“A tax for the future, not for now”: Voters rally against EV tax

An online rally of nearly 200 voters was held today to discuss the finer points of why Australian states such as Victoria, South Australia and NSW should not introduce a proposed  EV tax.

News broke in late 2020 that several states would consider introducing a road user tax for electric vehicles, a move that was quickly condemned as premature in a country where less than 1% of cars are run purely by electricity.

However, Victoria has already gone so far as to propose a pricing mechanism for an EV tax despite being warned an EV tax would impact uptake. It will charge electric car owners 2.5 cents per kilometre and plug-in hybrid owners 2 cents per kilometre driven.

At the online event today organised by SolarCitizens, an advocacy group that supporte renewables and EVs, attendees were encouraged to contact their local members to express their opposition to such a tax.

“We want to see clean transport in this country, transport that won’t drive climate change and pollute our cities,” said Ellen Roberts, national director for Solar Citizens.

“Victoria is usually so progressive,” said Electric Vehicle Council CEO Behyad Jafari, noting that transport is the second-highest source of carbon emissions based on Victoria 2018 data.

“The really bad news is that emissions are actually going up …. we should not be talking about how to make [EVs] more expensive.”

Jafari also said that the argument other jurisdictions might be considering road user taxes (such as in the US) ignored the fact those regions were already far ahead in terms of EV adoption.

Additionally, they were also counteracting the extra cost of road user charges with incentives to buy EVs: such as in California, where federal and state incentives amount to an equivalent of around $A15,000.

Nissan Leaf owner John Pye described how the introduction of a tax would have second-guessed his decision to buy the secondhand Leaf, which cost them just $18,000.

“We live in the country, and bought our second hand Leaf with 120km range,” he said. “That challenges a lot of ideas about what electric cars should actually be …. but most of our driving is within 50km radius of our town store.”

“Road user charges is the wrong policy, we should be encouraging the [adoption of EVs],” he said.

Pye closed by calling his local member’s office during the event to say that an EV tax is “a tax for the future, not for now.”