Electric vehicle tax hike unreasonable, punitive

The question of punitive vehicle registration taxes is important to me. Assuming road damage and maintenance costs are one rationale as to why Senate Bill 336 to tax electric vehicles an extra $200 per year is under consideration, a relevant question is: What is the relative road damage of a loaded tractor-trailer rig versus a family car?

One answer to a legislative committee in July 2010 in Idaho (reported in the Spokane Spokesman-Review) was this: “Consultant Patrick Balducci of Battelle Group told the governor’s transportation funding task force just now that axle weights matter, not just total weight of a truck compared to total weight of a car, when calculating impact on pavement damage. But, under questioning from committee members, he said the rule of thumb is that one fully loaded axle on a big truck is equal to the pavement damage of 10,000 passenger cars.”

So, until and unless tractor-trailer rigs pay a total road tax of at least $200 x 10,000 = $2 million per year, the proposed tax is unreasonable and punitive.

Another, more technical, analysis is to use the civil engineering rule-of-thumb that a loaded axle does road damage in proportion to the fourth power of the weight of the axle. A passenger car weighing 3,600 pounds has two axles with an average load of 1,800 pounds each. Tractor-trailers with legal loading are allowed a maximum of 18,000 pounds on a single axle and 34,000 pounds on a tandem drive axle. So, the ratio of weights is 10 times as heavy for the single-axle load of a big-rig truck with legal loading; the fourth power of 10 is 10,000. Famously, a big-rig truck is known as an 18-wheeler and has two tandem axles (with a total of 16 wheels) and a steering axle (two wheels), while a passenger car has two axles. Less-than-truckload trucks have four single axles (of four wheels each) and a steering axle. Both are allowed a maximum total weight of 80,000 pounds.

If the state is interested in taxing based on road damage, not only should every big-rig pay $2 million per year to drive on Arkansas roads, but a Hummer H2 weighing 8,600 pounds (4,300 pounds per axle) should pay 21 times the registration fees of the prototypical, 4,000-pound capacity large family electric vehicle — if $200 is fair to charge an EV — $4,200 per year. Using the fourth-power rule-of-thumb, a 2,000-pound Toyota Yaris (getting 40 mpg) should pay onesixteenth the cost of the proposed $200 per year for a 4,000-pound electric vehicle, or $12.50 per year.

Of course, the specious logic behind raising the registration fees for electric vehicles is not rational, but reactive and reactionary — and neglects the health effects on Arkansans of the emissions of internal combustion engine vehicles. The health effects of gas engine emissions are much more costly and damaging to Arkansans than the gassers pay in registration and gasoline taxes. Diesel vehicles are even more damaging to health and roads — as demonstrated above.

Instead of taxing zero-emission electric vehicles more, we should subsidize their purchase and use in Arkansas, the Natural State. TERRY TREMWEL

Fayetteville