How does everyone feel about this charge coming into effect?
“The NSW Government is establishing a fair and sustainable road user system, ensuring that all drivers pay for their fair share of road use.
A road user charge of 2.5 cents per km (indexed to CPI) will apply to eligible EVs from 1 July 2027 or when EVs make up 30 per cent of all new vehicle sales, whichever comes first.”
https://www.nsw.gov.au/initiative/nsw-governments-electric-v…
I agree with this. Scrap fuel excise and just make everyone pay a road user charge. That way, it is fair for any road user and it should be at a national level, not state.
In it's current form, I don't think it is fair that Vic EV drivers are already slugged with this, even if they drive their car interstate, they still have to pay the EV road user charge. The same could happen in NSW. If I go to Qld that doesn't have that charge, why the hell should I pay NSW anything for the km I drive in another state.
What if I live in NSW in say Tweed Heads, but work in Coolangatta or the Gold Coast. 90% of my driving would be in Qld. So of that 15,000km I do a year that I am being charged $0.025/km, 90% of it isn't even in NSW.
Keep excise and get everyone to pay a distance rate. Discourage fossil fuel usage while maintaining funds for roads.
and then introduce a climate-change tax and a lithium battery recycle tax, tax on tax on tax on tax, just what we need…
@FLICKIT: Nobody likes taxes, but it is useful to use them to encourage/discourage behaviour rather than have them subsidising some and not others because of historical accident.
@mskeggs: Like the taxes on cigs or alcohol?, that's semi-reasonable, but to try to tax people out of affordable transport is not reasonable… When EV's are cost effective and capable people will be more inclined to use them…
The weight of the cars per surface area of each tyre that contacts the road should be factored in too. And people who drive green cars should pay more because they get into more accidents, which necessitates emergency services to wear out the roads faster.
lol wut?
What exactly makes electric cars more prone to accidents?
Magnets
Green paint colour perhaps?
No no no… they mean “green” cars, as in the colour green… perhaps? I don’t really know.
Currently, the average petrol and diesel passenger vehicle owner pays approximately $622 a year in fuel excise. Under NSW’s new road user system, EV drivers will pay on average $315 annually.
Supposedly sounds better.
0.025 x 20,000km = $500 p/a
which is a reasonably ok price to drive an EV
That's 1413 liters of fuel at 44 cents excise which works out to 27 liters of fuel a week.
.
Next there be smart meters on EVs; fees based on peak and off peak, region and amount of passengers ;)
Sounds like a NZ style road tax.
Yep.. Their "road user charge" (RUC), diesel vehicle tax, is $76nz per 1000km, so about 6.8 aussie cents per km, quite a bit more than this EV tax..
….already pay rego/insurance, tax on fuel, taxes for roads & infrastructure, pay tolls to drive on roads that should be free to use, high penalty fees & fines and now usage charges based on activity. …what a bloody awesome country!
I know right! What is the Rego for? I thought that covered road charges?!
Plus increased electricity usage also means increased GST revenue.
I hope there will be a cap, because I travel 55,000kms a year!
Rego basically covers the rego system it’s not a road user charge.
rego is basically 1K for admin and insurance….a rort
and they just privatised vicroads so it will only get worse
Rego covers TAC in Vic so anyone involved in an crash involving a motor vehicle gets medical bills covered.
If you’ve ever been to a car-free city like Venice, or the islands in Toronto, you would know how detrimental cars are to the potential beauty, peace, and cleanliness/health of urban areas.
We have intentionally and unintentionally ensured Australians have an over-reliance on cars, to our profound detriment. Not only are the costs per person and per society ridiculously high, but the negative impacts (noise, pollution, safety) are insanely under-appreciated. About 50% of Australians live next to a busy road, with never-ending road noise. Thousands are killed each year on the road. Many thousands of people on the road and in inner-city areas are breathing potentially toxic fumes on a daily basis.
The government should be encouraging people to drive less, and should provide options that enable them to do so.
tell me you live in an inner city environment without telling me you live in an inner city environment
Like nearly all Australians, I live in a large city. If you live in the country, you can thank your lucky stars that the majority of Australians don't.
If we did all live in the country, the remaining wilderness would turn into urban sprawl, like the US.
@ForkSnorter: the vast majority of australians live in the suburbs mate….the need for cars is not going anywhere soon
@franco cozzo: Those suburbs that were built for people with cars who now also cannot get by without cars.
Covid lockdown showed us just how many people actually have to be on the roads. Many people make a choice to do so.
If personal transport costs increase people will choose to live in places better served by public transport, be closer to worn and work more from home. Decentralising businesses helps with this. Move the business to where he people choose to live, don’t make them all trek into the CBD everyday.
@franco cozzo: This video comparing city design in the Netherlands with US/Canada may help you understand my point.
