# [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs



## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

He'll no! I'll take a flat tax anytime over this. Also, think about the added expense in both equipment and administration of this tax. 

I suspect "big oil" may be behind this. 

Sent from my iPad



> brucedp4 <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> >
> > Unwanted: Faceless-goon-squad satellite-watching daily restroom-visits
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Each year you have to get your vehicle inspected. They record the odometer reading during that inspection ( at least they do in NY). So, the info is already recorded. 

Sent from my iPad



> David Dymaxion <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > I don't understand the gov't obsession with GPS for taxing (well actually I fear
> > I might understand!). Anyway, wouldn't it be far cheaper to put a magnet on a
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

-----Original Message----- 
From: David Dymaxion
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

> I don't understand the gov't obsession with GPS for taxing (well actually 
> I fear
> I might understand!). Anyway, wouldn't it be far cheaper to put a magnet 
> on a
> driveshaft and count pulses? Then you wouldn't know where the driver had 
> been.
> Alternatively, use an OBDII reader, that has to be cheaper than using GPS.

GPS is a technology they are familiar with working, it doesn't matter that 
it fails miserably for such uses, they "know" it works. Of course I can be 
quite certain that shortly after such a law is passed there will be sudden 
interest in metal boxes (Faraday Cages for those who want to look it up). 
OBDII would be far smarter, but that's not something that they "know" works. 
Other technologies will clearly work better, more dependably, more capably, 
less expensively, etc, but a typical politician doesn't "know" these 
technologies work.

> Tires would be tough. You could buy tires for your gasser and swap them 
> onto the
> EV

Only if you don't tax gasser tires as well, if you tax them both equally 
there is no advantage to the swap.

> , or buy them in another state.

This is a potential problem, but I don't think it would be too much of a 
problem, most of society would comply. A 95% effective tax is 95% as 
effective as a 100% tax.

> It would be very tough to enforce. It also up
> front penalizes folks that buy a 2nd set of tires for snow (or a 3rd set 
> for
> racing).

Not really, buying two sets for 100,000 miles, it doesn't make any 
difference whether it is two at once, or one pair every 50,000 miles. Racing 
tires, as they are not street legal would likely be exempted from the tax, 
besides racing tires are pretty much reserved for the wealthy having them 
pay additional tax would not represent a significant burden. In fact that is 
one of the benefits of taxing tires, the rich buy more expensive tires and 
buy them more often, this shifts the burden to those that can most afford 
it, this is very much the same as taxing gasoline, the rich purchase 
significantly more gas than the poor.

> It would also encourage driving on bald tires, not buying snow tires,
> and buying the highest mileage (but slowest stopping) tires.

All things people do anyway. There has always been a tendancy to purchase 
the cheapest tires with the hardest rubber, and of course to drive on a set 
of tires for as long as possible. One of the biggest reasons for accidents 
in snow is because of the lack of snow tires (or chains) on a vehicle. And 
of course most people drive on their tires as long as possible. Adding a 
tax, or removing a tax, is unlikely to change any of this, but on the plus 
side, if they drive on tires until they get a flat, they won't leave the 
state to buy them.

The primary problem with taxing tires is that it is a relatively rare 
purchase. Any tax will see significant financing of the tax, loans and 
interest on tax seems somewhat distasteful to me. I believe the correct 
solution requires multiple different approaches. Unfortunately, GPS has few 
enough letters for the average politician to remember it.
Joe 

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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

In states with yearly inspections that might work, but out here, we only
have e-tests every other year (and only for part of the state). And EV's
don't have e-tests, so there is no inspection at all for alot of vehicles
here.

GPS tracking is already used for alot of company fleets that operate in
multiple states in order to allocate gas taxes, registration fees, etc, so
they are probably thinking that it's existing technology that's already been
accepted -- it's different being used on a company truck where the company
also wants to keep track of their employees, and a private vehicle though.

Z



> Roger Heuckeroth <[email protected]>wrote:
> 
> > Each year you have to get your vehicle inspected. They record the odometer
> > reading during that inspection ( at least they do in NY). So, the info is
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Really. OK, learn something new everyday. The NY inspections are 
safety inspections, not emission inspections until recently. They 
check brakes, tires, lights, etc. I assumed all states had these.




