Buttigieg Reverses on 'Mileage Tax': 'Not Part of the Conversation about this Infrastructure Bill'

"We’re obviously going to have to come to more solutions if we’re going to preserve the user-paid principle," Buttigieg said Thursday of a potential VMT while testifying before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

His comment came in response to a question from Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Sam Graves, R-Mo., who has previously expressed support for the tax.

Graves said in January that relying on "declining fuel tax revenues for maintaining and improving our roads and bridges" was unsustainable in response to a study from the Washington State Transportation Commission that found a VMT would help the country avoid an infrastructure crisis as the gas tax declines and people move toward electric vehicles.

"The report clearly shows that transitioning to a VMT system is a more equitable way to charge drivers for the roads they use, and that we are in fact capable of beginning that transition now," Graves said at the time.

Buttigieg suggests 'vehicle miles tax' to pay for infrastructure projects

It looks like there is some bipartisan agreement on a VMT system but it isn't going to be in this bill. It will be interesting to see if Congress can come up with a bipartisan bill for this in the future.

"Stuff I dont like isnt in bill."

Slow news day?

NightHawkeye said:

Just for the record, we already have a "vehicle miles tax". It's added into the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel. California has the highest tax at over 60 cents per gallon. Federal fuel tax is nearly 20 cents per gallon.

What is being discussed currently is simply a punitive tax intended to punish anyone who drives, regardless of how good fuel mileage for their vehicle is.

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That's a fuel consumption tax, not a vehicle miles tax. Part of the reason this is an issue is that vehicles are more efficient than they used to be, so they pay less tax per mile driven than in the past. A Tesla owner isn't going to pay any fuel tax despite putting the same wear and tear on a roadway as a Mercedes driver.

NightHawkeye said:

...Wouldn't a more sane approach be to simply up the fuel tax though?...

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Sure, if as a gas vehicle driver youre fine with subsidizing the road costs for elec vehicle drivers.

NightHawkeye said:

Thanks for admitting this is just an underhanded way to discriminate against petrol-powered vehicles.

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I'm reasonably certain that your plan to raise the fuel tax would be far more discriminatory towards petrol-powered vehicles than transitioning from a fuel tax to a vehicle miles tax.

And when the fuel tax was conceived, electric vehicles were virtually nonexistent, so there's zero substance to the idea that it was intended to discriminate against petrol-powered vehicles in the first place.

NightHawkeye said:

Are you suggesting elimination of the gasoline tax then? You know, to keep things "fair"?

Or, maybe you're suggesting that drivers of electric vehicles should be the only ones paying the "vehicle miles tax"?

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I was suggesting its better than just upping the gas tax, which was your question.

Im still not 100% sure about the wisdom of elec vehicles, but the concept is growing on me. Lets stipulate for a second that they are a net cleaner alternative to gas vehicles. Then the problem becomes how to get elec vehicle use to contribute something to the upkeep of roadways, while still incentivizing their use.

NightHawkeye said:

Thanks for admitting this is just an underhanded way to discriminate against petrol-powered vehicles.

Wouldn't a more sane approach be to simply up the fuel tax though?

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You can debate whether, if there is a mileage tax, the fuel tax should be abolished. Granted, I don't think it is likely to happen, though I can see it being used more of a "guzzler" or "fossil fuel" tax used to push people to more efficient and alternative energy vehicles (natural gas, hydrogen, electric, etc.); since you'd be paying the miles tax on top of the gas taxes.

And, as pointed out, "upping" the fuel tax would definitely "discriminate" against petrol (and diesel) powered vehicles, since electric cars would continue to avoid paying federal, and most states, highway taxes.

Sure, you could tax things like Supercharges -- adding a "fuel" tax to charging cars -- the issue is most of the charging is done at people's homes, so you can't tell what electricity is normal household usage and what is used by the car.

NightHawkeye said:

Noting also that politicians are already decrying the fact that Tesla owners do not pay nearly enough for their road usage. One suspects that a "miles tax" will quickly become a back-handed way to more "fairly" tax Tesla and other electric vehicle owners.

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There is nothing "back-handed" about it, that is a primary reason for this -- particularly with most automakers claiming they will no longer produce fossil fuel vehicles in 15(ish) years. Now, to be fair, they likely should adjust the tax based on the weight of the vehicle -- since the heavier the automobile/truck, the more damage it does to the road -- though that definitely would "discriminate" against electric vehicles, as they tend to be heavier (due to the batteries).

It would probably be most fair to use a mileage tax and a fuel tax together. The mileage tax covers wear on the roads while the fuel tax covers carbon issues. The mileage tax would be pretty easy to implement if you just rolled mileage tracking into an annual vehicle registration and the fuel consumption tax can stay rolled into gas prices.

NightHawkeye said:

Personally, I'm a fan of hybrids, though I intensely dislike the super-sized batteries. Still, hybrid batteries can be much smaller than all-electric vehicles. All-electric vehicles are useless for anything more than around town driving. I frequently drive 1,000 miles or more in a day when traveling. No electric vehicle can support that kind of driving, nor will they in the foreseeable future, if ever.

