Republican/Democrat 2024 Presidential Candidates

[RiverDog]

There are a LOT of new technologies on the near horizon. The one I'm most excited about burns as it's fuel less than 4% natural gas and 0ver 90% of CO2. It's only emissions are water and high purity, industrial grade CO2 that it can then sell. There is one working plant right now and 4 others under construction. With it's negative carbon footprint I expect that eventually these will be everywhere and along with some of the newer nuclear technologies bear the brunt of the transformation to clean energy. It may take a while, but it's coming.

https://www.powermag.com/breakthrough-n ... rcot-grid/

I'm glad that you poked your head in here. I nearly sent you a PM asking that you participate as I know that you work in the industry and could give us some insight into the subjects we've been kicking around.

Thanks for the link. It was a good read.

[RiverDog]

Who knows how long the tech will take. They are working a lot on alternative energy.

Like we discussed a while ago, time tables on environmental change and damage are wrong, have been wrong, and likely will always be wrong. I'm not sure if you recall, they thought the human race would suffer mass extinction by an inability to increase the food supply, they sold us when younger that environmental change would have already killed us or done way more damage, they told us we would run out of oil (Peak Oil Theory), Y2K, religious Armageddon was supposed to occur, and we were supposed to die from nuclear war. We've been told we were all done for a very long time and it never comes true. Which is why I'm not as worried as others about environmental change killing us in some short time period. It's not going to happen in 12 or 20 or 50 years or even a 100 or 200, so we have time to develop a lot of technologies in that time frame. It's another reason why I hate Armageddon politics as they are wrong as much as religion and once people have had their fear level driven up to extreme levels like people have had done with the left selling the environmental problem as killing in a short time period, people start to become immune to the effects and it has a boy who cried wolf effect on people. It's stupid to sell timetables that you cannot prove and then have to extend them again and again and again until you look like a total idiot that no one should believe.

Yeah, all one has to do is fact check some of Al Gore's prediction on the environment, like when he said in 2009 that the polar ice caps would be ice free in 5 years. Those clowns are doing more harm to the subject than good by trotting out these outrageous claims. Global warming is real, and all Gore and others are doing by distributing this misinformation is undermining the confidence the public has in the scientific community when they try to raise a red flag.

Technology is advancing, but the problem is in obtaining funding to apply it to a large, industrial scale to the point where it actually makes a difference. I do think that EV's will eventually outnumber internal combustion vehicles, but it's not going to happen for 10-15 years. One of the problems that they have yet to address is how to get them to pay for the highways. As we know, highway funding is almost exclusively derived from gas taxes. Are we going to toll every county road and city street? Are we going to require GPS in every vehicle, which is bound to raise privacy concerns? Is there any way to tax a vehicle by the kw as they are charging up?

[NorthHawk]

I can see the network of chargers around the country being taxed upon use, but how the home charging will be done is to be determined. Maybe an extra tax on home electricity for those with electric cars?
That wouldn't tackle the issue of people with their own power generation (solar/wind, etc.). But, it's going to be interesting how enough money is collected for road maintenance even when there are 25%
fewer cars using gasoline. Higher gas taxes would mean more electric cars and probably less revenue.

[RiverDog]

I can see the network of chargers around the country being taxed upon use, but how the home charging will be done is to be determined. Maybe an extra tax on home electricity for those with electric cars?
That wouldn't tackle the issue of people with their own power generation (solar/wind, etc.). But, it's going to be interesting how enough money is collected for road maintenance even when there are 25%
fewer cars using gasoline. Higher gas taxes would mean more electric cars and probably less revenue.

The state is already suffering a revenue shortfall due to higher MPG cars and inflation. The gas tax is a fixed dollar amount and doesn't increase as the price of gas goes up. The most logical solution would be to equip EV's with a GPS transponder, but that has some genuine privacy concerns as the government could track your every movement. It would have a huge potential for abuse.

The other thing about the current EV's is their weight as their batteries are extremely heavy. A 2022 GMC Hummer EV weighs 9,000 lbs, which is almost what my motor home weighs but with a shorter wheelbase. That kind of weight on a short wheel base is going to do more damage to bridges and highways, so they should be taxed at a higher rate than gas powered vehicles. It's also a safety concern, as with all that weight, it's packing a lot more kinetic energy than its gas powered counterpart if one ever gets into a collision.

There's still a lot of stuff that has to be figured out before we go all in on them. That's what I'm saying about technology in general, that there's lots of details that have to be addressed anytime we go to something that's revolutionary in nature. Plus there's things that might not be anticipated that can crop up. I remember the concern about radio waves passing through the human brain when people were talking on their cell phones, or when my parents worried about us kids getting too close to the TV and it causing us to go blind. Who knows what kind of issues might pop up.

[Aseahawkfan]

The state is already suffering a revenue shortfall due to higher MPG cars and inflation. The gas tax is a fixed dollar amount and doesn't increase as the price of gas goes up. The most logical solution would be to equip EV's with a GPS transponder, but that has some genuine privacy concerns as the government could track your every movement. It would have a huge potential for abuse.

The other thing about the current EV's is their weight as their batteries are extremely heavy. A 2022 GMC Hummer EV weighs 9,000 lbs, which is almost what my motor home weighs but with a shorter wheelbase. That kind of weight on a short wheel base is going to do more damage to bridges and highways, so they should be taxed at a higher rate than gas powered vehicles. It's also a safety concern, as with all that weight, it's packing a lot more kinetic energy than its gas powered counterpart if one ever gets into a collision.

There's still a lot of stuff that has to be figured out before we go all in on them. That's what I'm saying about technology in general, that there's lots of details that have to be addressed anytime we go to something that's revolutionary in nature. Plus there's things that might not be anticipated that can crop up. I remember the concern about radio waves passing through the human brain when people were talking on their cell phones, or when my parents worried about us kids getting too close to the TV and it causing us to go blind. Who knows what kind of issues might pop up.

From what I understand, the plan is to tax charging. They may also tax by mile traveled taking odometer readings.

Using a Hummer as an example a pretty big outlier. EVs as far as I know don't weigh too much more than an ICE of a similar size.

EVs are a full go. Adoption is inevitable. Hydrogen tried to compete, but EVs are beating them out badly. Tesla pretty much forced everyone to adopt EVs because of the high quality of the EV vehicles they produced.

Raw materials for battery construction are some of the biggest concerns as well the amount of power generation to fuel recharging. We have a lot of companies working on those issues. Money to be made not just from the EV manufacturers, but from the supporting parties like lithium miners, battery makers, charging stations, and all associated tech.

