$aving the World

[JoeS]

I posted the following on the local EAA mail list and thought I'd share:

Ok, so the next time you're in a heated discussion with the dark side regarding why electric vehicles should/not be specially taxed, put these two numbers on the table:

1. According to the EPA, a typical ICE passenger vehicle emits about 4.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.
Ref: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle-0

The social costs of carbon pollution are constantly being debated. Here is one overview:
http://costofcarbon.org/faq

2. I choose to use the Stanford study which estimates the social cost of carbon as being $220 per metric ton.
Ref: http://news.stanford.edu/2015/01/12/emissions-social-costs-011215/

Multiplyng the two, 4.7mt/y * $220/mt = $1034/year savings to society by NOT driving an ICE vehicle.

Just sayin'...

As an aside, I DO believe in vehicles being assessed road taxes, but that assessment should be applicable to all vehicles and should be simply based on weight and miles driven, as vehicle weight is the largest factor contributing to road deterioration.

...and a Merry Christmas to all BEV owners (PHEVs are on my black list as I almost couldn't charge my i-MiEV in Santa Cruz this week because they were not only hogging all the spots but had finished charging! - I unplugged a Ford C-Max Energi and used a J1772 extension)

</rant>

 

[PV1]

Here's a comment I posted somewhere a while ago (I think it was treehugger.com):

OK. There are 253 million vehicles on the road in the US. 390,000 of them are plug-in vehicles. Plug-in share is .15%, way less than 1%.

The US charges a tax of 18.4 cents/gallon on gas and 24.4 cents/gallon on diesel. The average state/local tax adds 30 cents/gallon to both. For a gasoline car averaging 30 MPG driving 12,000 miles a year, $193.6 is spent towards fuel taxes each year. Spread across the entire ICE fleet, this is a yearly revenue of $48,980,800,000. Tacking $200/year on all plug-in vehicles would bring in $78,000,000, which is .16% of the ICE fuel taxes.

880 million barrels of foreign oil were consumed in 2014, costing $95 billion.

Plug-in road tax ($78 mil.) or foreign oil spending ($95 Bil.), which has a bigger impact to the government's bank accounts?
(data extracted and calculated from information on Wikipedia, IEA, and others)

Admittedly, the conversation was on whether or not EVs should be assessed a road tax (an arbitrary $200/year tax). I was defending EVs on the stance that eventually, yes, they should be assessed a road tax based on mileage/weight/mix of both, but not yet. I was suggesting that EVs could be a net savings to the US if they eliminated foreign oil spending and those funds be re-directed towards infrastructure.

 

[pbui19]

The article abstract only mentioned economical impact, namely GDP. The cost may be even higher if one considers geopolitical unrest and the cost of the war. How does one put a price on life ?