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All-electrics are great for commuting to work.

NightHawkeye said:

Personally, I'm a fan of hybrids, though I intensely dislike the super-sized batteries. Still, hybrid batteries can be much smaller than all-electric vehicles. All-electric vehicles are useless for anything more than around town driving. I frequently drive 1,000 miles or more in a day when traveling. No electric vehicle can support that kind of driving, nor will they in the foreseeable future, if ever.

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Would have to be some kind of modular battery system that gets swapped out at a "gas" station.

iluvatar5150 said:

It would probably be most fair to use a mileage tax and a fuel tax together. The mileage tax covers wear on the roads while the fuel tax covers carbon issues. The mileage tax would be pretty easy to implement if you just rolled mileage tracking into an annual vehicle registration and the fuel consumption tax can stay rolled into gas prices.

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Or you can factor gas usage in with the mileage tax. Whatever tax per mile with an offset based on weight and gas mileage. Though the problem there is that it makes it harder for people to relate the gas consumption with the cost of the tax.

durangodawood said:

Would have to be some kind of modular battery system that gets swapped out at a "gas" station.

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That really isn't necessary. IMO charging and range will become fast enough and last long enough that even though it will be faster to refuel a car with gas rather than recharge while on a long trip, it will be worth the transition to electric.

If you can get 250miles of range within 20 minutes or so of charging, then it's worthwhile. Sure it's not a 5 minute stop at a gas station but if you have driven 250miles, you really should be taking a good break anyways. You more than make up for that all the times you just charge at home and forgo the gas station to begin with.

I do 280mile drives fairly frequently. It ends up being about 4 hours if I don't have to stop. That's like right at the edge of me personally needing to stop for a bit and stretch, get food, etc.

NightHawkeye said:

Personally, I'm a fan of hybrids, though I intensely dislike the super-sized batteries. Still, hybrid batteries can be much smaller than all-electric vehicles. All-electric vehicles are useless for anything more than around town driving. I frequently drive 1,000 miles or more in a day when traveling. No electric vehicle can support that kind of driving, nor will they in the foreseeable future, if ever.

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I can't agree with this; there are people who drive 1,000 miles a day in an electric car. Granted, it likely adds an hour or two to their trip but can be done. And the two hours of time savings is if you eat in your car -- basically the only stops are to fill with gas and maybe urinate.

You can buy electric cars which will let you travel roughly 200 miles on less than an 80% charge. So, you start with a full battery, you drive your 200 miles, you stop for maybe 40 minutes and repeat. You make three charge stops (so two hours) and during those 40 minutes you eat, use the restroom, and whatever else.

Of course, I sometimes watch a YouTuber who routinely does these types of long trips and he makes more stops, but shorter -- he drives maybe 90 minutes (often at 10+ miles over the speed limit) and charges for 20 minutes -- just long enough to get to his next. He finds it is faster (because of the charge curve on electric vehicles) if he only charges the car to 50 or 60%. Then, you find a place to stay at night that has a charger, or is by a charger, and the next morning the car is 100% again when you are ready to start.

Now, I can understand that this might still be too slow for the "road warriors," like yourself, who want to be able to drive 1,000 miles, stopping only long enough to refuel. For most, however, the newer electric vehicles will likely be fast enough for most using the car for vacations -- and will never have issues on a day to day basis when they aren't on vacation, particularly since they will never have to take the time to "refuel" -- they'll just plug the car in at night and unplug it in the morning.

durangodawood said:

Would have to be some kind of modular battery system that gets swapped out at a "gas" station.

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I'm kind of amazed they haven't gone that route already. Although it opens up plenty more issues.

SimplyMe said:

Of course, I sometimes watch a YouTuber who routinely does these types of long trips and he makes more stops, but shorter -- he drives maybe 90 minutes (often at 10+ miles over the speed limit) and charges for 20 minutes -- just long enough to get to his next. He finds it is faster (because of the charge curve on electric vehicles) if he only charges the car to 50 or 60%. Then, you find a place to stay at night that has a charger, or is by a charger, and the next morning the car is 100% again when you are ready to start.

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Yeah, the last 10-20% of the battery charge takes significantly longer to charge that it's more time efficient to do a couple stops to charge a smaller percentage of the battery than to do one stop to charge the battery 100%.

Now, I can understand that this might still be too slow for the "road warriors," like yourself, who want to be able to drive 1,000 miles, stopping only long enough to refuel. For most, however, the newer electric vehicles will likely be fast enough for most using the car for vacations -- and will never have issues on a day to day basis when they aren't on vacation, particularly since they will never have to take the time to "refuel" -- they'll just plug the car in at night and unplug it in the morning.

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A big problem is urban areas where there isn't off street parking. Consider my neighborhood - everyone has to park on the street. The only way you are charging your car overnight is if you manage to get the parking spot in front of your house, which is exceedingly unlikely to happen. We'd need a whole new infrastructure to make street side charging widely available. It's especially annoying because if charging was easily available, electric vehicles would be a fantastic option around here - you are rarely driving more than 20 miles in a shot, and that driving is very efficient for electric vehicles.