> Zeke Yewdall wrote:
> 
> > In states with yearly inspections that might work, but out here, we
> > only
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Nope... out west (at least in CO and WA, the two states I've dealt with),
there are no checks on anything safety related at all -- tires, brakes,
lights, frame integrity, etc.... But we also don't use rock salt on our
roads so they don't rust quite as fast either. Not that that would affect
tires or lights...

Z



> Roger Heuckeroth <[email protected]>wrote:
> 
> > Really. OK, learn something new everyday. The NY inspections are
> > safety inspections, not emission inspections until recently. They
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Endless topic of discussion here, coming up again every few months, and 
understandably so.

One way of looking at it is that EVs do less public harm. Examples: no 
emissions means less damage to publicly owned vegetation, less soiling to 
bulidings, fewer people with asthma to treat on the public dime. They don't 
use petroleum based fuels and thus don't require military support of their 
energy sources (for the most part). They can even be fueled with solar or 
wind energy. So, they should get a pass on gas taxes.

But most politicians don't think about those kinds of savings; they only see 
the short-term revenue side. 

I might also point out that according to a Finnish EVDL member several years 
ago, Finland for many years did little to encourage EVs, fearful that they'd 
lose gasoline tax revenue (and they do burn through a lot of tax revenue in 
Finland). 

So let's see. Imagine you're a bureaucrat. Here are a couple of ways you 
could think of this.

You decide that having people drive EVs instead of ICEVs is good for the 
public as a whole and will save the government money. Thus you encourage 
people to buy EVs by giving them a tax break, figuring that they're paying 
their share by costing the public till less.

Or, you decide that those EV public savings don't exist, don't matter, don't 
amount to much, and/or can't be quantified. Everybody should pay a share of 
the cost right up front. You then make the tax on EVs >higher< than on ICEVs 
and promote them with words - owning and driving them is "the responsible 
thing to do." Meanwhile you collect the tax for whatever pork you favor in 
your home district (or for your campaign contributors).

Ooohh, tough choice. But I think I know which one will win out. ;-)

For years, EV hobbyists have been so few that we could be easily ignored by 
rational bureaucrats (Lee Hart even found one). But that time is over. At 
least here in the US, it's increasingly likely that we're going to have to 
make up for the fuel taxes we're not paying. 

The easiest and least intrusive way to do this is probably to make us pay a 
yearly flat fee, as a couple of states are already doing or proposing; or to 
make EV license fees higher. No, that's not really fair, since EVs don't 
log the yearly distance that ICEs do. But, as I say, it's easy, and not 
NEARLY as intrusive as hauling a logging GPS client around with you.

David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA
EVDL Administrator

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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

It might be somewhat easy for a technologicaly savvy person to figure out h=
ow to =

spoof a GPS =


(like radar guns)(do you keep your EZPass Transponder or cellphone in a far=
aday =

cage)
(I can see a small but lucrative side business for folk here)

If you are at 30,000ft altitude a gps registers as you being somewhere else=
far =

far away from where you really are
(the same thing as making EV's make sounds to protect pedestrians from thei=
r =

in-attention)




----- Original Message ----
From: EVDL Administrator <[email protected]>
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List <[email protected]>
Sent: Mon, March 28, 2011 2:29:38 PM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

Endless topic of discussion here, coming up again every few months, and =

understandably so.

One way of looking at it is that EVs do less public harm. Examples: no =

emissions means less damage to publicly owned vegetation, less soiling to =

bulidings, fewer people with asthma to treat on the public dime. They don't =

use petroleum based fuels and thus don't require military support of their =

energy sources (for the most part). They can even be fueled with solar o=
r =

wind energy. So, they should get a pass on gas taxes.

But most politicians don't think about those kinds of savings; they only se=
e =

the short-term revenue side. =


I might also point out that according to a Finnish EVDL member several year=
s =

ago, Finland for many years did little to encourage EVs, fearful that they'=
d =

lose gasoline tax revenue (and they do burn through a lot of tax revenue in =

Finland). =


So let's see. Imagine you're a bureaucrat. Here are a couple of ways =
you =

could think of this.

You decide that having people drive EVs instead of ICEVs is good for the =

public as a whole and will save the government money. Thus you encourage =

people to buy EVs by giving them a tax break, figuring that they're paying =

their share by costing the public till less.

Or, you decide that those EV public savings don't exist, don't matter, don'=
t =

amount to much, and/or can't be quantified. Everybody should pay a share=
of =

the cost right up front. You then make the tax on EVs >higher< than on ICEV=
s =

and promote them with words - owning and driving them is "the responsible =

thing to do." Meanwhile you collect the tax for whatever pork you favor in =

your home district (or for your campaign contributors).

