Clean Tech News & Views: EVs, Solar Energy, Batteries
Electric vehicles made headlines again this week with the Australian High Court decision to rescind an EV road user tax based on kilometres travelled, introduced by the Victorian state government in July 2021. Don’t celebrate too quickly, the decision is likely to be challenged by a consortium of Australian states and territories that have signalled that they intend to bring in a road user tax at some point in the future — either based on a date or on penetration rates of EVs.
We even had a discussion at our monthly Coffee, Cake and EVs morning. Many were against any RUT, some were willing to concede it was necessary, and others didn’t really care.describes Australia’s taxation system as having “vertical fiscal imbalance,” where most of the taxation revenue is raised by the federal government but then granted to the states for their expenditure.
My initial reaction to the EV road user tax was that at 2.5 cents per km , it was actually a reasonable price to pay. It still meant that the EV driver was paying much less to drive their car than those stuck on fossil fuels. Australians pay a lot of tax – it is estimated that over 30% of the cost of petrol and diesel is tax. I drive about 30,000 km per year, which would consume 3000 L of petrol if I was still driving my old Sonata V6. The money spent on petrol would be AU$6,000.
Although it appears that sales of EVs in Victoria continued to increase after the introduction of the RUT, there were a few standout consequences. Some on Facebook declared that they would not drive their EVs as a protest against the tax . Others declined to submit their odometer readings to the government and had their car registrations cancelled — 240 vehicles, I hear. Will those who paid the tax get their money back? Highly unlikely.
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