Proposed EV Annual Fee of $250

As a signal of how skeptical the current Congress is of EVs, there’s now momentum around charging all EVs $250 per year. The funds would go to the Highway Trust Fund, which is facing a $150B a year shortfall over the next five years.

We suggest you read the analysis of this proposal by our friends at Inside EVs. They concede, as we do, that charging EVs to pay for the highways they use makes sense. But, not at this level, which is disproportionally high.

Why? The current federal gas tax (which pays into the Trust) is ~.18 per gallon. The average car uses ~550 of gallons a year, meaning the average ICE car owner contributes ~$100 a year to the Federal Highway Trust Fund.

So, this proposal would ask EV drivers to pay 2.5x what the average ICE driver contributes to the Fund, annually.

Again, creating policy to get EVs to contribute to the Highway Trust makes all the sense in the world. Taxing them at a 2.5x rate of ICE vehicles does not. This isn’t straightforward policy making, this is the politicization of EVs in legislative form.