# North Carolina bill seeks to end the scourge of free EV chargers



## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

North Carolina bill seeks to end the scourge of free EV chargers


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

I doubt this will pass--this is probably one of those attention-grabbing bills that doesn't stand a chance.

But I will point out that as awful as the bill is, section 1 could backfire. The percentage is likely to be very low, and would just end up underscoring how affordable car charging is.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

It's not about free charging at all, it's yet another lobbyist-driven bill to make EV's more expensive to own and/or less appealing. The part where it's difficult to tell is whether it's the dealer association (because the biggest EV maker is Tesla, which cuts out the dealers), the oil and gas lobby, or even legacy automakers who want to keep selling gas cars.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

JasonF said:


> It's not about free charging at all, it's yet another lobbyist-driven bill to make EV's more expensive to own and/or less appealing. The part where it's difficult to tell is whether it's the dealer association (because the biggest EV maker is Tesla, which cuts out the dealers), the oil and gas lobby, or even legacy automakers who want to keep selling gas cars.


The bill is absolutely beyond ridiculous and completely anti-business. There's no way ANY court would uphold it. A business is allowed to provide amenities to customers in any way they want. Its authors are just a bunch of partisan hacks!

*I don't use restaurant restrooms, they need to tell me how much of my bill is spent on that part of the business
*I don't watch TV, my local bar must tell me how much of my tab is being spent on TV and the programming
**I don't drink coffee, every dealership must now tell me how much of my expenses are spent on providing such amenities to other free loading customers or provide me a drink that I personally can enjoy.

And if you're arguing, "well you have access to those items above, you just chose not to use it". Buy an EV or plug in hybrid.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

The funny part to me is that free chargers are kind of useless anyway. The ones I've encountered were typically low power and I'd be surprised if they deliver more than 100 kwh per day which means that's maybe $10 in total per day or a few pennies per customer.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

I am worried though that this is just an attempt at painting EV owners as freeloaders. Soon they'll blame the grid blackouts on EVs. It's a common strategy to blame a minority to distract the majority from actual problems like an old underperforming grid.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

francoisp said:


> The funny part to me is that free chargers are kind of useless anyway. The ones I've encountered were typically low power and I'd be surprised if they deliver more than 100 kwh per day which means that it's maybe $10 in total per day or a few pennies per customer.


They should provide a total similar "free petrol +diesel" value at a "free pump" of the same $$ amount. That'd be what maybe 5 gallons a day for everybody in the state? All at the state's expense. 

As soon as they add in installing and maintaining the pumps and storage systems and the daily 5 gallon deliveries (not to mention the AC power required to operate the pumps, it will quickly (like first day?) exceed the total cost of the "free" EV chargers including installation. Thus, finally, Equality.

And just for fun: Make all the free pumps an open carry / SYG zone.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

francoisp said:


> I am worried though that this is just an attempt at painting EV owners as freeloaders. Soon they'll blame the grid blackouts on EVs. It's a common strategy to blame a minority to distract the majority from the actual problems.


Which is why the bill needs to be painted as it is, as “BIG GOVERNMENT” meddling in how a business operates.

In regards to public locations/lands, I’m not actually against that. Its never made sense why a government institution would provide free charging stations. Our local city hall has a couple vehicle charging stations, but not a single park provides ANY 110V outlets to charge phones 🤷‍♂️


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

francoisp said:


> I am worried though that this is just an attempt at painting EV owners as freeloaders. Soon they'll blame the grid blackouts on EVs. It's a common strategy to blame a minority to distract the majority from actual problems like an old underperforming grid.


We (in the US anyway) _are_ freeloaders in one sense, although not in the way this bill envisions. 

That's because in general gas taxes are used to maintain roads, and we use the roads but don't pay the gas taxes.

I think that needs to be fixed. One way would be to scrap the gas tax, but raise car registration fees on everyone. There are many other ways to do it; they all have winners and losers, of course.

This is one of those things where it would be better for the EV industry if it gets ahead of this problem. It's not a big deal now, but when we start to get to EV levels like those seen in Norway, our current system of funding road maintenance will be inadequate.

