Taxed for driving

[vdeane]

What I think is outrageous is that we spend a little over 1 trillion (668 billion federal, the rest state / local) dollars per year total on welfare programs. I'm sorry, but that number needs to be cut significantly. As a country we pay more each year for welfare than our military, yet everyone talks about cutting military funds, but no one ever talks about cutting welfare funds. We didn't become the greatest country in the world because of people sponging off the system. It's unfair that my taxes pay for Fred's food, housing, insurance, college, etc, and then expect me to pay more because the government didn't have enough money to spread around. I say Fred should go work at McDonalds and pay his own way. I understand helping people that truly need help, but I don't understand helping people that are just too lazy to go get a job. I work hard for my money and I feel like if someone else wants money they should go work for it too. There's many more areas we could significantly cut in too. I think that needs to happen before we just start handing more and more money to the government and rewarding them for wasting "our" money. That's my opinion.

Actually, propping up the military/industrial complex dwarfs welfare spending by a VERY large margin.

Also: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/mcdonalds-sample-budget-sheet-is-laughable-but-its-implications-are-not-cm261920

[Max Rockatansky]

What I think is outrageous is that we spend a little over 1 trillion (668 billion federal, the rest state / local) dollars per year total on welfare programs. I'm sorry, but that number needs to be cut significantly. As a country we pay more each year for welfare than our military, yet everyone talks about cutting military funds, but no one ever talks about cutting welfare funds. We didn't become the greatest country in the world because of people sponging off the system. It's unfair that my taxes pay for Fred's food, housing, insurance, college, etc, and then expect me to pay more because the government didn't have enough money to spread around. I say Fred should go work at McDonalds and pay his own way. I understand helping people that truly need help, but I don't understand helping people that are just too lazy to go get a job. I work hard for my money and I feel like if someone else wants money they should go work for it too. There's many more areas we could significantly cut in too. I think that needs to happen before we just start handing more and more money to the government and rewarding them for wasting "our" money. That's my opinion.

Actually, propping up the military/industrial complex dwarfs welfare spending by a VERY large margin.

Also: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/mcdonalds-sample-budget-sheet-is-laughable-but-its-implications-are-not-cm261920

Not to mention that some of the branches haven't been this small since the second World War.  Makes you wonder where the money saving is being allocated or if money is being saved at all with fiascos like the F35? 

Yeah...McDonald's math...ugh...yeah I really hope I can discourage my kid to stay away from slop houses like that when she comes of age.  I don't know....something about the current generation doesn't seem to be very goal/career oriented.  I couldn't fathom not knowing what I wanted to do with my career or demeaning myself to the level of McDonald's....but such is life.  I never would have thought staying at home until my mid-20s was acceptable either but it appears 25 is the new 18 for people growing up today.  Maybe it's just a sign that I'm getting old....one thing is for certain you can't survive off entry level jobs like that.

[vdeane]

A lot of people didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives when they entered college, so they just picked something that interested them (not that liberal arts degrees are bad... it's perfectly possible to be successful with them, but it takes a LOT more planning because the jobs for those majors are fewer in number and more specialized).  Honestly, though, even a STEM degree is no guarantee of success... first of all, everyone's getting those degrees because they're believed to be a path to riches, and second, most people leaving college aren't qualified for "entry level" jobs because the employers decided to stop training people in the recession and now require five years of experience just to fetch coffee for everyone (and they're trying to weed out American workers in favor of H1B visa holders that can't quit and will accept crap wages).  I have a computer science degree from a good school, and after my first job (which I lost because wasn't a good fit for me and the company wasn't in good financial circumstances, so no other positions were open), I couldn't even get so much as an interview in my field.

Anyways, this is drifting quite far from infrastructure spending...

[Max Rockatansky]

For me it was a lot more straight forward, it was either police or military from the word go.  I suppose that I was lucky in that those careers fields value career experience much more than having a degree alone.  But then again that kind of thing comes with a price and I know full well it really isn't for everyone...in fact I had a family of business majors who tried to dissuade me throughout high school.  It's rare that you see anyone succeed these days with just career experience or just college but the prevailing theory that a degree alone will make you success remains for some reason.  Not mention the hyperinflation that the college system has seen has far out paced inflation in almost everything else leading to a bunch of college students with massive debt. 