You know better than to worry about the government getting their money. Those bloodsuckers always find new ways to bleed us and mismanage the tax revenue. That's about as low on my list of concerns with the move to EV out there as the government will find a way to make those taxes back and then some.

And often concerns like the one you mentioned are manufactured concerns usually by competing companies with powerful lobbyists looking to derail change. The only reason we didn't adopt EV a long time ago is Big Oil and Big Auto lobbied against adoption including purchasing competing technologies to kill the competition. Cost effective EVs could have been manufactured decades ago, but Big Oil and Big Auto weren't going to let that happen. The number of corporations that used money and lobbying to push better technologies out of the market by buying them and shutting them down is a long list. It's one of the downsides of capitalism. But with the environmental issues, the government had to make a choice to support change as long-term ICE engines were going to be too costly to the overall world to continue to allow Big Oil and Big Auto to shut down competing technologies. So now the government is helping Big Oil and Big Auto transition to green energy as they use their immense cash piles and assets to buy green energy companies. Same as when long-distance telephone service went bye, bye and ATT and other baby bells sold off legacy assets to build out a cellular network.

Sometimes certain technologies become inevitable and you will change or die.

[RiverDog]

From what I understand, the plan is to tax charging. They may also tax by mile traveled taking odometer readings.

So just how is that supposed to work? The beauty of a gas tax is that it's collected immediately when you fuel up. If they go to a mileage based tax, are they going to rely on the honor system to report your mileage, or is there going to be some sort of device that reports mileage to the government? And how will the government get you to pay? Are they going to send you a monthly statement? Are they going to have to hire a bunch of IRS-like mileage police to make sure everyone pays? And what about state taxes when you cross a state line? Sounds like a huge cluster phuck if that's how they intend on handling it.

And as North Hawk pointed out, if they collect a tax by how many amps you draw, how are they going to figure how much you charged your vehicle at home? One way or another, someone or some thing is going to have to report a mileage/charge to the government.

Using a Hummer as an example a pretty big outlier. EVs as far as I know don't weigh too much more than an ICE of a similar size.

It's inherent with all electric vehicles. They all weigh 20-50% or more than their gas powered counterparts:

Other electric vehicles also weigh more than similar gasoline-powered models. The Ford F-150 Lightning will weigh about 1,600 pounds more than a similar gas-powered F-150 truck. Similarly, the electric Volvo XC40 Recharge weighs about 1,000 pounds more than a gas-powered Volvo XC40.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/07/business ... index.html

Until they can come up with lighter batteries, it's going to be a problem for highway maintanence, personal safety (think insurance rates), and will effect the EV's range.

EVs are a full go. Adoption is inevitable. Hydrogen tried to compete, but EVs are beating them out badly. Tesla pretty much forced everyone to adopt EVs because of the high quality of the EV vehicles they produced.

Oh, I'm not saying that they aren't a full go-ahead. I'm just saying that there's a lot of things that they have yet to figure out, and that it's not going to be all unicorns and rainbows. They're going to have their problems.

Sometimes certain technologies become inevitable and you will change or die.

I'm not against new technologies, to the contrary, I'll fully embrace it as I have every other new innovation that has come along in my lifetime. My point is that it's not going to be as easy or as quick as I think you and some of the others are anticipating. If history is any kind of a guide, it's going to take many years, perhaps decades, before some of this stuff we've been discussing comes to fruition in large enough quantities to make a difference.

[Aseahawkfan]

So just how is that supposed to work? Are they going to rely on the honor system to report your mileage, or is there going to be some sort of device that reports mileage to the government? Are they going to send you a monthly statement? Sounds like a huge cluster phuck if that's how they intend on handling it. The beauty of a gas tax is that it's collected immediately when you fuel up.

I would think given modern technology, maybe something something like they do for your house where they obtain an odometer reading at some point during the month and send a tax bill.

With the chargers, tax by watts or whatever metric they use. Probably do some calculation of distance traveled based on watts for some mean of EV battery life, then implement an appropriate tax for road maintenance. For home chargers likely just tack on some percentage road tax to your electric bill based on the percentage of power used to charged electric vehiciles.

I don't think it should be too difficult.

[RiverDog]

So just how is that supposed to work? Are they going to rely on the honor system to report your mileage, or is there going to be some sort of device that reports mileage to the government? Are they going to send you a monthly statement? Sounds like a huge cluster phuck if that's how they intend on handling it. The beauty of a gas tax is that it's collected immediately when you fuel up.

I would think given modern technology, maybe something something like they do for your house where they obtain an odometer reading at some point during the month and send a tax bill.

With the chargers, tax by watts or whatever metric they use. Probably do some calculation of distance traveled based on watts for some mean of EV battery life, then implement an appropriate tax for road maintenance. For home chargers likely just tack on some percentage road tax to your electric bill based on the percentage of power used to charged electric vehiciles.

I don't think it should be too difficult.

I disagree. Not all batteries are the same. They will charge at different rates. Will the age of the battery affect how much charge it will hold or how many amps that is required to charge one? Will a Ford use the same amount of amps or KW hours to charge as a Chevy? Sending you a bill is going to be a problem, too. You're going to have to have some sort of enforcement agency to make sure that everyone pays. You won't be able to tie a car to a residence like the utility company can with their meters. Plus how does the government know what state you drove in? If you live in Vancouver, WA but work in Portland, how does Oregon get their tax money?

Like I said earlier, the best solution is a gps-based transponder that reports mileage driven, but that's going to create some huge privacy concerns.

[Aseahawkfan]

I disagree. Not all batteries are the same. They will charge at different rates. Will the age of the battery affect how much charge it will hold or how many amps that is required to charge one? Will a Ford use the same amount of amps or KW hours to charge as a Chevy? Sending you a bill is going to be a problem, too. You're going to have to have some sort of enforcement agency to make sure that everyone pays. You won't be able to tie a car to a residence like the utility company can with their meters. Plus how does the government know what state you drove in? If you live in Vancouver, WA but work in Portland, how does Oregon get their tax money?

Like I said earlier, the best solution is a gps-based transponder that reports mileage driven, but that's going to create some huge privacy concerns.

Why would any of that matter? You're not basing it on the battery storage other than a mean. ICE Cars have different mileages per gallon, yet we still pay the same gas tax for a gallon. They'll develop a statistical mean/average for the wattage as batteries will operate in a range with some outliers to that range, then a mean/average will be calculated and the tax based on that mean/average per watt of charging.

