Follow along as Mark Faulkenberry shares his firsthand experience with an all-electric truck-this month, he considers road use taxes
I never really thought much about road use tax until a few years back. I was asked to help shape legislation proposed to tax electric vehicles their fair share for using public roads.
The Oklahoma Department of Transportation had research-based concerns that, over time, EV adoption would create a shortfall in the revenue needed to maintain roads and bridges.
The New Mexico Department of Transportation has the same concern. ODOT also wanted EV owners traveling across the state to contribute for their use of our byways.
Now don't get me wrong. EVs need to pay their fair share, but frankly, some of the early legislation proposed in Oklahoma was biased and simply not fair. Eventually, legislation was penned that made sense, and it was put into law in Oklahoma. New
Mexico is still working on its solution. Did you know that in Oklahoma you pay road use tax of $0.19 per gallon for gasoline, and in New Mexico it is $0.17 per gallon? Probably not, as it's tucked away in the price you pay at the pump.
EVs don't use gasoline, so the goal is to find a mechanism to collect a fair and equitable sum. The Oklahoma solution was a tax paid upfront annually when you tag your EV based on vehicle weight, plus a $0.03 per kilowatt-hour tax collected when using public charging.
As for my EV, nicknamed Bolt, we paid an $158 fee when we bought his tag and $0.03/kWh when using public charging. Perfect? No, but it's a solution until the entire road use tax methodology is overhauled.