How much of a fee are we talking? Federal and state taxes together are about 40 cents per gallon, depending on the state. If a typical driver uses about 500 gallons per year, that's about $200.

Am I OK paying a new $200 per year fee to account for the wear-and-tear I put on the roads? Yes. That seems reasonable to me.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

In Ohio we are charged a flat fee of $200 per year. I understand where it's coming from however it doesn't take into consideration the actual number of miles driven. It's lazy lawmaking. In my opinion, the number of miles should be self-reported yearly when renewing the registration and at the time the vehicle is sold (under reported mileage would be caught at that time). That would make it comparable to the gas tax.

Another weakness of the flat tax is that it doesn't consider where the miles were driven. Last year I drove 20,000 miles however 14,000 of those miles were out of state. If I had been driving my ICE car, Ohio would have collected taxes on gas needed for 6000 miles.

I can see a day when states will add a per kwh tax for taxing out-of-state drivers. Will Ohio EV owners be double-taxed then? One crazy way to address this would be to require all EV manufacturers to report mileage by vin# and state (they do have the data) and have the EV owners pay a tax to an official entity that would be responsible for distributing the money to each state.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

francoisp said:


> In Ohio we are charged a flat fee of $200 per year. I understand where it's coming from however it doesn't take into consideration the actual number of miles driven. It's lazy lawmaking. In my opinion, the number of miles should be self-reported yearly when renewing the registration and at the time the vehicle is sold (under reported mileage would be caught at that time). That would make it comparable to the gas tax.
> 
> Another weakness of the flat tax is that it doesn't consider where the miles were driven. Last year I drove 20,000 miles however 14,000 of those miles were out of state. If I had been driving my ICE car, Ohio would have collected taxes on gas needed for 6000 miles.
> 
> I can see a day when states will add a per kwh tax for taxing out-of-state drivers. Will Ohio EV owners be double-taxed then? One crazy way to address this would be to require all EV manufacturers to report mileage by vin# and state (they do have the data) and have the EV owners pay a tax to an official entity that would be responsible for distributing the money to each state.


Lazy lawmaking is the standard for a reason. If you wanted to be fair, I’d argue my neighbors (with no children) who pay $8k a year on property tax which more then half goes to schools, would be more focused on THAT then a couple hundred dollars on their vehicles.

At the end of the day, a flat annual fee will be more consistent and easier to manage. What’s even more of a radical idea is that it be an adjustable fee based on expense/project reports of actual road work. Show vehicle owners exactly where that money is going. (I know, I’m dreaming of a responsible government).


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

shareef777 said:


> At the end of the day, a flat annual fee will be more consistent and easier to manage.


If that is the case, then let's eliminate the gas tax all together and propose a flat rate of $200 on every car. How far do you think that's going to get in the legislature? Nowhere. This EV tax scheme only works because EV owners are a non consequential voting minority.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

francoisp said:


> If that is the case, then let's eliminate the gas tax all together and propose a flat rate of $200 on every car. How far do you think that's going to get in the legislature? Nowhere. This EV tax scheme only works because EV owners are a non consequential voting minority.


I’ve got two EVs and zero ICE. My yearly state registration fee went up $100 per vehicle because of them being EVs. State gas tax is $.596. We drive ~10k mi per year, at 20mpg (average of our last ICE vehicles) that’s $298/year. We’re actually saving money. Even more savings for others considering the annual average mileage is ~15k. So IL flat EV tax isn’t a “scheme”. It’s money in our pockets.

At least with a flat tax (regardless of EV vs ICE), EV owners wouldn’t be penalized (which some politicians would salivate at the thought of, ahem NC).


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

shareef777 said:


> I’ve got two EVs and zero ICE. My yearly state registration fee went up $100 per vehicle because of them being EVs. State gas tax is $.596. We drive ~10k mi per year, at 20mpg (average of our last ICE vehicles) that’s $298/year. We’re actually saving money. Even more savings for others considering the annual average mileage is ~15k. So IL flat EV tax isn’t a “scheme”. It’s money in our pockets.