If they pull the information from a GPS or odometer, it won't matter. It would be pulling the same number as it would take up too much unnecessary memory space to track exactly where you travel for each car and each driver. A simple odometer read or mileage traveled reading should be fine.

You're way overcomplicating this maybe because you haven't looked into how they are doing this.

Chargers are based at locations. So taxing per watt will not be a problem.

Home charging can easily have a meter installed to specifically tell how much vehicle charging was done at your home. It doesn't matter whose vehicle is charging as all that matters is paying for the watts.

As far as the odometer reading or mileage traveled based on a GPS, they only need a mileage reading if they tax by mileage. They don't need to know where you're at. They will charge by where the license is registered and not worry too much about short trips to other places same as tabs or what not don't worry about that. Someone will get their tax. If someone spends too much time driving with a car registered in another state, then up to the cops to enforce proper registration.

It's not going to be difficult at all. It's all going to be done very easily. EVs have computers onboard and installed GPS/odometer and reading instruments, it won't be a problem to pull the necessary information for taxation. I don't expect them to worry about unusual situations like someone driving in a different state unless it is for an extended period of time which will be addressed on a case by case basis.

Government will likely go with the simplest and most cost effective means available which will likely be taxing by watt at chargers and some kind of vehicle metering in the home.

[RiverDog]

I disagree. Not all batteries are the same. They will charge at different rates. Will the age of the battery affect how much charge it will hold or how many amps that is required to charge one? Will a Ford use the same amount of amps or KW hours to charge as a Chevy? Sending you a bill is going to be a problem, too. You're going to have to have some sort of enforcement agency to make sure that everyone pays. You won't be able to tie a car to a residence like the utility company can with their meters. Plus how does the government know what state you drove in? If you live in Vancouver, WA but work in Portland, how does Oregon get their tax money?

Like I said earlier, the best solution is a gps-based transponder that reports mileage driven, but that's going to create some huge privacy concerns.

Why would any of that matter? You're not basing it on the battery storage other than a mean. ICE Cars have different mileages per gallon, yet we still pay the same gas tax for a gallon. They'll develop a statistical mean/average for the wattage as batteries will operate in a range with some outliers to that range, then a mean/average will be calculated and the tax based on that mean/average per watt of charging.

If they pull the information from a GPS or odometer, it won't matter. It would be pulling the same number as it would take up too much unnecessary memory space to track exactly where you travel for each car and each driver. A simple odometer read or mileage traveled reading should be fine.

You're way overcomplicating this maybe because you haven't looked into how they are doing this.

Chargers are based at locations. So taxing per watt will not be a problem.

Home charging can easily have a meter installed to specifically tell how much vehicle charging was done at your home. It doesn't matter whose vehicle is charging as all that matters is paying for the watts.

As far as the odometer reading or mileage traveled based on a GPS, they only need a mileage reading if they tax by mileage. They don't need to know where you're at. They will charge by where the license is registered and not worry too much about short trips to other places same as tabs or what not don't worry about that. Someone will get their tax. If someone spends too much time driving with a car registered in another state, then up to the cops to enforce proper registration.

It's not going to be difficult at all. It's all going to be done very easily. EVs have computers onboard and installed GPS/odometer and reading instruments, it won't be a problem to pull the necessary information for taxation. I don't expect them to worry about unusual situations like someone driving in a different state unless it is for an extended period of time which will be addressed on a case by case basis.

Government will likely go with the simplest and most cost effective means available which will likely be taxing by watt at chargers and some kind of vehicle metering in the home.

As I mentioned earlier, the increased GPM for newer vehicles is causing the state a problem and has already caused their revenue to drop, plus the fact that the tax is fixed and doesn't adjust for inflation means that the 'real' money the state is collecting is less. Realistically, we should be paying a percentage of the cost of a gallon of gas, say 25%, in tax. But, of course, that would never fly as it would cause gas prices to go even higher when we have spikes like we've had this summer.

Even without EV's, the state is being driven to some sort of per mile tax, and the only viable method is to require all cars to have some sort of GPS transponder. They've been using them in trucks for decades. Those weigh in motion truck scales you see along the highway are for trucks with responders, and they send information on their permits, bill of lading, etc, directly to the weigh station so there's no need to stop. It's the only way states are going to be able to track and charge cars and their drivers for use of their highways. But it is going to be a privacy issue for a whole lot of people and the system of billing and enforcement is going to be more difficult for states to manage. Washington is going to have to collect tax from a driver in Florida that comes out here on vacation. And there's going to be a cat-and-mouse game between cops and the crooks looking to dodge the tax by altering or disabling their transponders, a game that they don't have to play when collecting a gas tax.

Ironically, last night, a friend of mine came over for dinner in a new, 2022 Telsa all electric vehicle. Beautiful car, lots of storage as he has a trunk in both the front and the back. He said that new they cost from $43,000 to $70,000, which isn't that much more than a conventional car. His job requires him to drive 120 miles per day as he's working at one of our Oregon plants. He says that if he has to recharge on the road, that it costs about $15 and takes about 20 minutes. But it comes with some problems: Ideally, you'd like to run the battery completely dead before a recharge, but if you're driving long distance, the place it runs low at may not have a charging station available.

The only other way would be to charge people a licensing fee, but that would be extremely unfair and likely wouldn't be able to be set high enough to replace a usage tax.

I do think that EV's aren't that far away from becoming the dominant vehicle on the highway, but the issue of how to tax it is going to be a huge challenge, and we'll likely end up voting on it. It's either that or scanners that can read a bar code, which would seem to me to be more complicated as you'd need them at virtually every intersection and freeway entrance. Plus the weight problem is going to be an issue until they come up with lighter batteries. It's not going to be an easy conversion.

[RiverDog]

Here's a good discussion on the complexities of figuring out how to tax EV's and do it fairly:

Electric vehicles produce no air pollution and are more efficient than other vehicle types in power consumption terms, but they use up the roads just as much, or even more, since they tend to be a lot heavier due to the weight of batteries.