@ForkSnorter: Was just going to post this https://youtu.be/MWsGBRdK2N0
Another video by the same guy. Gets you thinking outside our car centric box.
Absolutely we should be removing cars and car infrastructure from our cities, but let’s start by getting rid of the polluters at a greater rate by not penalising those who wish to move to EVs.
I’m a willing tax payer and road user but I do wonder why with all the taxes we already pay their has to be fuel excise and now a road user tax. I guess not enough money in the kitty. It seems to be that user pays part for most public services on top of what we already pay in income tax, company tax, and GST. If you want to use a road, own some land, send kids to school, see a doctor, park near a popular location, catch a bus etc you have to pay a decent fee even though we pay a good amount of tax for these public service already. I know it’s all different levels of gov and we have to pay for military, pensions and other bigger picture things but I’m glad I have a job that pays okay - living is expensive!
The proposed road user charge will only apply to EVs, because those with EVs don’t pay a tax through the fuel excise.
Yeah I know, it just feels like there’s an add on tax for everything including fuel excise.
also…. imagine how much more easier it will be enforce future lockdowns (pandemics, climate change, energy crisis etc) when we go fully electric / digital!!!
it will be so convenient to enforce these required measures for the greater good of society!
They should delay it until there is a majority of EVs on roads.
….better to penalise the early adopters apparently?
Oil cartels pressuring govt?
no….its what we can all expect when they ban new ICE vehicles sales as of 2035 & we are forced onto electric.
its only 12 years away before we have no choice in the matter and petrol will be so expensive by then who will be able to afford to drive anyway?
the future of our species apparently entails us plebs travelling a lot less…and paying dearly for the privilege when we do
@franco cozzo: Our planet survived millions of years without us traveling a lot. Maybe travelling less or using less energy intensive forms of travel is better for us.
We can’t afford to continue using fossil fuels as we currently are.
In 12 years time I suspect the majority of new car owners will have no interest in buying ICE vehicles. We won’t be forced, we’ll recognise that for the majority an EV will be far superior to any ICE vehicle. Sure, some outback travel won’t suit EVs but as most of our vehicles are city usage it won’t be a big problem. Besides, it’ll take at least another 12 years to wear out the last of the ICE cars sold, there will be used models available for ages. They aren’t banning ICE, they’re transitioning away by banning new ICE
Someone's got to pay for the roads.
But its so complicated a situation its probably impossible to come up with a way of charging for them that everyone thinks is fair.
If you charge per year in registration then exactly the people who should be rewarded, those who only cover small distances each year, pay just as much.
If you charge either by distance or fuel used its unfair to light vehicle users, because heavy vehicles cause hugely more damage to the roads. Not a few times as much, but hundreds or thousands of times as much.
If you charge the same amount at all times on all roads then you aren't rewarding the people who use their vehicles outside peak hours on quiet roads. You are rewarding those that cause congestion and require expensive roads to cope with it, when they should be sitting in a public transport vehicle.
Even when you charge EV drivers only a fraction as much as everyone else they still complain that's too much, because they think their righteousness - in reality their ability to afford an expensive electric vehicle - warrants them getting a completely free ride on everyone else.
The closest you could get to "fair" would be a GPS system that tracked exactly what roads you used and when you used them and charged you on the basis of the vehicle you used them in. But that would be a horrendously expensive and intrusive complex bureaucracy that probably isn't worth the setup cost and running cost. So the next best best solution is something simple, like petrol and diesel taxes and a per kilometre charge for vehicles that don't use either.
because heavy vehicles cause hugely more damage to the roads. Not a few times as much, but hundreds or thousands of times as much.
so why not charge based on weight too? heavy vehicles pay more than light vehicles
The alternative to coming up with one fair system is to combine two or more that each compensate for the shortcomings of the others.
So for example in Australia most states combine registration charges which increase with weight, with fuel tax which increases with pollution generated, and they pay for vehicle use on ordinary roads, with toll roads, which pays for the high cost of building them. And in Britain they combine fuel tax with additional charges in urban areas where there are special issues with congestion and pollution.
Britain ringfences its most congested urban areas with cameras that require your vehicle to meet pollution standards and make you pay an entry charge. Expect them here at some time. Not that it was as effective as hoped there, because so many of the vehicles they can't keep out or don't charge are powered by filthy dirty diesel engines that everyone was misguidedly told to go to a decade or to ago because they generated less climate changing CO2.
So you just cover the GPS module with a chip packet to drive for free?
Considering only a small portion of the fuel excise tax actually gets spent on roads and infrastructure, this is completely unnecessary.
True but government need to recover remaining from else where. Australia budget usual go up every year not down.
maybe they could learn how to budget properly, stop making so many stupid decisions, giving contracts to mates at inflated prices because who cares, not their money they're spending, wasting money on a stadium for Tas that could be much better spent elsewhere…
Should just be distance based for everyone, but EV’s/hybrids get charged a lower rate.