Australia ranks behind nations such as Slovakia and Poland when it comes to vehicle emissions. (Dave Hunt/AAP PHOTOS)
The August EV sales numbers are in. This single data point shows us that the threat of an EV Road User Charge has clearly not dented the appetite for EVs. We can sleep easy and not worry about how the need for a quick fix to the budget has dissuaded people from buying an EV.
EV owners can happily carry the can for a decline in excise revenue. A decline caused, not by the rise in EV ownership, but by perfidious foreigners in the EU and the US imposing efficiency standards; denying Australians the right to naturally aspirated gas guzzlers like the great God Henry Ford intended. The brave new world was foisted upon us.
Road user charging is something I studied at Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Engineering and Public Policy. A comprehensive road user charge proposal was a case I was given to anlayse.
Conducting the analysis in Pittsburgh, a city with visibly crumbling infrastructure. A city where, some years after I left, a major road bridge collapsed, injuring 10 people, with the collapse atributed to a lack of maintenance.
Sitting there and looking at the budget shorfall in road funding, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that a road user charge is the perfect quick fix for decrepit infrastructure. Getting people to pay directly for something the use seemed logical to me, as I’m sure it does to Jim Chalmers.
A well constructed road user charge is may be great policy, but it is also terrible politics. Exposing people to the real costs of something they have had to think about will always challenging.
We take roads for granted, never really thinking about how we all pay for them. Perhaps Jim Chalmers should be applauded for his bravery in putting an unpalatable policy back on the table, but what is on the table is not a well thought out, comprehensive road user charge.
Australia must consider the transition to a low-carbon economy holistically, not as a series of isolated problems. This transition is an opportunity to achieve better and fairer outcomes for all Australians.
Owning a car is a costly necessity for most people. Expanding the road system to meet the needs of a growing population of multi-EV households will cost us billions and create congested, ugly and polluted cities. The transition is an opportunity to give people the choice to liberate themselves from the costly burden of car ownership.
A road user charge is a useful tool to shape how Australians live their lives and fairly allocate the costs of providing infrastructure.
But it must fit with a clearly articulated vision for what we want Australia to look like. True bravery lies in creating that vision, selling it to Australians. Do this, then deciding whether a road user charge should form part of how we pay for it will be easy.
Ed Lynch-Bell is Principal at Second Mouse, dedicated to building more sustainable energy tech and mobility products, services and businesses. Ed is also a co-host of the Melbourne and Sydney EV Meet-ups, bringing the e-mobility industry together.
Tanya Shukla and Tim Eden from The Driven put Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised to…
Volkswagen announces arrival of new electric Transporter van in Australia, tapping into market for last…
Fortescue brings in Chinese supplier to help deliver the up to 400 giant 240-tonne electric…
Xpeng announces cuts to deposit amount with $99 deposit now offered to new customers to…
Tesla has raised the bar by a huge margin for driver assistance systems. But impressive…
A Korean car maker has gained approval for an electric ute in Australia, making an…
View Comments
Good tax policy is always bad politics. And it only ever happens when one party has a huge majority. Last major tax reform was the GST, and that's not going to be repealed any time soon. At least the GST is a meaningful proportion of total revenue. Road-related revenue is tenth of that...
But if the road user charge is done right; that is, universal, mass x distance, and retains a disincentive to buy pollution-powered vehicle, it can be a set-and-forget measure which lets us crack on with creating the better world we want to live in.
And then we can ask ourselves if spending $39 billion per year on roads is good value for money anyway.
Remove and replace taxes, don't add more.
39 billion? That is about $2700 per worker! So much spent going places. Enjoy local.
My local is 25 kilometres one way, we are not all city folk
I hear you bro! Asking people to pay more up front for a better society and more pleasant life later is akin to asking toddlers to share their lollies with the class. Best idea might be to jump the GST up.
If there is a mass x distance charge it should not disadvantage Rural/Remote users. So it should be mass x distance - postcode.
Then take away the 51 cent fuel tax that helps pay for hospitals and schools
The objection I have to the mass x distance approach to a road user charge is that damage is not proportional to mass, but to the fourth power, meaning that heavier semi-trailers vehicles cause much more damage. It should not be an unreasonable principle that any charge is proportional to the damage they are likely to cause. Some would argue that this would mean the price of goods transported by roads will go up; that could be considered a good thing as it would encourage more sustainable methods of transport, e.g., rail. Remember too, because of the goods carried by road, we all benefit from the road network, not just people with cars.
The thing that most annoys/ frustrates me about the 'road user charge for EV' debate is the false claims, from not only most of the mainstream media, but even the Treasurer, that fuel excise is used for road maintenance. By all means let's have the debate, but base it on the facts, not someone's convenient lie.
I can see how it's going to go. After the EV-Tax RUC is introduced, the burden of road upkeep will end up fall solely on EVs, while the fuel excise will be redirected towards other budget shortfalls. And if they need more money for road maintenance - up goes the EV tax to pay for it.
This is why it needs to be a universal RUC. So that all drivers pay the same for road maintenance, and not only on a minority of drivers who drive EVs.
Fuel tax already helps pay for hospitals and schools.
The old guard are turning themselves inside out trying to suggest that the BEV pollutes also...... what pollution penalty does the tailpipe attract ?. None.
The Federal budget would benefit from the elimination of tailpipe emissions in our big cities...less demand for hospital beds staffing etc .... whilst also encouraging EV adoption. All it would take is a Federal Government with a very substantial numerical advantage to offset the weakness of heart. It's called a bold initiative.....and our biggest trading partner (China) is already destroying the unaffordable argument.
51 cents per litre in fuel tax.
That's the roads levy tax into general revenue.
Call it a pollution levy instead.....then nobody is taxed for roads useage. The feds fund hospitals also .....less city air pollution definitely reduces bed demand. We don't get taxed for taking a hospital bed for lung/heart conditions made worse by these NOx CO gasses. BEVs should be incentivised.
EV Owners must also contribute to transport infrastructure as do others.
We just completed 5,000 klms from Brisbane to Port Douglas and then down Mareeba Charters Towers across to mission beach Bargara Sunshine Coast and Home. Until Bargara we did not see a charger or EV on the 110 to 130 kph long Straight roads.
Spent 3 days at Bargara and watched the 2 x chargers at Bargara hotel unused.
That's why EV user charges must happen.
Most fast chargers are not at service stations so how would you see them? They appear on the cars navigation system and of course on websites/apps like plugshare. You will be surprised how many there are.
Time to pay
A road user charge, if approved, should apply equally to all vehicles, regardless of fuel or motor type but accounting for vehicle size and mass. Also the existing fuel excise should be retained as an environmental/ health levy to discourage the use of fossil fuels. Motor vehicle exhaust pollution causes thousands of premature deaths every year and greatly increases health care costs as well as significant environmental damage. ICE vehicles have been paying far too little for far too long for the damage they cause, 51c/litre just isn't enough. To suggest that the fuel excise should be scrapped if a RUC is introduced is ludicrous.
As fossil fuel vehicles are phased out, hopefully sooner rather than later, health and environmental costs will reduce but a RUC would still provide government revenue to contribute to road maintenance.