Electric Cars Under Attack

Should we tax owners of electric cars?

I have family and friends who drive hybrids but no one in my circle has yet purchased an all-electric type vehicle.   In the infancy of electric cars, most of us are waiting for them to get all the bugs worked out before we make the leap.

Why use an electric car?  Fuel efficiency, less air pollution, less dependency on foreign oil, I’m sure there are many other reasons.  So many that the government is promoting their purchase by giving you a tax break to make the purchase.

But some are crying foul.  Electric cars, because they don’t purchase as much (or any) gasoline, are not contributing to the road repair funding that comes from taxes on that gasoline.  Yet they are driving on those roads and contributing to their wear and tear.  The knee jerk reaction is to make a surcharge or tax in some way on electric cars, to have them pay their fair share of road repairs.

But.  What is our long term goal, here?  If the goal is to fund the road repairs, why isn’t the trucking industry paying its fair share for the (far worse) damage they make?  (Duh, they’re BUSINESS, and big business owns us.) 

If the goal is to reduce pollution and dependency on foreign oil, why penalize electric car owners for not buying that foreign gasoline?  And these vehicles are lighter so they create less damage anyway…

I sense, it’s a conservative penalty against the green liberals, for daring to want change.  For daring to take away some profit from oil companies.  For daring to support environmentally safer transportation.  If they create enough roadblocks, the desire to own those cars will fade away and we’ll be back to the status quo.  It was good enough for grandpa, and he liked it!