The lobbyists behind the bizarre new electric vehicle taxes in South Australia and Victoria claim that new road user charges are a “tax on millionaires” who drive Tesla’s and the like. But they’ve forgotten about all the rich people driving expensive new hybrid cars that are dodging road user chargers.
The new 2.5c a kilometre road user charge to be implemented by the Victoria Labor government means that this second hand  Nissan Leaf – now selling well below $20,000 in the growing used car import market – will attract a charge of around $2.50 for every 100 kilometres travelled.
That’s more than what the owner of this $80,000 Lexus hybrid will pay in levies – it will attract a fee of just $2.15 for every 100 kilometres travelled (five litres per 100kms fuel economy, at 42.3 cents a litre of fuel excise).
That’s not a tax on millionaires. That’s a tax on average folk just trying to do the right thing.
And what will the impact on the market be? The federal government’s own modellers make it clear – a 5% increase in the overall costs of an EV, which this new Victoria tax represents, will result in a 2.5 per cent reduction in sales, in a market that is already struggling with high prices and the lowest sales in the developed world.
Why do governments in Australia bow so cravenly to the bullying of powerful lobby groups trying to protect the status quo? This issue could have been so easy to resolve.
It’s outrageous. And you can tell them so here in this stop the clean air tax campaign.
See also: “Shameful”: Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
And:Â “Let’s not kill EVs”: Main car lobby slams Victoria’s electric vehicle tax
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.