But in Australia, just as you link today’s news:
“Australia’s luxury car tax threshold quietly lifted for electric vehicles” [see here]
...So, a Tesla Model 3 performance version ($97,425) will incur a luxury tax of about $6,560, in addition to GST (about $9,000) and stamp duty (about $4,500 depending on the state).
That’s nearly $20,000 in taxes in a car that costs, after on roads, about $107,000, at a time when most other countries are offering discounts and other incentives for zero emissions vehicles.
No wonder Tesla CEO Elon Musk thought that Tesla cars were expensive in Australia.
The NSW government and Infrastructure Partnerships Australia starts to push the idea EV drivers should be CHARGED for using the roads!
... “Charging Tesla owners to use the roads would lift state government revenues and remedy a “deeply unfair” bias towards electric vehicles, says one of the nation’s top infrastructure advisers.
Adrian Dwyer, chief executive of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, backing recommendations of the NSW government’s blueprint for federation reform, said state governments could generate $4.7bn a year in extra tax by 2030 if they imposed a road-user charge on EV owners.....”
What would Elon think of this idea?
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/na...e/news-story/42359e970afcb369629414590ececda0
Push to charge EV drivers for road use
Perth electric car owner Chris Jones says all road users should be treated equally, instead of electric vehicle owners being ‘scapegoated’. Picture: Tony McDonough
Charging Tesla owners to use the roads would lift state government revenues and remedy a “deeply unfair” bias towards electric vehicles, says one of the nation’s top infrastructure advisers.
- ADAM CREIGHTON
ECONOMICS EDITOR
- 47 MINUTES AGO JULY 1, 2020
Adrian Dwyer, chief executive of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, backing recommendations of the NSW government’s blueprint for federation reform, said state governments could generate $4.7bn a year in extra tax by 2030 if they imposed a road-user charge on EV owners.
“Our proposal is the state government would do odometer readings each year; it’s easy to administer and incredibly simple,” he said. “If you have people driving $150,000 Teslas and not paying for the roads while someone in a $20,000 Corolla is, there’s clearly a fairness issue.”
The NSW government report, launched by Treasurer Dominic Perrottet in Canberra on Wednesday, suggested electric vehicle owners had a “free ride” on public roads because they avoided petrol excise, which is almost 40 cents for every litre, generating about $13bn a year in revenue.
Fuel excise had been increasing but not enough to keep pace with the kilometres travelled by vehicles, the report noted.
“Drivers of older or larger vehicles with higher fuel consumption pay more per kilometre to use the same stretch of road as drivers of newer, smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles,” said the report, overseen by former Telstra chief David Thodey.
“Unlike utilities such as water and energy, fuel excise treats everyone the same, with no concessional discounts.”
Mr Dwyer said now was the best time to impose a road-user charge on electric vehicles because relatively few people drove them, pointing to modelling that suggested the share of new vehicles that would be electric would rise from 1.5 per cent his year to 50 per cent by 2036.
“The uptake of electric and other low-emission vehicles is expected to rise rapidly as their costs relative to petrol and diesel engine vehicles falls,” the report said.
The draft report also called for “putting a price on the use of roads”. “The price needs to capture all the economic and social costs associated with road use including distanced, load, congestion, accidents and pollution.”
The report said congestion cost the economy $19bn in 2016, rising to almost $40bn by 2031. The coronavirus pandemic has prompted fears of “carmageddon”; users of public transport switching to cars to commute to work to avoid infection. “In 20 years there’ll be minimal fuel excise because few new vehicles will use petrol but, even if we’re wrong about the forecasts, it’s still a good reform,” Mr Dwyer said.
Australian Electric Vehicle Association secretary and electric car owner Chris Jones said most EV drivers did not take issue with road-user charges as long as it applies to all vehicles equally. “The issue we have is when they don’t apply that to internal combustion engine vehicles,” Mr Jones said.
“Yes, they have been paying for fuel excise, but they also do a lot of damage to the road.”
Mr Jones said it seemed “bizarre” to single out EV owners and use them as “scapegoats” for an economic restructure to boost revenue from a falling fuel excise budget, which, he said, had been plummeting for years.
...somehow I don’t think there is any time in the near future where Australian EV sales will be supporting Altura !
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