Owners of electric cars in Vermont recently received a letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles with some bad news. From January 1 they will have to pay £178 a year to register their cars, twice as much as owners of internal combustion engine vehicles.
In imposing the higher fee, Vermont became the latest state to charge people a premium to go electric. At least 39 states charge such an annual fee, including $50 in Hawaii and $200 in Texas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. It is not from nine states a few years ago.
Now, as President Trump has pushed back on the Biden administration’s efforts to promote electric vehicles, Republicans in Congress are considering imposing a national fee to bolster a fund used to finance roads and bridges. This is a fund that is in serious shape.
The fees are an attempt to reduce revenue from gasoline taxes that electric cars, for obvious reasons, don’t pay. They are an example of how governments are struggling to accommodate technological fluctuations in the auto industry.
Environmentalists and consumer groups agree that electric vehicle owners should help pay for road maintenance and construction. But he worries that Republicans, who control Congress, will set fees too high to punish electric vehicle owners, who are liberal.
That’s already happened in Texas and other states, said Chris Harto, a senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports who focuses on transportation and energy.
“EV owners should contribute to paying for the roads they use,” he said. But, he added, “in some cases, states are implementing fees that are significantly more punitive for EV drivers than what a gas vehicle owner would pay.”
Mr. Harto and others said the flat fee is also unfair to low-income drivers or those who don’t drive much, and makes it harder for them to buy cars that pollute less. Federal and state gasoline and diesel taxes are levied per gallon, so people who drive more — or gas guzzlers — automatically pay more.
The main reason for the decline in revenue from fuel taxes is that internal combustion engines have become more efficient, while political leaders are reluctant to raise fuel taxes to keep up with inflation.
Analysts say the federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents per gallon has not been raised since 1993. The Highway Trust Fund, which finances transportation projects funded by this tax, could become insolvent through 2027 without new sources of funding. A list of tax and spending policies being considered by Republicans in Congress includes imposing a fee on electric vehicles to help fill the highway trust fund.
According to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry group, there are 5.4 million electric vehicles on American roads. But this is about 22 percent of the total and not the main reason for the revenue gap.
“Lawmakers are finding an easy scapegoat, punishing cleaner vehicles on the road while ignoring the root cause of the shortage,” said Max Baumfner, director of electric vehicle infrastructure for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “
The highest electric vehicle fees are in states that typically vote Republican, such as Texas, Wyoming and Ohio, all of which charge $200 a year on top of regular registration fees.
Republican state senator Robert Nichols in Texas sponsored legislation to establish a fee in 2023, an amount determined by analyzing how much the average owner of a gasoline vehicle pays.
“This is not an anti-EV thing. We’ve got Tesla here in Texas and we’re very proud,” he said, referring to the electric car maker, which is headquartered and has a factory in Austin. “But everyone needs to pay for the road.”
Texas is among the states drawn by Consumer Reports for overcharging drivers of electric vehicles. The organization cites Texas’ relatively low gas tax of 20 cents a gallon, which is about 50 cents less than the national average.
Mr. Nichols acknowledged that lawmakers are reluctant to raise taxes on drivers of patrol cars. “Nobody wants this on their tombstone: ‘The gas tax has gone up,'” he said.
But increasingly, electric vehicle fees aren’t just a red-state trend. New Jersey, where gasoline taxes are twice as high as Texas, last year began charging electric vehicle owners a $250 fee. Washington, who receives $150is as progressive as any blue state.
In Vermont, lawmakers passed a toll law last year because they were concerned that the growing number of electric vehicles would threaten state finances, said Patrick Murphy, director of state policy for the Vermont Agency of Transportation in Vermont. is followed.
“Legislators recognized that we are nearing the tipping point where EV adoption is mainstream in Vermont,” he said.
Electric vehicles accounted for 12 percent of new car sales in Vermont last year, higher than the national average of 8 percent. Mr Murphy noted that fees collected from electric vehicle owners are earmarked for infrastructure such as chargers. At $89 a year above the standard registration fee, Vermont’s fee is also on the lower end of what other states charge.
People on both sides of the debate agree that a faster system would charge electric owners a per-mile charge. But doing so is complicated. Some states are experimenting with technology that tracks mileage and bills owners accordingly. But the systems are expensive and raise privacy issues.
Mr. Nichols, a Texas lawmaker, acknowledged that a flat fee “isn’t perfect.” “But it takes a big step forward. It is fair without creating a huge bureaucracy.
Some states, including Iowa, Georgia and Kentucky, tax electric vehicle chargers. But this system misses a lot of cars. Most people charge at home, only occasionally using public chargers.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, states that do not charge high fees to electric cars include Alaska, Arizona, New York and Massachusetts.
In 2026, Vermont plans to become one of the first states to try charging electric vehicle owners based on how much they drive.
That would be relatively easy in Vermont, Mr. Murphy said, because officials already collect odometer readings when owners bring their cars in for annual safety checks. In many states this is not the case.
Even a system that tracks mileage has flaws. It taxes owners for visits to other states, and does not collect revenue from out-of-state visitors.
“The whole approach we have is to keep things as simple as possible initially, to get to a point where all vehicles are paying something for our infrastructure,” Mr Murphy said. This is a better system. “