A wholesale, global shift in car taxation is therefore inevitable. Fuel tax as a proxy for taxing road usage is going to be increasingly broken as EVs become more common. There has been some talk about singling out electricity destined for EV charging and taxing that in some countries, but without more standardization and unity amongst how the public charge point services are run, particularly considering the free charging business models provided by services like Volta’s, this seems like a non-starter. More likely is a mileage-based tax system, possibly with a differentiation based on vehicle weight. Most EVs are Internet-connected in some way, so it could be possible to track miles driven and bill accordingly. Heavy users, such as travelling salesmen, would pay a lot more, and this would act as an incentive only to use a car when you really need to. Whatever system ends up being used, governments around the world will have to make up for the money they have traditionally obtained from fossil fuel usage. After a few more years of incentives for early adoption, that is going to have to come from EVs. So enjoy the cheap electric driving while it lasts, because EVs will be taxed a lot more as they become the dominant type of car.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorri ... 05ef554407

Once people pick up on this and realize that with the "internet connected" vehicles relaying driving information to the government, there are going to be a lot of them that will object due to legitimate privacy concerns.

It's going to be an issue, and with each state responsible for their own highway maintenance and with the federal government wanting their share of revenue, there's going to be a huge debate on how best to do it.

[Aseahawkfan]

As I mentioned earlier, the increased GPM for newer vehicles is causing the state a problem and has already caused their revenue to drop, plus the fact that the tax is fixed and doesn't adjust for inflation means that the 'real' money the state is collecting is less. Realistically, we should be paying a percentage of the cost of a gallon of gas, say 25%, in tax. But, of course, that would never fly as it would cause gas prices to go even higher when we have spikes like we've had this summer.

Even without EV's, the state is being driven to some sort of per mile tax, and the only viable method is to require all cars to have some sort of GPS transponder. They've been using them in trucks for decades. Those weigh in motion truck scales you see along the highway are for trucks with responders, and they send information on their permits, bill of lading, etc, directly to the weigh station so there's no need to stop. It's the only way states are going to be able to track and charge cars and their drivers for use of their highways. But it is going to be a privacy issue for a whole lot of people and the system of billing and enforcement is going to be more difficult for states to manage. Washington is going to have to collect tax from a driver in Florida that comes out here on vacation. And there's going to be a cat-and-mouse game between cops and the crooks looking to dodge the tax by altering or disabling their transponders, a game that they don't have to play when collecting a gas tax.

Ironically, last night, a friend of mine came over for dinner in a new, 2022 Telsa all electric vehicle. Beautiful car, lots of storage as he has a trunk in both the front and the back. He said that new they cost from $43,000 to $70,000, which isn't that much more than a conventional car. His job requires him to drive 120 miles per day as he's working at one of our Oregon plants. He says that if he has to recharge on the road, that it costs about $15 and takes about 20 minutes. But it comes with some problems: Ideally, you'd like to run the battery completely dead before a recharge, but if you're driving long distance, the place it runs low at may not have a charging station available.

The only other way would be to charge people a licensing fee, but that would be extremely unfair and likely wouldn't be able to be set high enough to replace a usage tax.

I do think that EV's aren't that far away from becoming the dominant vehicle on the highway, but the issue of how to tax it is going to be a huge challenge, and we'll likely end up voting on it. It's either that or scanners that can read a bar code, which would seem to me to be more complicated as you'd need them at virtually every intersection and freeway entrance. Plus the weight problem is going to be an issue until they come up with lighter batteries. It's not going to be an easy conversion.

I don't think it's going to be a huge challenge at all. It will be easier than it's ever been. Every single Tesla and EV will come with a computer system that tracks everything from mileage to battery life to maintenance. This computer will be easily accessible. Only issue will be figuring out the best way to tax, but implementing a tax will be easier than it's ever been because EVs will already have the tech for tracking nearly everything you might use to tax them.

There is no privacy issue. They do not need to track where the car goes. All they need to do is pull the number of miles traveled or the tax by watt on top of the normal tabs and ownership per year.

You're making this sound really complicated and it isn't. It's going to be extremely easy. You keep making it sound like the State has these huge shortfalls and I have not heard this other than the drop in activity from COVID.

Washington State is listed as having a historic 15 billion budget surplus.

https://houserepublicans.wa.gov/safe-wa-budget/

It's not going to be a hard change. We're not living in the day when truckers using GPS transponders are the only technology. Right now you have toll bridges where they take a picture of your license plate and send you a bill for crossing the 520 bridge. EVs have built in computers that can park themselves and drive themselves over short periods, track battery life, and nearly everything on the car.

I don't know why you're painting this as a huge challenge given the tech that comes with an EV. You were in your buddies Tesla? You saw the computer? All the instruments? It's not going to be hard to connect an EV to a system that will track miles or just go by watts.

I don't know why you make it seem like States are starving for transportation funds. The road work is going on all over right now. You're seeing a big problem where there isn't one.

[Aseahawkfan]

Here's a good discussion on the complexities of figuring out how to tax EV's and do it fairly:

Electric vehicles produce no air pollution and are more efficient than other vehicle types in power consumption terms, but they use up the roads just as much, or even more, since they tend to be a lot heavier due to the weight of batteries.

A wholesale, global shift in car taxation is therefore inevitable. Fuel tax as a proxy for taxing road usage is going to be increasingly broken as EVs become more common. There has been some talk about singling out electricity destined for EV charging and taxing that in some countries, but without more standardization and unity amongst how the public charge point services are run, particularly considering the free charging business models provided by services like Volta’s, this seems like a non-starter. More likely is a mileage-based tax system, possibly with a differentiation based on vehicle weight. Most EVs are Internet-connected in some way, so it could be possible to track miles driven and bill accordingly. Heavy users, such as travelling salesmen, would pay a lot more, and this would act as an incentive only to use a car when you really need to. Whatever system ends up being used, governments around the world will have to make up for the money they have traditionally obtained from fossil fuel usage. After a few more years of incentives for early adoption, that is going to have to come from EVs. So enjoy the cheap electric driving while it lasts, because EVs will be taxed a lot more as they become the dominant type of car.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorri ... 05ef554407

Once people pick up on this and realize that with the "internet connected" vehicles relaying driving information to the government, there are going to be a lot of them that will object due to legitimate privacy concerns.

It's going to be an issue, and with each state responsible for their own highway maintenance and with the federal government wanting their share of revenue, there's going to be a huge debate on how best to do it.

It's going to be easier than it's ever been. You are creating a problem where there is none. The capability is built into each EV. Even if they decide to go with taxation based on charging, they have the math people to work out an equation that will meet their needs.

It's not going to be hard to implement. They probably already have a transition plan in place based on equations that calculate average/mean miles traveled per watt. I expect them to implement quickly and effectively adjusting as needed.