Ooohh, tough choice. But I think I know which one will win out. ;-)

For years, EV hobbyists have been so few that we could be easily ignored by =

rational bureaucrats (Lee Hart even found one). But that time is over.=
At =

least here in the US, it's increasingly likely that we're going to have to =

make up for the fuel taxes we're not paying. =


The easiest and least intrusive way to do this is probably to make us pay a =

yearly flat fee, as a couple of states are already doing or proposing; or t=
o =

make EV license fees higher. No, that's not really fair, since EVs don't =

log the yearly distance that ICEs do. But, as I say, it's easy, and not =

NEARLY as intrusive as hauling a logging GPS client around with you.

David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA
EVDL Administrator

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EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/
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Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not =

reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my =

email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ .
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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

In an interest free, saved-up-all-the-money-in-advance world, it makes no 
difference, but there is a practical difference. Suppose I buy a Nissan Leaf in 
Winter. I need real snow tires, not the all season radials the car had OEM. You 
are putting 50,000 miles of taxation on the tire purchase. The U.S. average 
(including trucks) is about 17 mpg. For gas taxes of 50 cents per gallon, that's 
$1500 dollars of taxes I need to put on the tire purchase to make it equal to 
average gas tax collected. I typically don't have $1500 extra dollars lying 
around when I had just bought a car.

Careful on assuming it's the rich using race tires! Many poor guys (SCCA 
autocross costs $35 to do) run race tires. It is very common to see a banged up 
daily driver Honda throw on race tires for an event. Race tires are surprisingly 
cheap, cheaper than high performance street tires for my car. I know folks like 
UPS drivers, secretaries, mechanics, etc. that run race tires. Race tires are 
easily the biggest bang for the buck for racing around corners, so poorer folks 
will often do that rather than buy a better car or other mods.




________________________________
From: Joseph Ashwood <[email protected]>
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List <[email protected]>
Sent: Mon, March 28, 2011 4:00:06 AM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

-----Original Message----- 
From: David Dymaxion
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

... 
> It would be very tough to enforce. It also up
> front penalizes folks that buy a 2nd set of tires for snow (or a 3rd set 
> for
> racing).

Not really, buying two sets for 100,000 miles, it doesn't make any difference 
whether it is two at once, or one pair every 50,000 miles. Racing tires, as they 
are not street legal would likely be exempted from the tax, besides racing tires 
are pretty much reserved for the wealthy having them pay additional tax would 
not represent a significant burden. In fact that is one of the benefits of 
taxing tires, the rich buy more expensive tires and buy them more often, this 
shifts the burden to those that can most afford it, this is very much the same 
as taxing gasoline, the rich purchase significantly more gas than the poor. ...
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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Oh...came so close to mentioning tire chains and studded tires...society
can't even get behind taxing those things...don't get me started.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of David Dymaxion
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 2:20 PM
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

In an interest free, saved-up-all-the-money-in-advance world, it makes no 
difference, but there is a practical difference. Suppose I buy a Nissan Leaf
in 
Winter. I need real snow tires, not the all season radials the car had OEM.
You 
are putting 50,000 miles of taxation on the tire purchase. The U.S. average 
(including trucks) is about 17 mpg. For gas taxes of 50 cents per gallon,
that's 
$1500 dollars of taxes I need to put on the tire purchase to make it equal
to 
average gas tax collected. I typically don't have $1500 extra dollars lying 
around when I had just bought a car.

Careful on assuming it's the rich using race tires! Many poor guys (SCCA 
autocross costs $35 to do) run race tires. It is very common to see a banged
up 
daily driver Honda throw on race tires for an event. Race tires are
surprisingly 
cheap, cheaper than high performance street tires for my car. I know folks
like 
UPS drivers, secretaries, mechanics, etc. that run race tires. Race tires
are 
easily the biggest bang for the buck for racing around corners, so poorer
folks 
will often do that rather than buy a better car or other mods.




________________________________
From: Joseph Ashwood <[email protected]>
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List <[email protected]>
Sent: Mon, March 28, 2011 4:00:06 AM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

-----Original Message----- 
From: David Dymaxion
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

... 
> It would be very tough to enforce. It also up
> front penalizes folks that buy a 2nd set of tires for snow (or a 3rd set 
> for
> racing).

