars. It isn’t anyone’s business (Ford etc.,,, you listenin’?) if I’m going to synagogue or a proud babies meeting.

If there were non-abusive telematics in cars then that would be the obvious answer to report mileage.

…that Ohio started charging EV owners an additional fee a few years ago. I could be wrong on this but I think they assess hybrid owners $100.00 a year and fully electric vehicles $200.00 per year. I guess they thought that they were forward looking.

isnt more people using more electric going to raise electricity prices ! so every body is going to have to pay more because we will overload the system , so they have to increase the creation of electricity somehow ! are we also going to have a rate increase for land fills to dispose of the batteries, we cant build more dams does that mean more nuclear plants, solar panels create more problems with disposing spent panels . we are good at inventing things with out thinking about the garbage we also create that we dont want!

Of today, because as a general rule, folks don't think if it can be avoided.

As far as car registrations, here in SE PA, folks can have no reggie, no insurance, no license, illegible plate, 5% tints, and drive around freely. No different than when people steal from a major pharmacy, the store has been instructed to not interfere with the exit of said shopper and the shrink. I don't think anyone really worries whether there are paying to use the infrastructure or not.

How proactive were govt entities to the blinding headlights of the typical 2023 motor vehicle? There are lots of fish to fry imho and this is not worth the effort. Why not make the fee $1000, so it's a round number lol