It’s also a direct usage tax to support road maintenance. Heavier users of the road ways end up contributing more to the maintenance of the public good.
We had a proxy for that via gasoline taxes but with EV becoming more common we need to find a replacement for that revenue.
The gas tax hasn’t kept up with inflation, EVs are only a secondary contributor to the shortfall. Most states have been leeching from their general funds to keep up with highway maintenance. California has raised theres fair aggressively, though.
Most states include higher tag fees for EVs. I pay way more in the EV fee than I would have paid in gas taxes considering I don’t drive that much. Trucks and other heavy users dwarf car traffic by far though, and those extra logistic costs (if charged by weight) would show up as increased cost of goods.
I'm fine with a decently fair registration tax to offset the gas taxes, but the one in my state is the equivalent of 1,000 gallons of gas for the state gas taxes. If the car was a 35mpg hybrid that would be 35,000mi of equivalent driving. This is incredibly unfair.
35,000 mi of driving is not anywhere near out of the question if you're a daily commuter who takes road trips once in a while. If you're driving a truck or a non-hybrid, it's also a lot less mileage. It sounds like this is actually close to what you would be expected to use.
It weighs about as much as the smallest base model F150. Optioned out models and other trim levels easily hit 1,000lbs+ heavier.
Meanwhile that base model equivalent weight F150 gets about 24mpg and thus pays about half as much gas tax while doing the same amount of damage driving the average mileage. Further proving my point, I pay twice the state fuel tax for an equivalent weight pickup truck. Is that fair?
But also, isn't the whole point of the pickup truck to load it down? If all it's doing is carrying 1-4 people it's whole life, seems like a lot of waste. I'm told people buy trucks to actually load them down a lot and not just commute and get groceries? So while it's about the same weight dry and unloaded shouldn't it's weight really be quite a bit more in practice? Or are we all agreeing now trucks are just for commuting and getting groceries?
Now you've moved the goal posts to about half of your original claim. And it's still not accurate (links have already been provided elsewhere in this thread). And the only thing I've owned in the last 30 years that gets 25 mpg is a camper van (and, no, that thing doesn't move anywhere near 15K miles/year).
> With that information, the British newspaper calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars.
If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off.
The average driver also doesn't get 35 mpg driving regularly. The average driver probably gets around 20 mpg, and that would make this distance about 15000 mi.
They also chose a car that's extremely heavy (by virtue of the battery), so they create more road wear per mile than the average American car. The point is that tax rate seems fair.
> With that information, the British newspaper calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars.
If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off.
The EV tax applies to people who a) casue a disproportionate amount of wear & tear on the roads vs ICE vehicles and b) are generally higher income in the state.
When you look at taxation from a "charge the people who use it" or the "the rich should pay more" perspective, this appears to address both.
Is the problem simply that you want to pay less taxes?
No, I just want to pay a fair amount of taxes. Honestly the gas taxes should be increased or we should move to a tax structure where it's mileage, weight, and emissions based.
Paying 3x the same taxes while having less externalities isn't fair.
> With that information, the British newspaper calculated that BEVs [battery electric vehicles] could expose roads to 2.24 times more damage than gas cars.
If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car in the externalities of road wear & tear.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" is at most 25% higher in a "damage per mile equivalent" but could be as little as 6% using the averages.
If your actual mileage is over 15625/year, then you're paying less than the equivalent.
27 isn't 35 no matter how many times you say it is.
> If your actual mileage is over 15625/year, then you're paying less than the equivalent.
The average is less than that by a decent bit, so more than half of US cars are paying more even with your unproven, contorted math based on some estimates done once in the 70s and never really looked into closely again.
It's also assuming the difference in weight. The closest hybrid I would have bought instead is only like 100kg lighter than my EV. And it gets like 40mpg, better than 35mpg.
It would also mean semi trucks should pay like 20,000x more in registration fees. Does this make sense?
> What's your annual mileage?
Less than 15k on that car (like most people), so even with your assumed math it's overpaying.
Semi trucks pay huge amounts in gas taxes because they guzzle gas like nobody's business. It's only the EVs that aren't paying for their road wear in gas taxes.
Average class 8 truck (>33,000lbs) burns under 11,000GGEa year, ratio is 1GGE=1.13gal of diesel. So somewhere under 12,500gal of diesel on average, but we'll use that to lean even more in the truck's favor.
Are you suggesting the average car burns less than 1 gallon of gas a year?
