In a state like CA, this is going to be a problem, and perhaps everywhere else. Fuel taxes pay for roads, so these vehicles that use no taxable fuel, will have to pay up some other way.
If I drive 10K miles a year in a 30mpg car, I will use 333 gallons of fuel.
The extra 12 cents means an additional $40 in taxes for that 10K miles.
The tax is currently 38 cents, so that’s about $127 in taxes.
After the increase, your average Toyota Corolla driver would be paying about $170 a year to use the roads in California for 10K miles.
If a Tesla Owner pays a fixed $100 fee, he’s getting a sweet deal.
Yes, paying by mile is a reasonable alternative for vehicles that don’t buy gas. But this $100 fixed fee has no basis in logic. I drive less than 3,000 miles per year, which means a $100 fee equals 3.33 cents per mile. That is the equivalent of paying a DOLLAR per gallon gas tax for a 30mpg gasoline vehicle. The gas tax would be lower on an SUV !
Any attempt to create equivalent taxes for non-gasoline vehicles needs to have more thought involved. Maybe 1 cent per mile per ton of vehicle gross weight, paid by reporting the miles driven on the annual vehicle registration renewal. That at least might bear some rational relationship to the amount of wear and tear a vehicle puts on the roads regardless of fuel.