Not really, buying two sets for 100,000 miles, it doesn't make any
difference 
whether it is two at once, or one pair every 50,000 miles. Racing tires, as
they 
are not street legal would likely be exempted from the tax, besides racing
tires 
are pretty much reserved for the wealthy having them pay additional tax
would 
not represent a significant burden. In fact that is one of the benefits of 
taxing tires, the rich buy more expensive tires and buy them more often,
this 
shifts the burden to those that can most afford it, this is very much the
same 
as taxing gasoline, the rich purchase significantly more gas than the poor.
...
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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

GPS is an absolute overkill and waste of tax payer money in the first place,
as mentioned, VMT is on the $#$%@^&
odometer !!!!

"Its ok, I'm from the government and I'm here to help ..." *faint*
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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Yep, Idaho has no general safety inspection. The Boise valley has emissions
inspections every two years. They do use the OBD-II port on newer cars.
This is only for the southwest portion of the state.

I got out of the emissions inspections by declaring my conversion electric.
I wonder if I'll eventually regret that. Even if I hadn't gotten out of
them, I suspect they would have noticed something strange during the first
inspection: no tailpipe to use for the measurements 8^).

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Zeke Yewdall
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 7:16 AM
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

Nope... out west (at least in CO and WA, the two states I've dealt with),
there are no checks on anything safety related at all -- tires, brakes,
lights, frame integrity, etc.... But we also don't use rock salt on our
roads so they don't rust quite as fast either. Not that that would affect
tires or lights...

Z

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 7:04 AM, Roger Heuckeroth


> <[email protected]>wrote:
> 
> > Really. OK, learn something new everyday. The NY inspections are
> > safety inspections, not emission inspections until recently. They
> ...


----------



## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

I'm not as convinced. Certainly there will be most people that have to 
finance the tax which seems bizarre, but doing so is not unheardof even if 
it is distasteful. Additionally you seem to be mixing up different types of 
tire taxes. As I see it there are at least three different types of tire 
taxes, each with their own benefits, and their own problems. I'll be 
addressing each one seperately.

The flat per tire tax, this is every tire's price is raised by X dollars. 
This has the benefit that it is easy; easy to understand, easy to implement, 
easy to just about everything. Unfortunately it also has the effect of 
taxing the poor at a much higher percentage than the rich. It also does not 
reflect that tires really are different.

The per mile tax, so tires that have a 50,000 mile would be taxed to recover 
the revenue for 50,000 miles of gasoline. This is probably the most complex 
one, and creates some confounding conflicts of interest. On the plus side 
that set of sticky cheater-slicks that won't even last out the week legally 
will be nearly tax free. On the down side, those that buy long 100,000 mile 
warranty tires, you know those people commonly viewed as "poor" will pay 
significantly more tax per tire.

The percentage tax, each tire carries an X% surcharge (on the price paid of 
course) as tax. My favorite, although I recognise it isn't perfect. The 
$39/tire special at Walmart (just checked, they do claim to have them) that 
is already a common tire for the less privileged will be hit the least, 
while the person spending $1000/tire for sticky tires that will last a 
couple months will pay the highest effective rates. The downside is that 
this leads to encouraging cheaper tires, using them for longer, etc.

None of these are perfect. I personally prefer the percentage tax, but 
recognise that any approach on this would have to be balanced. The biggest 
problem is the one you noted, in all of these most people will need to 
finance at least a portion of their tire purchase.

I also don't think that $1500 per set of tires is the correct number. You're 
thinking that all tires have to last 50,000 miles, but its common for a set 
of tires to last only about 35,000, and with the ability to preferentially 
charge those of less ability to pay it can be balanced. It's also posisble 
to tax the other consummables of a vehicle, most people go through no more 
than 1 windshield, but environmentally abusive vehicles tend to have very 
thin, fragile windshields, an additional $10 per windshield wouldn't mean 
much individually but collectively could offset some. Rims are something 
that most of us don't go through many of, but certain categories of people 
go through several sets in the lifetime of their vehicle. Small taxes on 
each of these could be used to smooth the cost, it would take actual sales 
numbers to know what level of taxation would be required to properly replace 
the gas tax.

