In many states EVs are charged extra registration fees, so no cash flow is not correct. I pay utility tax on my electric bill. There is not a reason (other than politics I suppose) some of utility tax could be allocated to road maintenance.
I wouldn’t mind a comprehensive rebalancing of road maintenance revenue. Weight per axle is probably the main driver of road damage, so a combination of weight and miles would seem to be a fair basis. Road maintenance is probably easier to quantify than fuel source externalities we aren’t currently valuing.
An EV weighs more than a comparable ICE car, but (Tesla Model S/X) about the same as a full size ICE F150, which is one of the best selling vehicles of the last 4+ decades. EVs aren’t breaking roads any more than our super-sized trucks and SUVs.
Random anecdote - I knew someone who lived in a neighborhood of an unincorporated area that as a result did not have access to city contracted trash services. The result was each person picked their own trash service from one of the providers in the area. The streets were always a disaster given they had trash trucks from all the services/recycling/yard waste pickup tearing them up constantly.
Nice, but a camper with 250mile range has the same problem as an electric pickup. When I need it, 250 miles isn’t anywhere near long enough and there’s no charging stations where I’m going.
I’m hoping in a few years I can get a hybrid. That’d be perfect, electric for daily use, ice for long trips and heavy loads.
So that fixes half the problem. I drive about 750k, say 500 miles and now I’m in the deep northern bush in Canada.
Step 2, how to get home. There’s not even cell phone signal where I am, nevermind a charging station. Also no outhouses, but I always bring a shovel.
But I’m being pedantic. That last mile stuff I need isn’t of any use to 99.99% of drivers. If it was, they’d all be going up north where I am. Then it’d be crowded and I wouldn’t go there anymore.
Yeah, your adventure use case will take a while to build efficiently.
In terms of charging in the bush, you could drag some solar panels with you, but that would take days to fill for a reasonable number of panels.
The other benefit of a hybrid is that i could drive up on the ice then use the battery to power stuff. Like the kitchen tent has lighting, the two old guys need power for their propane heating, and half the camp is on sleep apnea machines (and the other half should be, ive had times when snoring from the other side of camp has kept me awake.)
I drove a Camry hybrid around northern Utah this week. Meh
It struggled whenever it “shifted” (if that’s the right term) from electric to gas and back, messed up the cruise control, acted like it was stalling.
According to Cars.com’s 2023 American-Made Index, the four most American-made vehicles are Teslas, followed by 3 Hondas, 2 Acuras, and 1 VW to round out the top 10.
