> Initially, EVs were exempted from taxes to create incentive to use them more. Now that it is pretty clear EVs took off and will be widespread no matter what, some countries start to remove those exemptions to ensure continuing revenue stream.
I suspect that EVs weren't exempted by design, but just slipped through the gap. Australian road tax is applied to petrol/gasoline/diesel. The number of EVs hasn't warranted changing this formula (the alternative being a tax on kms traveled). In Australia, EVs still haven't taken off (as there haven't been any incentives to buy them; in fact as they tend to be expensive, they often fall under the luxury car category and get taxed even more), so there are still very, very few on the road. It's very slowly changing, and this change is definitely looking into the next decade more that the next year, but still strikes me as odd timing - just when momentum is building to EVs, this will dull that momentum (at least without an incentive to _purchase_ an EV.
I suspect that EVs weren't exempted by design, but just slipped through the gap. Australian road tax is applied to petrol/gasoline/diesel. The number of EVs hasn't warranted changing this formula (the alternative being a tax on kms traveled). In Australia, EVs still haven't taken off (as there haven't been any incentives to buy them; in fact as they tend to be expensive, they often fall under the luxury car category and get taxed even more), so there are still very, very few on the road. It's very slowly changing, and this change is definitely looking into the next decade more that the next year, but still strikes me as odd timing - just when momentum is building to EVs, this will dull that momentum (at least without an incentive to _purchase_ an EV.