Our added EV fee for Virginia car registration is/was an eye opener. Way more than the folks with ICE cars would pay in fuel taxes annually. Don't know how they came up with the amounts to add onto the annual vehicle registration (probably just tossing dollar amounts into the air and seeing which ones floated the most funds from the rich bastards that dared to drive electric). I was shocked the first time I saw the cost of my annual registration when the state enacted that flat rate road use fee. The fee was much lower the following year, probably from the legislature being chastised on the fleecing of your average EV driver that couldn't write the additional fee off as a business expense.
Then the legislation last year decided that to make it "more fair and equitable" for those driving lesser distances in their EVs and/or fuel efficient cars. They would implement a program for fees based upon mileage driven. Starting with a very low registration fee, the state would collect a monthly fee straight from the car owner's account in the program (funded by the owner's bank account) for miles driven up until those monthly costs equaled the regular EV "added fee" usually paid at registration They gave a contract to a third party to supply a transponder which would be attached to the vehicle's diagnostic port.
Sounds good, right? Less miles = less fee? Thats what was promoted in lots of "feel good" literature for this program. All well and good ... until one signed up, created the required account, funded it from one's bank account agreeing that the program will automatically do withdrawls from the bank account to pay the fees for mileage used, and agreed to have the transponder attached to the car at all times to read the car's mileage. And then, only then, did the contract's fine print make an appearance. And what a doozy that was! According to the contract for a car owner to be in this program, all sorts of information was going to be collected by the transponder - the scope of which Big Brother would have been proud. I have a Prius that gets driven only rarely (it spends more time sitting in the garage while we use the EV daily) so I thought this "pay for only the miles driven" was a good idea, and signed up. Once I was in the system was when I received that contract which detailed (for the first time) exactly what the program collected beyond just daily miles. I read it with growing alarm at the invasive data collection, and by the time I'd finished reading the contract I walked into the garage, pulled that transponder off the car, and contacted the state's motor vehicle department I was withdrawing from the program effective immediately. They took their good old time sending me the postage label for returning the transponder while they tried their best to encourage me to stay in the program. Nothing doing. I'd rather pay 3x the flat fee than have all my movements and whereabouts minute by minute GPS tracked and recorded in a third party database somewhere. It wasn't just the miles they collected. Oh, no. It was a complete GPS tracked dossier of where I went, the times involved from start to finish, exact places and locations, the speeds of my vehicle, routes taken, etc. From the second the car was on until it was turned off, and then kept recording while my car sat unused.
In short, I was hoodwinked to sign up with the promise the program would only record miles driven. That was a lie.
Several months later I'm still waiting for an updated registration bill to pay the flat fee for the Prius, but have yet to see anything. They still have my bank account for the program online, even though my initial fee was credited back to me. Not happy with that, but at least it shows as having a zero balance.
Unfortunately, I do think this type of program was designed as a testing ground for implementing it as a regular thing in the future when there are more EVs on the road. I would hope, however, they will rein in the excessive, invasive amount of data collected to just the mileage alone. Until then I'll pay that egregious flat rate fee in order to keep Big Brother out of my life regarding my driving and miles on the road.
Sorry for the rant. The sneak attack after the initial sign-up still rankles me.
On a bright note my solar is doing a terrific job supplying all the power needed for charging my EV daily, and the annual cash benefit for the next 15 years from selling my solar energy credits on the open market (Virginia is one of a handful of states that is part of the new SREC program) more than pays for the road use fee on both my EV and the hybrid.