But I digress, seems like the conversation kind of dead ended on finding a viable solution to the tax per mile question at hand.  I still am of the mindset that there are far better approaches to increase revenues for infrastructure than the dogmatic approach of taxing per mile.  For me the rate per mile proposals are far too excessive and there are privacy concerns about how the programs would be run, even though they are relatively small.  Seems to me that marginal tax increases in income, sales, gas, property and business taxes would accomplish the need far more efficiently than these per mile proposals ever could...the problem is that they are usually earmarked for general fund usage.  So with that it mind it always brings me back to my initial point that most of these laws seem to have some sort of motivation of discouraging drives or pushing mass transit.  I guess it would have to be up to the individual to decide if those arguments are good or bad, my view is that they bad for more people than not.

[kalvado]

If we followed your math (and, just so you're clear, 1gal = 16cups), that would be 4c/kWh, or a $162,267,700,534.72 tax, annually. $162 BILLION. Or, roughly 12 Big Digs a year.

The problem with your math, was that you were factoring ALL electric use to be taxes when really you would just account for the offload of car charging taking the place of the traditional gas purchases.

The other problem with the math here is that the assertion 1 kWh equals 1 cup of gasoline is... wrong. It's actually equal to slightly less than half a cup.

1 kWh = 3412 BTU. There are roughly 115,000 BTU of chemical energy in a gallon of gasoline, or about 34 kWh worth. So if you added 2 cents per kWh in taxes for electricity used to charge your car (not all electricity), you'd have the equivalent of 68 cents per gallon of gas, already a slight hike.

What are your assumed values of efficiency for different engines? Without that calculations are somewhat irrelevant.
Or, if you will, we can come from the other side: Tesla consumes 0.3 kWh/mile give or take, so assuming  such car would get 25 MPG, it is  7.5 kWh/gallon, or 17.5 oz gas per kWh. All very rough.

So if you added 2 cents per kWh in taxes for electricity used to charge your car (not all electricity), you'd have the equivalent of 68 cents per gallon of gas, already a slight hike.

more like 4 cents.. and once again - how do you enforce that tax on car charging only? I don't see a simple way - without giving tax collector enough powers so they can also check if your wife assumes proper positions at night...

To make things even worse, supercharges are the free perk Tesla provides to owners as a way to spread the product. Free charge for any Tesla  - and I am not sure they will be willing to shoulder the tax portion of it...

[Sykotyk]

A quick lookup of power plant output. Just the coal-fired power plants in this country from April 2012 to March 2013, produced a total output of 1,517,203 gigawatt hours of electricity. Which, according to the source, was 37.4% of all electric generation in this country. Which means, combined, from all forms of production: wind, solar, hydro, coal, and nuclear, the power plants in this country during that time produced a staggering 4,056,692,513,368 kWh of power.

As I mentioned, this is way way off-topic..
Yet..
You conveniently omitted natural gas firing facilities, which have roughly same share as coal from the discussion...  Do you really want to continue discussion on the topic you don't know?

Whether I omitted natural gas fired plants from the list of other sources of energy does not take away from the math needed to figure out total electric production. If the source I provided (with a link) was that coal fired equals 37.4% of all electric output, and we know the total coal-fired output, then it's rather simple to do the algebra needed to figure out total production. Which doesn't change whether I listed a particular form of energy or not.

It's interesting that you feel compelled to argue I missed one form of power, though it's still included in the total energy output.

Essentially not changing the fact at all.

It's like arguing a missing notation in the bibliography of a 4,000 page report, rather than arguing against the 4,000 page report. Are you questioning my numbers? It doesn't appear so. Or else I would think you'd have argued something 'you know' than argued something you 'don't know'.

[kalvado]

Essentially not changing the fact at all.

which fact? That you need to burn something to charge another Tesla? sure...

[Sykotyk]

Essentially not changing the fact at all.

which fact? That you need to burn something to charge another Tesla? sure...

That electric output, as calculated, was correct. Regardless of how many kWh are needed to power a Tesla or any other electric or hybrid car. Power generated at a large generation station is far superior in terms of efficiency than having hundreds of thousands of little generation stations under the hoods of hundreds of thousands of cars. Not just in fuel costs, but purchase and maintenance costs.