The tech for doing this easily already exists. Cars are not hard to manage. From what I understand computer-assisted driving will cut down massively on car crashes and deaths per year as well as cars wrecks causing property damage as well. Tesla's at least are one of the safest cars on the road. And as the assisted driving or full self driving becomes more prominent, they will become even safer.

You're really looking to push a problem they likely already have figured out. As far as installing GPS, every Tesla and most cars have GPS already built in. A lot of the modern anti-theft systems allow you to track the location of your car on your phone by tapping into the onboard GPS. I think that's what surprises me a little bit is you think they will have to install a GPS transponder, when most modern EVs will have that already onboard.

Some of the bottlenecks for EV adoption I see as an investor:

1. Old multifamily dwelling (apartments) having enough vehicle charging capacity for their tenants. Most existing apartments are not designed with EV charging capability. This is going to require expensive upgrades unless someone comes up with an inexpensive solution.

Homeowners can purchase home vehicle chargers easily, but apartment dwellers have it a little harder.

2. Cost. So far the cost of buying an EV is down to middle class range, but not lower income folks. Still too expensive and goes hand in hand with the lack of vehicle charging infrastructure in apartment complexes where lower income people normally dwell.

3. What to do with ICE manufacturing facilities and associated businesses like gas station owners, parts manufacturers, mechanics, and the like. EVs don't use the same parts as ICE vehicles. Vehicle parts are a big business and that will kill a very big market with a lot of employed folks. Gas stations also won't likely be necessary. Charging will occur often at home or in a place where people can go to a store or something similar. Fast super charging might help this some, but even 20 minutes of charging on a super charger is more than the 3 or 4 minutes to gas up lowering the volume a gas station type of facility could push through. So gas stations will go the way of the dodo bird.

Tesla has a lot of automation in its factories. That will greatly lessen the number of workers needed to produce a vehicle. I expect former ICE manufacturers to adopt automation in their factories to compete reducing the number of autoworkers needed.

Some of this will likely be picked up by EV parts suppliers, primarily battery makers. But how much I don't know. The auto industry is in for immense disruption in almost every way from EVs and the oil industry as well. It's difficult to imagine this will be a smooth transition. I expect it to be fairly painful for a lot of gas station owners and vehicle parts stores as well as auto shops.

Those are some of the things I worry about far more than how the government will tax charging or EVs. ICE vehicles and associated businesses are an immense part of the American economy. It's going to change a lot and rapidly as more EVs are produced and adopted.

4. Temperature issues. Harder to implement EVs in cold weather climes especially with lots of snow and ice and isolation like Alaska or Minnesota.

[NorthHawk]

Technically it shouldn't be much of a problem determining the mileage in which to tax, but politically it could and probably will be.

[RiverDog]

Residential charging won't be a problem. I could wire my garage, built in 1984, to accommodate a 220v outlet on my own with just a little coaching from my licensed electrician neighbor. The problem will be recharging on the road. According to my friend, it takes about 20 minutes to get a full charge. They're going to have to cut that to 5 minutes or less or else they're going to need some huge recharging stations that would dwarf the size of a typical travel plaza if EV's become the dominant vehicle.

Another problem is that for the health of the battery, you should run it low before recharging it. This is going to limit when and where people can recharge. You can't top off your gas tank before heading out of town, you're going to have to plan your trip to schedule a stop at Point X and at X time.

Just as you underestimated people's mistrust in government over these Covid vaccines (to be honest, I did, too.), you are underestimating people's trust in government to collect so much personal information about our travel habits and tax us for road usage. Personally, I'm not concerned about the privacy issue as we're already monitored in every supermarket parking lot and nearly all busy streets with photo intersections. Adding a feature to our cars to report mileage and on which jurisdiction's streets and highways is a drop in the bucket compared to the information that's already being collected.

But a lot of people don't see it that way. I have a friend that won't even use a credit card because he doesn't want the government knowing where he's spending his money. It's illogical as hell, but it is real and it is going to be an issue when it comes to taxing EV's.

I fully understand and accept as a good thing that EV's are coming. My point is that it's not going to be an easy transition, that there are still a lot of things that they have to figure out.

[RiverDog]

Technically it shouldn't be much of a problem determining the mileage in which to tax, but politically it could and probably will be.

Which is precisely my point! They've been tracking commercial vehicles with GPS for decades. It's off the shelf technology. But overcoming the Orwellian fears of a good portion of the populace is going to be a huge challenge.

The other problem is that with the current system, you're taxed at the point of usage, ie the gas pump. A system to tax EV's is going to have to rely on an after-the-fact collection like a utility bill. They're going to have to hire/establish a billing service to administer their tax collection and figure out how to collect on delinquent bills, track when a car has been sold, etc.

[Aseahawkfan]

Residential charging won't be a problem. I could wire my garage, built in 1984, to accommodate a 220v outlet on my own with just a little coaching from my licensed electrician neighbor. The problem will be recharging on the road. According to my friend, it takes about 20 minutes to get a full charge. They're going to have to cut that to 5 minutes or less or else they're going to need some huge recharging stations that would dwarf the size of a typical travel plaza if EV's become the dominant vehicle.

Another problem is that for the health of the battery, you should run it low before recharging it. This is going to limit when and where people can recharge. You can't top off your gas tank before heading out of town, you're going to have to plan your trip to schedule a stop at Point X and at X time.

Just as you underestimated people's mistrust in government over these Covid vaccines (to be honest, I did, too.), you are underestimating people's trust in government to collect so much personal information about our travel habits and tax us for road usage. Personally, I'm not concerned about the privacy issue as we're already monitored in every supermarket parking lot and nearly all busy streets with photo intersections. Adding a feature to our cars to report mileage and on which jurisdiction's streets and highways is a drop in the bucket compared to the information that's already being collected.

But a lot of people don't see it that way. I have a friend that won't even use a credit card because he doesn't want the government knowing where he's spending his money. It's illogical as hell, but it is real and it is going to be an issue when it comes to taxing EV's.

I fully understand and accept as a good thing that EV's are coming. My point is that it's not going to be an easy transition, that there are still a lot of things that they have to figure out.

I'm talking the massive number of old apartment buildings out there.

Anyone who has a cell phone can be tracked. They carry a handheld GPS. Or who uses a credit card or debit card. It's the digital age. You can only avoid getting tracked at this point by making your life very inconvenient.

They likely won't be tracking the movement of cars for a variety of reasons. It's not cost effective. It requires a huge data base and computing power to track every car's movement. Privacy issues with not only collecting the data, but the stored data. Inability to decipher who is driving, especially if a car is stolen. If they go by miles traveled, it will likely just be a number pulled off the car's computer without any bother of worrying about where you went. Government doesn't want to pay for that type of GPS system including all associated data storage and administration. That would be more trouble than it's worth.

