Pa. EV owners to start paying $200 in taxes next year | Today in Pa.

Wildlife-vehicle collisions. EV tax. Cyber outage effects. Agave americana.

5 comments

Not a PA resident here, so I'm not too well-informed, but is this competitive at least with the gas tax there?
- According to this from 2021, the state gas tax was $0.57/gallon and the average PA driver drives 11,572 miles per year. So the question is- what fuel economy is the average PA driver getting?
  
  I'm struggling to find that data, but to look at it another way if my math is correct you would need to be averaging 33 MPG for gas to break even with electric.
  
  That...definitely makes it seem like EVs would be cheaper. I've yet to do the math for Texas, but EVs here just get annihilated.
  
  That's not a very lofty breakeven for EV owners coming from hybrids. I don't know how ex-hybrid owners compare to those only chasing the latest tech trends or those coming from comparable luxury cars. I doubt the people who bought it for acceleration are significant.
  
  All that to say, seems fair. The roads have to get fixed and there's a case to only charge the users. There's also a case to not make the cost of entry to a public service any higher, but that's rooted elsewhere. It will be $250 the year after and adjusted for inflation after that. So not that great, but electricity is still way cheaper than the gas itself if you can charge at home.
California started charging an annual EV fee in 2020 to help pay for road maintenance. It's $175, IIRC.