[UCFKnights]

I still find it insane that we seem to want to raise registration fees and implement some system to charge electric vehicle owners more (to make them pay their share) while at the same time giving them huge tax credits for buying the car and "saving the environment."

I feel like its time to end the tax credit, put that money towards the highway fund, and let them benefit through not having to pay the gas tax. That way, there is still a tax incentive to buy an electric or hybrid vehicle, and I think in general, the amount of gas a vehicle consumes tends to actually pretty accurately portray the wear and tear on the road. Things less likely to drag, less weight, less fluids dripping on the surface, less fumes spewing out the back we have to be concerned about, etc. If we have the raise the gas tax a little bit to avoid more registration fees, so be it. If demand goes down, gas prices will drop, and we can raise the tax again and help us reduce our dependency on oil if its actually feasible to do so, without having to subsidize the actual electric cars and trying to force people into them.

[Bruce]

The gas tax isn't high enough to drive many people (heh) to buy electric vehicles.

Raise the tax, reduce (but retain) the benefits, then switch to a VMT tax or something later on.

[Max Rockatansky]

The gas tax isn't high enough to drive many people (heh) to buy electric vehicles.

Raise the tax, reduce (but retain) the benefits, then switch to a VMT tax or something later on.

See the main problem for me with an electric car is the premium of price over something equal with a combustion engine plus the shortness of range.  Once the price and range of electrics come down I'll probably be interested, until then if all these governments want me to buy one they'll need to wave some tasty rebates in my face.  You'll probably start to see the gas tax really start to spike if there ever comes a day when electric cars take a significant chunk of the market share followed by additional charging fees and possibly mileage charges for road repair taxes.

[Brandon]

The gas tax isn't high enough to drive many people (heh) to buy electric vehicles.

Raise the tax, reduce (but retain) the benefits, then switch to a VMT tax or something later on.

The gas tax will never be high enough for most people to buy electric vehicles.  The problem with electric vehicles is twofold.

1. Range.  A Nissan Leaf can only go about 100 miles.  A Tesla Model S can do 270 miles, but that's it.  By contrast, gasoline vehicle have a range of 300-400 miles, and Diesel fuel vehicles have a range of 500 miles or more.
2. Recharging Time.  It takes hours for something like a Leaf to fully recharge.  Tesla claims you can recharge in 10 minutes from one of their proprietary recharging station, but you only get another 100 miles out of it.  By contrast, a gasoline or Diesel fuel vehicle can refuel for full range in as little as 5 minutes.

If both are addressed, with greater range and lower charging time to a full charge, then yes, electric vehicles will be viable.  Until then, no.

[Rothman]

2. By contrast, a gasoline or Diesel fuel vehicle can refuel for full range in as little as 5 minutes.

It is astonishing to me how many advocates of electrical vehicles miss this single point.  I've had people point out the Tesla as having a comparable range has having equaled gas-powered vehicles -- it's like that's the only measure that's being focused on currently.

[vdeane]

I'm waiting on new technology to fix the long recharge problem.  Of course, it's less of an issue if you can get to work and back and don't ever drive beyond the vehicle's range in a day.  Basically, roadgeeks should wait for better batteries/capacitors that can recharge in a reasonable amount of time.  For urban/suburban commuters that think anything more than a couple hour drive should be taken by airplane, electric cars are probably fine as soon as the price comes down.

[jakeroot]

2. By contrast, a gasoline or Diesel fuel vehicle can refuel for full range in as little as 5 minutes.

It is astonishing to me how many advocates of electrical vehicles miss this single point.  I've had people point out the Tesla as having a comparable range has having equaled gas-powered vehicles -- it's like that's the only measure that's being focused on currently.

Most people drive less than 40 miles a day (AAA). For longer trips, there's no trumping gas-powered vehicles. But short-range, around-town trips can easily be handled by both electric and petrol. The average number of vehicles per household is basically two (USDOT). Replacing just one of these vehicles with an electric vehicle, leaving the other for lengthier trips, is not that crazy.

[freebrickproductions]

Off topic, but IDK why, but whenever I see the title of this thread, I think it says "Texed for driving".