They're more likely to attach a tax to watts charged with some additional weight charge or other road charge on the tabs. Probably just put metering on the home charging systems. Likely some tax on parts like batteries or other associated EV parts.

Won't be much of an issue, certainly not at all a bottleneck to adoption like some of the other big issues.

[RiverDog]

I'm talking the massive number of old apartment buildings out there.

Anyone who has a cell phone can be tracked. They carry a handheld GPS. Or who uses a credit card or debit card. It's the digital age. You can only avoid getting tracked at this point by making your life very inconvenient.

You're preaching to the choir. I've gone through the argument you've presented with my friend on countless occasions. I try to tell him how much money he's leaving on the table by not using his credit card, the convenience of cell phones, and so on, but he insists on paying with cash and won't get a smart phone no matter how much easier it would make his life. But there IS going to be a significant segment of the population that will object. It's not going to be an easy sell and we'll likely end up voting on it.

They likely won't be tracking the movement of cars for a variety of reasons. It's not cost effective. It requires a huge data base and computing power to track every car's movement. Privacy issues with not only collecting the data, but the stored data. Inability to decipher who is driving, especially if a car is stolen. If they go by miles traveled, it will likely just be a number pulled off the car's computer without any bother of worrying about where you went. Government doesn't want to pay for that type of GPS system including all associated data storage and administration. That would be more trouble than it's worth.

It won't be enough just to pull an odometer reading. They're going to have to at least be able to tell when you've crossed a state line.

They're more likely to attach a tax to watts charged with some additional weight charge or other road charge on the tabs. Probably just put metering on the home charging systems. Likely some tax on parts like batteries or other associated EV parts.

Won't be much of an issue, certainly not at all a bottleneck to adoption like some of the other big issues.

I can't see taxing you by how much charge you put into your vehicle. Different cars are bound to charge at different rates and use different amounts of electricity. Putting meters at a private residence would be hugely complicated and expensive. IMO they're going to have to either tax by the mile driven via a transponder or set up lots of scanning locations like they do with toll roads. The only other option would be to do away with user fees altogether and take highway maintenance out of the general revenue fund or raise license fees, but that would be hugely unfair.

[Aseahawkfan]

You're preaching to the choir. I've gone through the argument you've presented with my friend on countless occasions. I try to tell him how much money he's leaving on the table by not using his credit card, the convenience of cell phones, and so on, but he insists on paying with cash and won't get a smart phone no matter how much easier it would make his life. But there IS going to be a significant segment of the population that will object. It's not going to be an easy sell and we'll likely end up voting on it.

The younger generation won't have this issue. They track each other for fun. It's pretty weird. I was talking with a young girl I work with and apparently tracking your bf's social media activity is a common way for young girls to make sure their bf isn't cheating and giving access to your phone is a sign of trust in the relationship. Pretty crazy to me, but apparently these younger folks want access to each other's phones.

It won't be enough just to pull an odometer reading. They're going to have to at least be able to tell when you've crossed a state line.

If they use that system, they won't need to be concerned with you crossing state lines unless you do it enough times for it to matter. You should know by now the government isn't that concerned with minutia like crossing state lines if it is not something that occurs often. If that comes up, they'll still get money from charging in those other locations or just have the police enforce the registration same as they do now if you cross state lines a lot for tabs. I don't know why you're seeing this as some kind of big issue. Crossing state lines with a car registered in another state happens now and nothing much is done about it unless it would be such a high number that it would be worth doing something about. It usually isn't.

I can't see taxing you by how much charge you put into your vehicle. Different cars are bound to charge at different rates and use different amounts of electricity. Putting meters at a private residence would be hugely complicated and expensive. IMO they're going to have to either tax by the mile driven via a transponder or set up lots of scanning locations like they do with toll roads. The only other option would be to do away with user fees altogether and take highway maintenance out of the general revenue fund or raise license fees, but that would be hugely unfair.

They will charge by watt. It will be no harder than putting a tax on gallons of gas. It doesn't matter how fast the car charges or how many watts it holds. They'll do a mean/average calculation and tack on a tax using the average. Where do you get this stuff from? All EVs charge using the same metric. What speed they charge at is irrelevant. What matters will be mile per watt, which will be a similar calculation to miles per gallon with a tacked on amount.

Putting metering in isn't going to be that hard. Why do you think this? You'll have more problems with people who run solar systems and don't use connected power. That will require different types of taxation or direct meter attachment to the vehicle charger.

You keep bringing up a transponder like they aren't already installed in modern cars. It's not going to need to be installed. It's already part of newer cars, especially EVs. People can track their cars on their phones as it is. I'm surprised your new truck doesn't offer this ability as it's becoming part of ICE vehicles too.

They are going to have zero problems taxing EVs. They will add taxes to power consumption to account for EVs. It's going to be extremely easy. You're creating weird problems in your head that don't actually exist or anyone even cares about them. There will be a multitude of taxes to cover road maintenance that will likely be much like they do for ICE vehicles. Gas tax will be a charging tax. You'll get extra fees on tabs if needed. You'll have metering on home chargers. Taxes on batteries and the car purchase. And likely some kind of percentage based tax tacked on to your home electric bill that takes a percentage of the power tax.

Government will have no trouble getting their money. Just like they always get their money. You live in Washington State, the Democratic masters of tax stacking and finding new ways to tax you for money they use for who knows what. Don't worry about how the government is going to take your money to pay for EVs. Worry more about how efficiently they will use that money and if the little taxes they add on are more than what they need. I seriously can't believe a fiscal conservative like yourself is worried about how the government is going to take your money to cover road costs for EVs. You know they're going to get their money. They don't care how legal it is or not. They'll make it legal or backdoor more taxes in like they did when we voted for $30 dollar tabs and they changed the taxes into something other than tabs and jacked the taxes back up.

[RiverDog]

It won't be enough just to pull an odometer reading. They're going to have to at least be able to tell when you've crossed a state line.

If they use that system, they won't need to be concerned with you crossing state lines unless you do it enough times for it to matter. You should know by now the government isn't that concerned with minutia like crossing state lines if it is not something that occurs often.[/quote]

The federal government won't care, but the state governments sure as hell will, especially the small states that have a higher percentage of out of state drivers.