Yes it is complex. Complexity isn't really a problem when all the tax 
accounting will be done by computer anyway, its just a database and having 
even billions of entries in a database isn't a problem.
Joe

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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

A taxation system becomes increasingly more difficult (in both
administration and justification of "my fair share") the further you get
away from the root causes requiring the tax: the mess we're in today is
due to exactly this: road wear repair funds were originally setup based
on a fuel consumption tax: when you introduce more efficient vehicles
(EV or not), your tax revenue plummets.

The causes of road wear are well known: cumulative vehicle passages
(ie, "miles") over a section of road and the weight-per-axle of these
vehicles. You have an odometer on the vehicle, you have a fairly
well-known vehicle curb weight and you have an adjustment factor (ESAL
-- read more about it here:
http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776/776-roads-b
eam-handout.pdf). It is already illegal to screw with your odometer, it
could easily be a form or additional line-item on your state income tax
filing for your EV/EV rebate/discounted EV plate.

There are some pretty severe problems with a tire-based tax: to
decrease road wear you WANT the heavier vehicles to have more axles.
But this means more tires! However under a tired-based tax system if
you have to buy more tires, you pay more tax. This is self defeating!
Again, the problem stems from using a derived or calculated component
(tire wear or fuel consumption) instead of the measured values (miles
driven, weight-per-axle).

If it were not for the politics, it would be a non-issue: compared to
busses (especially bus-based mass-transit), garbage trucks and
tractor-trailers, passenger vehicles do an insignificant amount of road
wear (see the PDF from Ohio State). Therefore a passenger vehicle's
"fair share" is close to zero. Then to get an idea of revenue, multiply
this by the number of EV's versus the number of ICE passenger vehicles.
Close-to-zero * next-to-nothing. So it's not going to generate any
significant revenue. However politically it serves as a distractor as
well as an easily divisive issue (hey! they're not paying their fair
share) so it's great for politicians (when in fact if the general ICE
passenger vehicle-driving populace knew what their fair share was they'd
realize they're being fleeced for damage done by the big rigs).

At the same time, we need good roads to drive our highly efficient EV's
on or we end up with poor range, and replacing tie rods due to unpatched
chuckholes due to lack of funds. So as EV drivers we need roads in good
repair and I'm willing to pay -- to a point (not an advocate of a $100
flat tax either). But suggesting an EV road repair tax based on a
secondary or tertiary derived value rather than based on the measured
values of what causes road wear -- e.g:

odometer miles * ESAL * tax/mile

as tech improves will eventually get you into a similar problem we're in
now with the gas-based road repair tax -- and worse, state legislators
have a tendency to boiler-plate whatever the first state(s) to address
the issue did, whether they did a good job at it or not (Illinois
suffered for several years due to boiler-plating Wisconsin's poor NEV
statutes). This is why it's critical to stay on top of what the other
states are doing even if you're not from that state.

[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Joseph Ashwood
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 2:24 AM
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
Subject: Re: [EVDL] EV road tax: Don't mess with Texas EVs

I'm not as convinced. Certainly there will be most people that have to 
finance the tax which seems bizarre, but doing so is not unheardof even
if 
it is distasteful. Additionally you seem to be mixing up different types
of 
tire taxes. As I see it there are at least three different types of tire

taxes, each with their own benefits, and their own problems. I'll be 
addressing each one seperately.

The flat per tire tax, this is every tire's price is raised by X
dollars. 
This has the benefit that it is easy; easy to understand, easy to
implement, 
easy to just about everything. Unfortunately it also has the effect of 
taxing the poor at a much higher percentage than the rich. It also does
not 
reflect that tires really are different.

The per mile tax, so tires that have a 50,000 mile would be taxed to
recover 
the revenue for 50,000 miles of gasoline. This is probably the most
complex 
one, and creates some confounding conflicts of interest. On the plus
side 
that set of sticky cheater-slicks that won't even last out the week
legally 
will be nearly tax free. On the down side, those that buy long 100,000
mile 
warranty tires, you know those people commonly viewed as "poor" will pay

significantly more tax per tire.

The percentage tax, each tire carries an X% surcharge (on the price paid
of 
course) as tax. My favorite, although I recognise it isn't perfect. The 
$39/tire special at Walmart (just checked, they do claim to have them)
that 
is already a common tire for the less privileged will be hit the least, 
while the person spending $1000/tire for sticky tires that will last a 
couple months will pay the highest effective rates. The downside is that

this leads to encouraging cheaper tires, using them for longer, etc.

