The EV only road tax is a political wedge aimed not at raising a fair amount of road tax from all road users, but rather to pit ICE and EV drivers against each other... a very successful strategy, based on your posts here.
Although the EV only road tax issue has already been discussed at length on this thread, it is always worthwhile to illuminate the topic once again for the less well informed and the ignorant.
So, just to highlight some pertinent issues:
For decades, ICE manufacturers were encouraged to develop more and more efficient engines that use less and less petrol. It was seen as a benefit to society, to have less rather than more air pollution, even though this meant reducing the "road tax" income from the fuel excise. Now that EVs come along, suddenly reduced pollution benefits are completely ignored, but a seperate tax is slugged on EV vehicles only. Why not remove the fuels excise and apply a road tax to ICE and EV alike to make the system fair and transparent?
Why do overseas governments "subsidise" EVs? Indeed, I argue they are doing no such thing. The fact of the matter is that ICE cars are heavily subsidised by not having to pay for the burden on the health system that their toxic emissions generate. Just like tobacco before them, ICE car manufacturers and petrol companies take our society for a free ride. This Canadian study estimates that the benefit to society per EV that replaces an ICE car is of the order of AU$10,000:
The above study only considers the lives lost due to ICE air pollution, while the following study goes a bit further, by also looking at savings from national security and using EVs as a grid resource. It shows savings to society of up to US$16.403 per EV or ~AU$21,000:
So, in that context, any so-called EV "subsidy" below ~$10,000 is merely an incentive of governments that understand that the societal benefits by far outweigh the so-called "subsidy".
According to this Australian Government website, ICE pollution is responsible for about 3,000 premature weather per annum, costing about $11-24 billion per annum.
