It's unfortunate that they went in that direction as opposed to something like a tire tax. Just have the regular smog tests also include a tire wear check to catch the folks trying to run their tires bald.

Keep a fresh pair of tires+cheapo_rims in the garage, never drive on them, swap them onto the car before the annual smog test.

Much cheaper than the tax portion of a year's gasoline consumption.

It's definitely possible that this happens, but I doubt that a lot of people would go out of their way to have that kind of setup. If you have the tools, the willingness to change tires, and the space to hold on to 4 spare ones, I feel like you're probably also not the type to run tires bald and risk an accident just for ~$450 a year.

(amount is from the rough average annual mileage of 13,500mi/year, assuming 30mpg, and the 82c/gallon tax).

Sounds like you'd pay for the tires (which then last forever, since you aren't driving on them) in just one year. Maybe two if you drive a truck. Lots of people have wrenches and spare garage space. And plenty more are already dumb enough to drive on bald tires. Let's not make this worse.

Incentivizing the failure to replace wear items is bad policy.

Tires have a born on date stamped on them and they also crack and wear with age even if they're not used unless you seal them up. I think you're overestimating how many people would be willing to do the swap and consciously ride on bald tires, but I can concede that I might be wrong on this. CA could run their own investigation if they so choose to.

> Incentivizing the failure to replace wear items is bad policy.

I see it as the least bad option out of the ones that we can field. Every kind of taxation policy will have pros and cons, and IMO the tire tax is potentially the one with the least amount of friction to implement and enforce.

> just have the regular smog tests

except that EVs don't have smog tests

Fair, but there are other existing avenues for enforcement. CHP can already write fix-it tickets for bald tires if they wanted to. We could also require shops to report it as part of a vehicle's history if someone brings a vehicle in with and it doesn't have enough tread depth.

That's been proposed in Oregon too from time to time. The usual explanation is that EVs don't pay gas tax and they need location data rather than just odometer readings so they can tax people only for the miles driven in-state.

I'd rather they just charged a higher registration fee or something. Maybe pay for road maintenance out of the general fund? (Tire taxes as suggested by a sibling comment is an interesting option.) For the moment it seems like it's mostly a non-issue, until we start having EVs be a much larger proportion of vehicles on the road.

I've wondered if maybe the tracking device is a sort of straw-man proposal so they can propose something less Orwellian and have it be accepted because it's better than the alternative. But on the other hand, the people proposing it may just not care about the privacy implications.

edit to add: per-mile road taxes are also regressive. Paying per mile makes a certain amount of sense, but it's a burden that falls disproportionately on the poor and middle class (unless the policy explicitly has different rates depending on income). That's a good reason to just pay for road maintenance out of the general fund. I'm okay with keeping gas taxes because they reflect some of the environmental cost of burning fossil fuels and they're comically low anyways.

Because the people slogging out commutes from places they can actually afford don't have it bad enough?

What is the logic behind this? I get that "cars bad" but do they seriously believe they're so bad that tradesmen who lives way out there so they can afford homes should pay more? They're already paying with their time.

The logic behind it is that someone should pay for road construction and wear and tear, and it should probably be heavy road users, as opposed to, you know, light road users.

The beauty of the free market is that increases in cost of shipping and transportation trickle down to prices paid by consumers, who can then vote with their wallet. If the cost of road usage is factored into the price of a good, I can choose to buy a good that results in less road usage, because it's cheaper.

Gas taxes (as opposed to mileage taxes) are decent enough driver of environmental policy, but they don't accurately capture road usage, especially in a world that's moving towards electric cars.

>The logic behind it is that someone should pay for road construction and wear and tear, and it should probably be heavy road users, as opposed to, you know, light road users.

But it still seems wildly incompatible with the "equity over equality" theme that most other new and upcoming CA government policy is based off of. Especially so considering that road wear is mostly from heavy trucks.

>Gas taxes (as opposed to mileage taxes) are decent enough driver of environmental policy, but they don't accurately capture road usage, especially in a world that's moving towards electric cars.

But the people who are moving to electric cars are already the ones who will benefit most from a mileage based tax since they tend to be wealthier and already have shorter commutes. It's not like CA is going to stop taxing gas.

Road wear is mostly from heavy trucks, but road construction isn't driven by heavy trucks. It's driven by the needs of normal people driving sedans and SUVs and pickups.

Wealthier people buy more goods and services, which get delivered to their local store/home on roads. While they personally won't pay more mileage taxes, they will end up paying more of them through their purchases.

I get it, this isn't the most progressive form of taxation, but neither are gas taxes (if they don't come with a dividend, like they do in BC.) If anything, poor people pay disproportionately more in gas taxes, than they would in road use taxes, because they tend to drive longer distances in less fuel efficient vehicles. That's a double-whammy.

Because governments collect road tax from gasoline as an approximate usage fee. As EVs become a measurable part of traffic, they require a replacement.

Great another tax for the poor who already have to commute 2+ hours for a wage that mostly goes to the landlord. Brought to you by The Most Progressive State™.

This would replace, not be in addition to, the gas tax.

Cheaper, less fuel efficient vehicles (like an old work truck) would effectively taxed less than a Prius, although I think weight per axle is also intended to factor into this.

One more reason to be glad I left.