A 20mpg car driving 12,500mi (the average ICE in the US) would use 625gal of gas. So more like 20x, maybe 40x if the per gallon tax of diesel is double. Pretty dang far off from 20,000x.
And they're doing way more miles while being massively heavier, meaning incredibly more harm on the road than whatever EV you're thinking.
Registration fees are likely the same or close but when you factor in gas taxes (the original comparison here), the Ford is definitely paying more both based on fuel type and mpg.
Not sure where you are but in Indiana, gas tax for unleaded is 36c while diesel is 62c so on a per-gallon basis, that's an additional +72% in taxes. Back of the envelope: Civic at 30mpg pays 1.2c/mile vs SuperDuty at 15mpg pays 4.13c/mile so the multiple is closer to 3.4 vs 2
So yes - assuming registration fees are comparable and mileage is comparable - the SuperDuty should pay more.
The lightest SuperDuty has a gas engine. Diesel SuperDuty fuel economy is a bit better, but the vehicle also weighs more and is likely to be carrying/pulling more. But regardless of whether the multiple is 2 or 3.4 or somewhere in between, it is a small fraction of the added road wear.
By the fourth power law, an unloaded diesel Superduty creates ~22x the road wear of a honda civic. Loaded can be 100x more.
I do agree the relationship probably isn't linear, but the fourth power rule doesn't necessarily have numerous studies confirming it. It was a small collection of studies on road wear the US highway administration did in the 1950s and pretty much everyone has just gone with that. Other studies have pointed to it being less than previously thought.
Thanks for the insight but my claim was never "12,000mi is really 35,000mi"
Regardless, it would be interesting to see the actual number worked through to see what the equivalent EV registration fee should be if road damage/maintenance is the sole factor.
> If the car was a 35mpg hybrid that would be 35,000mi of equivalent driving.
> that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" isn't far off
You absolutely did suggest me paying taxes for 12k miles is practically the same as ~35k miles, you said it several times. That it's not far off. How else am I supposed to read that? You were so sure of it you mentioned it many times.
> Regardless, it would be interesting to see the actual number worked through to see what the equivalent EV registration fee should be if road damage/maintenance is the sole factor.
Sure, but it's likely far less than what I'm paying. As mentioned elsewhere, a similar weight unloaded F-150 pays half the taxes. So I'm at least paying double for similar weight vehicles, and yet you tell me it's really only 6%. But sure, tell me again how I'm really just paying my fair share and 12 = 35.
> If that's true, then 12-15k miles in an EV would be equivalent to 27-33k miles in a gas car in the externalities of road wear & tear.. so "taxes equivalent to 35k miles" is at most 25% higher in a "damage per mile equivalent" but could be as little as 6% using the averages.
^ As you quoted, I used the formula to estimate 12k would be equivalent to 27k and said paying taxes equivalent to be 35k miles is "at most 25% higher", neither of which is "12 = 35". Using their approach, I calculated 35k to be equivalent to 15625 specifically, again, not 12k.
If the underlying approach is wrong, we should replace it with something better.
Alternatively, the OTHER reasoning of "the rich should pay more" still applies, so I assume that's a factor here. Hoping States charge rich people (or high income earners, if you prefer) less isn't likely to work right now.
> Alternatively, the OTHER reasoning of "the rich should pay more" still applies, so I assume that's a factor here.
Once again, your assumption is incorrect. That base model F-150 that pays half the taxes costs more than my EV. The registration fee doesn't factor in income or valuation at all. A $100k Hummer EV pays the same as a $15k used Bolt. Meanwhile that Hummer EV is going to do a hell of a lot more damage to the roads than the Bolt.
It probably has more to do with the government being in the pocket of oil interests and acts accordingly.
it's pretty silly to have a tax that incentivizes the opposite behaviour to what you want. registration surcharges benefit the people who drive the most, at the expense of the people who drive the least.
if you're trying to pay for wear and tear on the roads, or reduce congestion, making people feel like they have to "get their moneys worth" on the registration surcharge really isn't helping.
I'm not sure that use taxes really support road maintenance, at least in my state. The reason is that money is fungible, and the income from use taxes can be offset by a reduction in support from the general fund.
Apparently there is a yearly car check during which the odometer can be read, and there are other options like entering the data yourself, but the legislation is not yet completely finalised.
Its a funny take because this reddit thread seems to suggest the opposite. Pro se litigants (people representing themselves) are using LLMs to create more lawsuits resulting in more work for lawyers.
This American Life really does live up to its name - its a real slice of American culture / society on any given week. I imagine its going to be a wellspring of understanding our time for future anthropologists and historians.