None of these are perfect. I personally prefer the percentage tax, but 
recognise that any approach on this would have to be balanced. The
biggest 
problem is the one you noted, in all of these most people will need to 
finance at least a portion of their tire purchase.

I also don't think that $1500 per set of tires is the correct number.
You're 
thinking that all tires have to last 50,000 miles, but its common for a
set 
of tires to last only about 35,000, and with the ability to
preferentially 
charge those of less ability to pay it can be balanced. It's also
posisble 
to tax the other consummables of a vehicle, most people go through no
more 
than 1 windshield, but environmentally abusive vehicles tend to have
very 
thin, fragile windshields, an additional $10 per windshield wouldn't
mean 
much individually but collectively could offset some. Rims are something

that most of us don't go through many of, but certain categories of
people 
go through several sets in the lifetime of their vehicle. Small taxes on

each of these could be used to smooth the cost, it would take actual
sales 
numbers to know what level of taxation would be required to properly
replace 
the gas tax.

Yes it is complex. Complexity isn't really a problem when all the tax 
accounting will be done by computer anyway, its just a database and
having 
even billions of entries in a database isn't a problem.
Joe

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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

I lived in CO from the early '60s to the late '80s. It's where I grew 
up and went to school. I took a job as a software developer out here in 
the San Francisco Bay Area in late 1989. So I spent over half my life 
in CO, although CA is now approaching the half way mark. Good grief, 
it's getting to be long in the tooth out here!

That said, I remember CO safety inspections. As a kid and teenager, I 
remember both my father's and my mother's cars having to be taken in for 
safety inspections, so we're talking late '60s up through the early to 
mid '80s. I myself had to deal with them. The last one I remember 
having done was in early 1986.

Then safety inspections went away. It had been talked about doing away 
with them for quite some time. I don't know if I agree with that. You 
have to wonder if a nearby car is safe or falling apart. But I suppose 
on balance people keep their cars safe enough, since I don't hear much 
about part failures causing accidents. In CO, I have a vague 
recollection that one reason safety inspections were finally done away 
with was that emission inspections were to be the thing, and that 
officials didn't want to saddle car owners with both. I don't recall 
ever having to do both. And for ever after, it's been the emission 
inspection thing.

Here in CA, as long as I've been here, it's been emission inspections. 
I don't know if CA has ever had safety inspections. I was actually born 
here in Oakland, and spent roughly the first two years of my life at one 
place or another in CA, but have no recollection of it.

I've pondered a time or two how safety inspections would go with an 
electric conversion. I imagine if the conversion was done well and was 
under GVW, it would be ok.

Chuck

On 3/28/2011 6:16 AM, Zeke Yewdall wrote:
> Nope... out west (at least in CO and WA, the two states I've dealt with),
> there are no checks on anything safety related at all -- tires, brakes,
> lights, frame integrity, etc.... But we also don't use rock salt on our
> roads so they don't rust quite as fast either. Not that that would affect
> tires or lights...
>
> Z
>
>


> Roger Heuckeroth<[email protected]>wrote:
> >
> >> Really. OK, learn something new everyday. The NY inspections are
> >> safety inspections, not emission inspections until recently. They
> ...


----------



## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> Then safety inspections went away. It had been talked about doing
away 
> with them for quite some time. I don't know if I agree with that.
You 
> have to wonder if a nearby car is safe or falling apart. 

I have a good friend who's a German national (he's been in the states
long enough that you really can't tell -- been working on his PhD in
Computer Science ;-). He's helped me out with some translation work on
Twike documentation before, so we've talked cars.

He said one of the first things that struck him was the state of the
cars that we allowed to be on the roads here in Illinois/US. In Germany
if you rust on your car it will fail the TUV inspection. You kinda
gotta figure if a car owner lets the exterior of his vehicle rust that
badly that there's probably other questionable maintenance -- I know
it's true for me for my 'backup' around-town ICE, which has some nasty
wheel-well rust (typical of that era Camry):

1. Driver's side window (power) barely rolls up all the way	
2. Can't unlock the driver's side door
3. Stalls out sometimes (could be from old gas as it sits for 2
or 3 months ;-)
4. Ride can be pretty rough (suspension)

But it's a paid-off 1991 Toyota Camry that costs very little to insure,
has a hitch/lights (which makes it my truck/SUV) and gets 27-32 MPG.
And most importantly, the *BRAKES* work very well.

[email protected]


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