I can't see taxing you by how much charge you put into your vehicle. Different cars are bound to charge at different rates and use different amounts of electricity. Putting meters at a private residence would be hugely complicated and expensive. IMO they're going to have to either tax by the mile driven via a transponder or set up lots of scanning locations like they do with toll roads. The only other option would be to do away with user fees altogether and take highway maintenance out of the general revenue fund or raise license fees, but that would be hugely unfair.

They will charge by watt. It will be no harder than putting a tax on gallons of gas. It doesn't matter how fast the car charges or how many watts it holds. They'll do a mean/average calculation and tack on a tax using the average. Where do you get this stuff from? All EVs charge using the same metric. What speed they charge at is irrelevant. What matters will be mile per watt, which will be a similar calculation to miles per gallon with a tacked on amount.

Putting metering in isn't going to be that hard. Why do you think this? You'll have more problems with people who run solar systems and don't use connected power. That will require different types of taxation or direct meter attachment to the vehicle charger.

You keep bringing up a transponder like they aren't already installed in modern cars. It's not going to need to be installed. It's already part of newer cars, especially EVs. People can track their cars on their phones as it is. I'm surprised your new truck doesn't offer this ability as it's becoming part of ICE vehicles too.

They are going to have zero problems taxing EVs. They will add taxes to power consumption to account for EVs. It's going to be extremely easy. You're creating weird problems in your head that don't actually exist or anyone even cares about them. There will be a multitude of taxes to cover road maintenance that will likely be much like they do for ICE vehicles. Gas tax will be a charging tax. You'll get extra fees on tabs if needed. You'll have metering on home chargers. Taxes on batteries and the car purchase. And likely some kind of percentage based tax tacked on to your home electric bill that takes a percentage of the power tax.

Government will have no trouble getting their money. Just like they always get their money. You live in Washington State, the Democratic masters of tax stacking and finding new ways to tax you for money they use for who knows what. Don't worry about how the government is going to take your money to pay for EVs. Worry more about how efficiently they will use that money and if the little taxes they add on are more than what they need. I seriously can't believe a fiscal conservative like yourself is worried about how the government is going to take your money to cover road costs for EVs. You know they're going to get their money. They don't care how legal it is or not. They'll make it legal or backdoor more taxes in like they did when we voted for $30 dollar tabs and they changed the taxes into something other than tabs and jacked the taxes back up.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree. I simply do not see a viable method of taxing EV's based on how much electricity it takes to charge them, and nothing you've said has done anything to convince me otherwise. Taxing by mileage is way easier and can be done with off the shelf tech. Like you said yourself, they can track where you are via your cell phone. They can do the same thing with a car.

I also think that you're making a big assumption about the younger generation being more trusting of the government. Weren't they the age group least likely to get a Covid vaccine? Sure, some of it has to do with their not feeling as threatened as older folks, but I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number didn't get one because they don't trust the government. Not that they are typical of their generation, but I know that my wife's two grandsons didn't get one because they believed all the crap being circulated on social media.

,

[Aseahawkfan]

We're just going to have to agree to disagree. I simply do not see a viable method of taxing EV's based on how much electricity it takes to charge them, and nothing you've said has done anything to convince me otherwise. Taxing by mileage is way easier and can be done with off the shelf tech. Like you said yourself, they can track where you are via your cell phone. They can do the same thing with a car.

I also think that you're making a big assumption about the younger generation being more trusting of the government. Weren't they the age group least likely to get a Covid vaccine? Sure, some of it has to do with their not feeling as threatened as older folks, but I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number didn't get one because they don't trust the government. Not that they are typical of their generation, but I know that my wife's two grandsons didn't get one because they believed all the crap being circulated on social media.

,

You disagree over an issue you created that doesn't exist and never will? Ok. Government is going to have zero problem taxing EVs. This idea you have of them having problems tracking car mileage is something you made up that doesn't exist. It's going to be super easy to do without having to concern themselves with state line crossing or privacy

Adding a tax to charging is going is extremely easy, as easy as it is to charge by watts for your apartment or house.

Privacy issues are irrelevant as they don't need to know where you drive to, not even sure why you believe this is necessary. Just as they tax every transaction you make without caring where you bought it using a bank card from whatever bank you decide to use or where you are. You made a bunch of stuff up that isn't even a concern and are disagreeing with something that will never be an issue.

The only thing I can 100% guarantee is going to happen is the government is going to have zero problems taxing EVs. It's an irrelevant problem that most EV makers don't even think about as the government getting their money is just expected. It's extremely weird you even think the government would ever transition to EVs and at any point say, "Oh damn, we can't tax them. How are we going to pay for the roads?" Or that you think they will need to install a transponder when they already exist in new cars. I wouldn't be surprised if any new vehicle you purchase right now doesn't have some form of tracking on it.

The whole discussion was just weird out of left field with no basis in the reality of EVs. I'm invested in Tesla and Nio. I've been following Ford and companies like Chargepoint. The issues you bring up aren't even part of the discussion of problems for adoption. It's more of we have several ways to tax EVs and just have to decide the most cost effective and simple way to implement them.

Don't worry, RD. Government has plenty of plans to get their money for EVs. It's not going to be a problem for them.

[c_hawkbob]

Tracking the electricity it takes to charge an EV is as simple as tracking the electricity a home uses. All of at least my utility's meters are remotely read (yes, online) now and it will be nothing at all do the same with EV's. Your EV could easily be taxed according to the energy you put into it regardless of the source. You wouldn't even have to be involved in reporting it, each vehicle's remote meter would be attached to that vehicle's VIN number and your annual tax would simply be added your annual vehicle registration.

[RiverDog]

Tracking the electricity it takes to charge an EV is as simple as tracking the electricity a home uses. All of at least my utility's meters are remotely read (yes, online) now and it will be nothing at all do the same with EV's. Your EV could easily be taxed according to the energy you put into it regardless of the source. You wouldn't even have to be involved in reporting it, each vehicle's remote meter would be attached to that vehicle's VIN number and your annual tax would simply be added your annual vehicle registration.

Even if that were viable, there's still needs to be a method to determine which state the car operated in. Suppose you live in Vancouver, WA and work in Portland, OR. How is Oregon going to get their share of the tax for the miles driven on their roads when you charge your car in Washington?

The other problem with taxing by the electricity used to charge an EV is that it doesn't address the high mpg hybrids, hydrogen, or some other alternative fuel that might be on the horizon. A mileage tax would be cheaper and a lot more flexible as it would address every vehicle, not just EV's.