Well, for any future archaeologists reading this, please know that This American Life was a great show that was made for a specific audience, by a specific set of creators, and it absolutely did not represent the breadth of life in America at the turn of the 21st century. This was a common mistake: thinking a rather small niche was universal because it's what you see. It led to a lot of surprises.
I'm not on the political right, but it's plain that they don't give it equal time.
I don't expect the audience cares very much about this, though, which is sort of to OPs implied point. We've reached a place where each side of the political spectrum is not only happily ignorant of the other side's good points, but in fact, fearful of even having the discussion. If you go too far afield from the party line, you will be punished, and public radio (along with non-public radio, cable, broadcast news, and most other forms of legacy media) is a shrinking market, unwilling to alienate the core audience.
(The shorthand term for this is "audience capture", and IMO, This American Life has a death grip on a very particular sort of audience, which even if you set partisan politics aside, is representative only of itself.)
> I'm not on the political right, but it's plain that they don't give it equal time.
OP said it's a "slice", not a "statistically accurate representation". I think his intent was to say "They cover everything", not "They cover everything in due proportion".
And, BTW, I've yet to find any show (news or entertainment) that is even close to being statistically accurate representation of society. Such shows will not survive - not enough people will listen.
See my reply to the sibling comment. I don't know what a "statistically accurate representation of society" would be, nor do I hold that up as my standard here.
> Such shows will not survive - not enough people will listen.
Well yes, exactly. TAL has an editorial voice, it's clear what that voice is (even if it's difficult to describe in conventional political terms), but it's not inaccurate to say that the voice is left of center. Moreover, it must be, because that is the market for the show.
This is a good counterpoint that I hadn’t considered, honestly.
That even if a show is apolitical (or mostly apolitical like TAL), it will inherently have some political bias because the creators are inherently biased.
This will create a “niche” for the show, whether it’s intentional or not. Thanks for expanding my perspective on this.
Reminds me of a recent quote from a scientist interviewed by the NYT, who said that science is inherently political, because the system and people it’s built on are political.
Its not just about the creators bias. Any communication needs to be interpreted by sender and reciever and when that interpretation differs, communication starts to fail.
Recievers of such messages might see it as political when you speak about covid/masks, climate change, etc. no matter how hard you try to be unbiased. Unfortunately, anything can be a political symbol and you can either choose to accept their bias and avoid the symbol to stay "apolitical" or accept the "niche" you have been put into.
"99% of climatologist agree on ... yet, joining us, guru shananda, opposing it with equal air time" is a noble but net-negative attempt to address that bias.
> That even if a show is apolitical (or mostly apolitical like TAL), it will inherently have some political bias because the creators are inherently biased.
I agree, but I'd extend with one other observation: a show can be rigorously unbiased in its coverage of any particular topic, but extremely biased in the decision of what to cover. The "editorial whitespace" is almost invisible, but perhaps more important than what gets covered. If you never cover the good points of the other side, its easier to make them look like uneducated extremists.
For example, while writing one of the other comments on this thread I wondered what a "TAL for conservatives" would look like, and it started to become interesting. While I'm sure that a great many people on the right would initially react harshly to the stereotypical affectations of TAL (tinkly emo music, emotional narratives, soft speech, etc.), you could easily imagine a show where you borrowed this style, and applied it to stories about families losing their multi-generation business to overregulation, bureaucratic interactions with big government, veterans affairs, etc. It could even be quite powerful, because there's clearly a human story that drives all forms of political belief.
TAL touches on some of this, but I bet there's more than enough content to fill a TAL-sized niche on the right.
They do talk to conservatives a lot though. Many recent episodes interviewed Trump voters and sent reporters to Republican rallies to hear those "good points" from the source...
Yeah, I didn't say they never cover them. They do it -- to their credit -- and I'd even go so far as to say that they're one of the more balanced programs on public radio.
But they're still far from actually balanced. As a frequent listener, I'd characterize their overall coverage of conservatives as "a bemused, curious foreign tourist".
No, it means "balanced". You shouldn't hide the ugly parts, but you should report on the good arguments of the opposition -- as well as the ugly parts of your own team. Both the left and the right have good arguments and bad arguments, and if you don't believe that, you're misinformed.
Partisans would much rather that they only hear about the ugly parts of the opposition, and never hear about the ugly parts of their own tribe.
Meh, what was actually missing in media was accurate representation of political right goals.
Their good points are repeated all the time and their bad ppints are sanewashed. Their really bad points are ignored and you are called names when you accursately deacribe them. Until actually get their way at which point we blame the democrats for not opposing them strongly enough or for being supposed cause of backslash.