[kalvado]

Most people drive less than 40 miles a day (AAA). For longer trips, there's no trumping gas-powered vehicles. But short-range, around-town trips can easily be handled by both electric and petrol. The average number of vehicles per household is basically two (USDOT). Replacing just one of these vehicles with an electric vehicle, leaving the other for lengthier trips, is not that crazy.

In my case - and I assume I am not alone - second one is a 16 year old, 150k miles  clunker which gets around 2000 miles/year. Replacing that with a shiny electric one makes no sense if price tag is above $5k at most.  And I would like to keep a good one ready for a longer trip....

[jakeroot]

Most people drive less than 40 miles a day (AAA). For longer trips, there's no trumping gas-powered vehicles. But short-range, around-town trips can easily be handled by both electric and petrol. The average number of vehicles per household is basically two (USDOT). Replacing just one of these vehicles with an electric vehicle, leaving the other for lengthier trips, is not that crazy.

In my case - and I assume I am not alone - second one is a 16 year old, 150k miles  clunker which gets around 2000 miles/year. Replacing that with a shiny electric one makes no sense if price tag is above $5k at most.  And I would like to keep a good one ready for a longer trip....

Nothing's cheaper than a clunker. We're talking about new cars here, not old ones. Eventually every car needs replacing. If people are looking for a new car, and they already have more than one car, they ought to consider an electric vehicle for short runs around town, which I'd reckon is the vast majority of most people's daily endeavor.

[kalvado]

Nothing's cheaper than a clunker. We're talking about new cars here, not old ones. Eventually every car needs replacing. If people are looking for a new car, and they already have more than one car, they ought to consider an electric vehicle for short runs around town, which I'd reckon is the vast majority of most people's daily endeavor.

No, my message is somewhat different - in many cases "second car" for the short runs is an older of two, and replacing that with a new electric makes little sense. In my case, "second car" was a "first car" a few years ago - and as such had to be suitable for 500 mile one-way trips. Our current "first car" will eventually become a second one, and so on.. You suggest that I keep two new ones - for approximately triple price? Well, thank you for the offer... maybe I will call you back...

[jakeroot]

No, my message is somewhat different - in many cases "second car" for the short runs is an older of two, and replacing that with a new electric makes little sense. In my case, "second car" was a "first car" a few years ago - and as such had to be suitable for 500 mile one-way trips. Our current "first car" will eventually become a second one, and so on.. You suggest that I keep two new ones - for approximately triple price? Well, thank you for the offer... maybe I will call you back...

If the process ain't for you, it ain't for you. No one I know purchases vehicles in that manner. Most people I know have two cars, each with its own task. Usually one is a smaller car, mainly for ferrying one of the heads of household to and from work or the train station. The other is a larger car, perhaps for ferrying the kids to and from school, or for longer journeys where luggage might be an issue. I'm suggesting that an electric car would be a good replacement for the smaller car. This vehicle is not used for long-distances at all, only for BS'ing around town.

The reason the electric car has taken off in the US, more so than in many other countries, is because Americans often own more than one car. In Europe, so far as I am aware, households may only have one vehicle, so buying an electric car doesn't make much sense, because you limit yourself in how far you can ever drive.

[kalvado]

If the process ain't for you, it ain't for you. No one I know purchases vehicles in that manner. Most people I know have two cars, each with its own task. Usually one is a smaller car, mainly for ferrying one of the heads of household to and from work or the train station. The other is a larger car, perhaps for ferrying the kids to and from school, or for longer journeys where luggage might be an issue. I'm suggesting that an electric car would be a good replacement for the smaller car. This vehicle is not used for long-distances at all, only for BS'ing around town.

The reason the electric car has taken off in the US, more so than in many other countries, is because Americans often own more than one car. In Europe, so far as I am aware, households may only have one vehicle, so buying an electric car doesn't make much sense, because you limit yourself in how far you can ever drive.

If that was the common case, there would be quite a few low mileage few year old cars on secondary market. A low mileage car would have a relatively high value and probably would hit the market before rusting through.
I don't see that as a common offer, though...

[jakeroot]

If that was the common case, there would be quite a few low mileage few year old cars on secondary market. A low mileage car would have a relatively high value and probably would hit the market before rusting through.
I don't see that as a common offer, though...

The age of the replaced vehicle is not relevant to the type of car which is being purchased.