I'm happy for you that you save money. There might be states that are even better. In my case, my current ICE has a 25 mpg combined. In Ohio the gas tax is $0.385. That means that my $200 EV tax is $50 higher for 10,000 miles. My break even point is 13,000 miles.

Some EV owners will drive 20,000 miles and some will drive 5000 miles, and those will subsidize everyone else. There should be a more equitable way of doing this.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

francoisp said:


> I'm happy for you that you save money. There might be states that are even better. In my case, my current ICE has a 25 mpg combined. In Ohio the gas tax is $0.385. That means that my $200 EV tax is $50 higher for 10,000 miles. My break even point is 13,000 miles.
> 
> Some EV owners will drive 20,000 miles and some will drive 5000 miles, and those will subsidize everyone else. There should be a more equitable way of doing this.


All this doesn’t even account for the federal gas tax. Not sure where they’ll go to recoup lost tax income from EVs.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

shareef777 said:


> All this doesn’t even account for the federal gas tax. Not sure where they’ll go to recoup lost tax income from EVs.


I don't know either. But given the current administration's stand on the environment I doubt something will be done while in power.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Guys, please be careful not to make statements disparaging a political group. We do not allow such posts here.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

garsh said:


> Guys, please be careful not to make statements disparaging a political group. We do not allow such posts here.


Especially because the lobbyists who are _really_ out to get EV's love to see us fight over which political group is responsible, while they succeed anonymously regardless of who is in power!


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

francoisp said:


> If that is the case, then let's eliminate the gas tax all together and propose a flat rate of $200 on every car. How far do you think that's going to get in the legislature? Nowhere. This EV tax scheme only works because EV owners are a non consequential voting minority.


But EV owners won't be a non-consequential voting minority forever.

I think a flat rate on every car, ICE or EV or hybrid, is a pretty likely outcome down the road. If it's coupled with a reduction in the state gas taxes, a lot of ICE owners should be OK with it. But if it's not just falling on EV owners and there's still a federal gas tax, then a lot of EV owners should be OK with it too. It seems like a situation where people might grumble a little, but almost no one will be furious or feel singled out, and those kinds of things often work politically.


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## Klaus-rf (Mar 6, 2019)

The other elephant in the room is that the currently-collected fed and state fuel taxes cover less than 10% of the actual cost of road maintenance (in Arizona, I do not have numbers for the other states).. So no matter imposing an additional tax on EVs, the funding is still way short. Collecting an additional $250/EV (for say `100K EV's) isn't gonna make a dent in that $20Billion road maintenance deficit.

In AZ the state fuel taxes has changed since 1997, iirc. While fuel consumption on the average vehicle (for ICE) has been cut in half - so the funding is, again, way too small compared to actual costs. And the results is the roads, bridges and highways we have now. 

Th make it "fair", both usage and weight would need to be factored in with a log scale for weight (a 12,000 Lb vehicle does 100 times more road damage than a 3000 Lb vehicle per mile). I don't see that happening in my lifetime. Cars and guns.


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## DocScott (Mar 6, 2019)

Klaus-rf said:


> The other elephant in the room is that the currently-collected fed and state fuel taxes cover less than 10% of the actual cost of road maintenance (in Arizona, I do not have numbers for the other states).. So no matter imposing an additional tax on EVs, the funding is still way short. Collecting an additional $250/EV (for say `100K EV's) isn't gonna make a dent in that $20Billion road maintenance deficit.
> 
> In AZ the state fuel taxes has changed since 1997, iirc. While fuel consumption on the average vehicle (for ICE) has been cut in half - so the funding is, again, way too small compared to actual costs. And the results is the roads, bridges and highways we have now.
> 
> Th make it "fair", both usage and weight would need to be factored in with a log scale for weight (a 12,000 Lb vehicle does 100 times more road damage than a 3000 Lb vehicle per mile). I don't see that happening in my lifetime. Cars and guns.


Where's that "informative" reaction button?  I really miss it.


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