But, media and shows are afraid to show conservatives truthfully or in truly critical way.
I think TAL is pretty good about this, particularly when it comes to showing the actual fallout from various policies being implemented. And it's not strictly partisan (one of the stories I linked to in my writeup is about sex workers who were harmed by SESTA-FOSTA, which had plenty of Democratic support) or strictly negative, but obviously a lot of... serious and controversial policies have been implemented in the past few years so those get a fair bit of airtime.
In any case I think the "going and talking to real people" storytelling method is hard to beat. Just a couple weeks ago they did some stories about the immediate impacts of USAID cuts. And their episode about the "remain in Mexico" policy for asylum-seekers won the first-ever Pulitzer prize for radio reporting!
Different program but on same network, Planet Money often covers economics from the perspective of neoliberalism or establishment in short digestible episodes.
It truly is the best radio show I've heard. I've been listening on and off for over 20 years.
If you want some good episodes (do NOT read the summary on the linked pages - some contain spoilers).
The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/352/the-ghost-of-bobby-dunb...) - about a kid in the first half of the 20th century who was abducted and then returned to his family - except to this day people debate whether the kid who was returned really was the kid who was abducted, and how his descendants have grappled with the issue.
Petty Tyrant (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/419/petty-tyrant) - how a school maintenance employee rose to power by bullying. It's not so much the facts themselves but the masterful storytelling - especially near the end.
Dr Gilmer and Mr Hyde (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/492/dr-gilmer-and-mr-hyde) - about a doctor in a small town who everyone loved. He committed a heinous crime and ended up in prison. The story involves great investigative journalism on exploring why he committed the crime, and they unearthed very relevant details that were previously unknown (even to the criminal himself).
The last two episodes above were by Sarah Koenig, who you may know as the person behind Serial.
Also Rest Stop (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/388/rest-stop), where the crew spends 2 continuous days at a rest stop on the New York State Thruway, talking to both the employees and travelers.
Amusement Park (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/443/amusement-park), where they follow a bunch of teenage labor at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, and their only slightly older boss. (Who is possibly the best boss in the history of bossing)
Serial is the best media in the world. Shit town is the best of serial. Seriously listen to it if you haven't. I once drove two hours past my destination because I didn't want to stop listening to it.
If you enjoy Serial, I highly recommend CBC's Come By Chance. It's a wonderful tale (the less you know the better) about a family mystery among small coastal villages in Newfoundland.
It's not an NPR show, although the public radio stations that carry it usually carry NPR shows as well. It was Public Radio International, then Public Radio Exchange.
Easy mistake to make. They do indeed brand their shows very prominently, making it easy to miss the distributor for those non-NPR shows that only blurb it once at the beginning and once at the end.
It only airs at certain times depending upon your local public radio station, usually on weekends so one would have to be almost a regular radio listener to catch it by accident - if you never listened to public radio at the air times on the weekends it would have been easy to miss it during its heyday. With the advent of podcasts it became more widely available but then there is a lot of competition in that media space.
I like the show but it's mostly a slice of American upper middle class who are reasonably well and educated. I don't think the writers can connect to working class people. In a sense it's the typical democrat voter
I don’t have any empirical evidence to refute you, but it connected with me as a 17 year old kid living in a mobile home in Mississippi. Almost 25 years later, and in a much different socioeconomic state, it still does.
Stories steeped in humanity aren’t biased - less confident about you to be honest.
I described myself being poor (“working class”) and not being poor any more, whatever you’re attempting to read between the lines beyond that isn’t there.
I framed my experience in contrast to the parent’s assertion, and no, I did not make any claim about universality. Be sure that not everyone loves this or any show all you want.
You’re continuing to project some sort of nonsense gotcha logic onto a straw man that doesn’t exist.
The thing that's unique about This American Life is that the star of each episode is usually someone just doing their usual job, or going through a situation.
If someone can't empathize with that, it says more about them than the show.
That's what the article goes on to describe, yes. Declining crime rates mean fewer new prisoners, but high recidivism rates plus long sentences means many old prisoners are still in prison. As those old prisoners die off or for whatever reason don't commit more crimes after release, the total population declines.
Mandatory minimum sentences can be 10, 15 or 20 years depending on the quantity of drug and other factors. Often just for possession. The US spent several decades filling our prisons with people using those sentences, and we still do, just not as aggressively.
We had a proxy for that via gasoline taxes but with EV becoming more common we need to find a replacement for that revenue.