[kalvado]

If that was the common case, there would be quite a few low mileage few year old cars on secondary market. A low mileage car would have a relatively high value and probably would hit the market before rusting through.
I don't see that as a common offer, though...

The age of the replaced vehicle is not relevant to the type of car which is being purchased.

if you think there are a lot of brand new cars purchased as a "second car" for short commutes, you would see ample amount of 10 year, 50 k miles - or 7 years, 35 k miles on the market. That is the mileage I would expect from those low-mileage, commute only cars. Interestingly enough, most second hand cars are at least double that, and lease returns are usually at the higher end of permissible mileage as well.  So, I don't see the pattern you advertise for electric replacement: brand new car bought as a second low mileage vehicle.

[Duke87]

The other problem with the math here is that the assertion 1 kWh equals 1 cup of gasoline is... wrong. It's actually equal to slightly less than half a cup.

1 kWh = 3412 BTU. There are roughly 115,000 BTU of chemical energy in a gallon of gasoline, or about 34 kWh worth. So if you added 2 cents per kWh in taxes for electricity used to charge your car (not all electricity), you'd have the equivalent of 68 cents per gallon of gas, already a slight hike.

What are your assumed values of efficiency for different engines? Without that calculations are somewhat irrelevant.
Or, if you will, we can come from the other side: Tesla consumes 0.3 kWh/mile give or take, so assuming  such car would get 25 MPG, it is  7.5 kWh/gallon, or 17.5 oz gas per kWh. All very rough.

Ah. I was wondering if your number was attempting to consider difference in efficiency, but you didn't say you were so I assumed you weren't and ran with it from there.

Apologies if I seem nitpicky, I see statements like "1 kWt-h is equal to 1 cup of gas energy wise" and my work brain kicks in. If your post were submitted as energy savings calculations with an application for incentives I'd be rejecting it for not being detailed enough.

and once again - how do you enforce that tax on car charging only? I don't see a simple way - without giving tax collector enough powers so they can also check if your wife assumes proper positions at night...

I don't either, but I also don't see this being resolved as "add 4 cents per kWh to everything". Certainly not for all customers (the extra cost that would mean for a high rise office building could top a million dollars a year). For residential customers only... maybe, but it'd be a revenue windfall to the government doing it even then.

What I think is outrageous is that we spend a little over 1 trillion (668 billion federal, the rest state / local) dollars per year total on welfare programs.

Actually, propping up the military/industrial complex dwarfs welfare spending by a VERY large margin.

The $1 trillion / $668 billion figure appears to come from a Cato institute report. Which does indeed have a long list of over 100 federal programs that add up to $668 billion, including many things not traditionally thought of as "welfare" ($55 billion in refunds for the earned income tax credit, close to $4 billion for foster care, etc.). So, the answer to the question of how much we spend on welfare depends a lot on how broadly or narrowly you define "welfare", and whether you count foregone revenue from tax credits as "spending".

Military spending for 2015 was $598 billion (according to this page full of graphs), of which $64 billion is to directly fund ongoing wars. It is worth noting that while military spending is still higher than it was in the 90s, it has been trending downwards for the past six years (graphs are fun!).

Regardless of the details, though, federal funding on transportation (all transportation, not just roads) was $26 billion in 2015. If you cut 5% from either of the above items and redirected it to transportation, you'd have more than doubled transportation funding. So yes, we could drastically increase infrastructure spending without breaking the bank, if it were made a higher priority.

[jakeroot]

if you think there are a lot of brand new cars purchased as a "second car" for short commutes, you would see ample amount of 10 year, 50 k miles - or 7 years, 35 k miles on the market. That is the mileage I would expect from those low-mileage, commute only cars. Interestingly enough, most second hand cars are at least double that, and lease returns are usually at the higher end of permissible mileage as well.

Your numbers don't make any sense. 5,000 miles/year (50000/10 or 35000/7) is 13.7 miles a day; hardly even a one-way commute for most people. I already mentioned upthread an article from AAA which clearly states that most Americans travel around 29 miles/day, which is well within the range of most electric vehicles anyway. Even 15,000 miles/year is 41 miles/day, which is, again, still well within the range of most electric vehicles.

Most people drive less than 40 miles a day (AAA).

AAA's numbers suggest an average yearly mileage of 10,658 miles/year. If you want to dispute AAA's numbers, be my guest.