Pay Your Fair Share: EV And Hybrid Owners In Maine Outraged Over Targeted Vehicle Taxation

The LePage administration is proposing to make it more expensive to own a hybrid or electric vehicle in Maine.

The Maine Department of Transportation wants to impose an annual registration fee on the vehicles, $150 for gas-electric hybrid cars and $250 for all-electric models.

An extra fee is needed to make hybrid and all-electric owners pay their fair share of state road repairs that are funded through a tax on gasoline sales, said Meghan Russo, manager of legislative services for the MDOT.

“The idea is that the owners of these types of vehicles are paying far less in the gas tax than other vehicle owners and they are using the highway system just like any others,” Russo said. “There has got to be a way to try and capture revenue from those drivers who are using our road system.”

CANADIANCOMMENTS - 2/19/2018 1:34:35 PM

0 Boost

This will be interesting if it has a court challenge. But needing $160M USD to fund the maintenance of roads, adding just $2.9M to the public purse by charging EV and Hybrid owners a small fee isn't going to do the job in Maine. Making some of the major routes a toll highway or increasing sales tax would go a long way to eliminating the huge budget deficit in funding the roads. But you would only know this if you actually read the article....

TomM - 2/19/2018 2:11:51 PM

+1 Boost

In the USA - making a road a toll road eliminates money it would get from the Federal Government. SO - tolls are not necessarily the best overall. Actually - some form of payment per mile for road use would seem to be the best if the roads were limited to cars and trucks from the state- but in many states - that is nowhere near the case - it is estimated that on Interstate Highways in NJ - for instance - out of state trucks actually drive more miles. Not the case with the toll roads - but trucks ONLY use them if they have no other choice.

Eventually - you will probably need another meter of electric use for charging car batteries - and have a tax equivalent to the energy of other fuels to it. People will try to avoid that - but it probably will need to happen

CANADIANCOMMENTS - 2/19/2018 6:20:31 PM

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Thanks for sharing @TomM. There is no similar clawback in Canada. Having said that, when you consider how much debt electrical utilities carry and the high capital costs they face just maintaining their infrastructure, if their needs were brought into this equation they would most likely be quite happy with the present state as they would not want an EV or Hybrid driver to unplug their cars and have them replaced with an ICE model. They need that revenue stream just as much if not more than the transportation folks. It all depends on what point of view you would like to take on this issue.

monster - 2/19/2018 10:25:17 PM

+3 Boost

How about instead of giving out tax break, use the money to do actual work for the country. Why do we need to pay more for things that we are all already paying for.

qwertyfla1 - 2/19/2018 3:32:17 PM

+8 Boost

Simple solution -charge them $X for every mile driven to equal what one would have paid in gas tax to offset road usage. This could be done at time of plate renewal.

Happy Trump Day everybody :-)

MDarringer - 2/19/2018 4:39:47 PM

+6 Boost

brilliant solution

carloslassiter - 2/19/2018 5:52:31 PM

-4 Boost

LePage has an IQ of about 40, so I cam confident in his administration's ability to solve complex problems with intelligent, well thought out solutions.

erock - 2/20/2018 11:49:55 AM

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Pay your far share users of gas powered cars that use the atmosphere as their own personal sewer. All users of gasoline cars should pay an additional tax to cover some of the health problems that result because of their use of gas power cars.

qwertyfla1 - 2/20/2018 1:11:30 PM

+5 Boost

erock

Electricity can be just as dirty or dirtier than gas/diesel (esp in VW products). Unless it is solar generated or hydro electricity then it isn't really green. I would have added windmills but their is to much bird carnage created by most mills used today.

zlives - 2/21/2018 2:58:07 PM

+1 Boost

why not eliminate gas tax and just have this fee for all/mileage driven due at renewal.