they want you trapped in the fossil fuel death spiral
this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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Fuel taxes pay for roads. If you don't buy fuel you don't help pay for roads to drive your EV on.
Fuel taxes pay for roads.
If only other types of taxes could be used to pay for roads... But alas, only gas taxes can be used for that. Entirely different monetary system, that. Roads need gas money and regular money just won't do.
Other types of taxes are exactly what this article is about. A flat tax for EV owners is their proposed solution to the problem. Sure, other options exist, but people are commenting like this is an insane idea and it's pretty vanilla.
Are there no vehicle taxes in the US?
I own an EV and already pay an extra road tax for having an EV to my state. Why should I pay another one to the federal government?
Sam Graves, Federal Congress Republican of Missouri, Wants You To Pay $130 A Year Just To Drive An Electric Car
FTFY
But is $130 actually fair?
Well, a flat fee doesn't take into account vehicle weight or annual mileage, which the gas tax more-or-less does. And the road maintenance cost is a function of those two things. A flat fee would penalize drivers of infrequently-driven small vehicles.
But...I suppose that gathering that data would also add some privacy concerns and costs, like the government needing to record how many miles your vehicle has traveled in a year.
EDIT: The really obnoxious thing is that everyone else is grabbing movement data on vehicles to make money off. Automakers via integrated cell radios. ALPR network operators. I assume that charging station operators do too
fast DC connections like NACS transmit the vehicle's VIN, and I'd be very surprised if charging companies aren't monetizing that data.
Or ... we could just not tax electric vehicles, and call that a subsidy to encourage the more environmentally friendly option.
If, at some future point, electric vehicle adoption becomes so widespread that it becomes difficult to provide road maintenance because gas taxes aren't being paid anymore, then you can find a different funding source for it. Maybe just fund it out of the ordinary general tax fund. Or even go really crazy and raise taxes on billionaires by two hundredths of a percent.
You could tax tires, it avoids all the tracking while still distributing road maintenance costs based off actual use of the roads.
Sounds good… who do I pay $130/year to to get to drive an EV?