Here's what they're doing in Utah:

But Utahns with EVs have an alternative. Instead of paying that flat fee, they can enroll in the pilot program that involves fitting a telematics device to the car that tracks the actual number of miles driven on Utah's roads, or use an API from Smartcar to report mileage that does not require adding hardware. These are billed at a rate of 1.5c/mile, but only until the total equals whatever that year's registration fee for the vehicle would have been; participating in the pilot means you could pay less than you would otherwise, but Utah's Department of Transportation says that participants would not ever be charged more than that year's registration fee. The data will be collected by a contractor called Emovis, which operates toll roads around the US.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/01/to ... -road-use/

That might be an alternative, ie give people an option of either paying a large registration fee or using a mileage transponder if they have privacy concerns. However, it still doesn't address the issue of interstate travel.

I don't see any way of getting around a mileage tax, and that means determining and reporting to a taxing agency how far and where you are operating your vehicle, a notion that's not going to sit well with a number of citizens.

[NorthHawk]

Today's electric vehicles are rolling computers. They also have GPS built in even if it's not used, so determining where a car was on any given day or time is easy to figure out.
However, I don't think it's that much of a deal. How do they track people who go to Oregon from Washington and get gas there? Is there some type of tracking done on that and an agreement for Oregon to send money
back to Washington? If there is are consistently lower gas prices in Oregon today then it might just turn out that there is an increase in revenue in Washington St as that draw of money across the border wouldn't happen.

[RiverDog]

Today's electric vehicles are rolling computers. They also have GPS built in even if it's not used, so determining where a car was on any given day or time is easy to figure out.
However, I don't think it's that much of a deal. How do they track people who go to Oregon from Washington and get gas there? Is there some type of tracking done on that and an agreement for Oregon to send money
back to Washington? If there is are consistently lower gas prices in Oregon today then it might just turn out that there is an increase in revenue in Washington St as that draw of money across the border wouldn't happen.

There is no agreement between WA and OR that I am aware of on dividing gas tax revenue. Despite having one of the highest gas taxes in the nation, it's cheaper to buy gas in WA than it is in OR. It's the opposite situation with Idaho. Gas is cheaper there than it is in WA.

One has to keep in mind that EV's weigh 20-50% more than their gas powered counterparts. They are going to do more damage to the highways. States are going to want those vehicles to pay their fair share.

[NorthHawk]

They weigh much more today, but with range being a big factor, lighter weight batteries will be coming along. Graphene is one component that is being studied and might be in the future and it's
a lot lighter than the current technologies. But like the quest for better gas mileage and the results over the last 20 years or more, there will be a similar result in weight and energy density in time.

[c_hawkbob]

First, I'm a little insulted by you "even if" that were viable, I'm telling you it's viable.

Second, Hybrids are a wash, you're already taxing their fuel and then you'd be taxing the electricity.

Third, you're right about hydrogen or other alternate fuels, they would require some other means of taxation. But as far as EV's, their is no huge problem.

[RiverDog]

First, I'm a little insulted by you "even if" that were viable, I'm telling you it's viable.

I apologize as I didn't mean to doubt your word, but I've done quite a bit of research on the subject and have not seen exactly what it is you're talking about. A link with some more information would be appreciated.

Second, Hybrids are a wash, you're already taxing their fuel and then you'd be taxing the electricity.

But they are already an issue as they use far less gas than a conventional car. States have been talking about doing something to reclaim lost gas tax revenue for years due to the increasing MPG's on newer vehicles. Here's an article from 9 years ago:

But the increase in the sales of these vehicles (hybrids and EV's) is being blamed for the decrease in gasoline tax revenues. As a result, at least 10 states have either considered or passed legislation to collect fees from owners of hybrid or electric cars.

Some opponents of the fees on hybrids and electric cars are instead proposing a taxation system based on miles traveled.

“I think so far what we’re seeing is the trend seems to be either an additional annual fee or some type of registration fee seems to be much more popular than the miles-driven tax, because that is a newer technology and raises some privacy concerns,” said Kristy Hartman, a transportation and environment analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Tom Stricker, vice president of technical and regulatory affairs at Toyota Motor North America, opined that it’s “wholly inconsistent” to single out hybrids for an additional tax. “A compact gasoline car may consume less fuel and pay less gasoline tax than a hybrid SUV, but only the hybrid SUV would be subject to an additional tax,” he noted.

https://thenewamerican.com/states-propo ... ax-losses/

Third, you're right about hydrogen or other alternate fuels, they would require some other means of taxation. But as far as EV's, their is no huge problem.

A mileage tax is the option that is the most fair, most adaptable to different means of propulsion, arguably least costly, and most controversial.

In any event, all I am saying is that how to tax EV's is one of those details that has yet to be resolved. There's currently tens of thousands of EV's driving the highways that are currently not paying any tax at all.

[NorthHawk]

Governments will always find a way.
There's a discussion going on up here about road taxing ie. tolling bridges and byways. It's incredibly unpopular because it hits the vehicles already paying tax on gas too, but it seems it might be the future.
As well, one concept was to tax your home for each vehicle in your yard or registered to that address. It hasn't gone anywhere (yet) but it is something that's being considered. There are a lot of ways to recover
the lost revenue, but they will be unpopular so it's going to be a rough ride for a while until it all settles down.

[RiverDog]

Governments will always find a way.
There's a discussion going on up here about road taxing ie. tolling bridges and byways. It's incredibly unpopular because it hits the vehicles already paying tax on gas too, but it seems it might be the future.
As well, one concept was to tax your home for each vehicle in your yard or registered to that address. It hasn't gone anywhere (yet) but it is something that's being considered. There are a lot of ways to recover
the lost revenue, but they will be unpopular so it's going to be a rough ride for a while until it all settles down.

Yeah, Europe has a much more extensive tolling system than we do here in North America. There are some city freeways that are going that route, such as SR 99 in downtown Seattle. Recently, I drove on a toll roadway around Denver, and a few weeks after I got home, I received a bill in the mail even though my car was registered in Washington.

Tolling roadways is certainly doable as they could link it with photo intersections that already exist at most busy intersections. They could toll each car that passes through at some fraction of a dollar and send us a bill, but then we'd be faced with the same privacy issue that mileage fees are up against.

Registration fees would be the simplest method, but they wouldn't be very fair, especially for low income folks and seniors that, in general, don't travel as much as younger, higher income folks. My wife's car comes out of the garage about once every two weeks. Eventually, they're going to have to adapt some sort of user fee.