Suppose that a system was introduced that used some sort of electronic handshake between the car and the charger (as a means of collecting revenue). There's a snag I think. Suppose you go to visit your old aunt who lives 150 miles away. You're going to stay for 24 hours and during that time you will need to charge the car. She has a convenient 13A socket in the porch, right next to her drive, so you plan to connect to that. But when you plug in the car flashes up a message: Unable to handshake: no charging available.
I think that electric cars will have to have the ability to charge from any power supply, otherwise their functionality will be greatly reduced. Would the government ignore this factor and go ahead anyway?
It would be relatively simple, I'd have thought to have the vehicle communicate to an account so you pay wherever its plugged in via a cellular system like smart meters use.The snag would be when you are out of range of any network, it would need to have the smarts to store the info and push it to a network when in range, or more likely it will be charged for on mileage using GPs instead, that way the cost of charging is not the problem, it would also reduce mileage and hence fewer people would be on the road. I actually see the love affair with Electric cars days being numbered, since other fuels like Hydrogen are coming up. Brian
Are you worried that your "poor" government won't be able to find a way to tax you ? :-) Kinky.
I can give an example of a regressive tax here.
A part of the country, provides zero incentives for BEV. The electrical system there is "coal powered". That means the electricity opportunities in that section of land are poor, and there's "no nuke". Clean power can be imported with no problem -- if someone pays for the linkage. But power generated locally, is from coal.
OK, so some of the citizens have the temerity there, to buy BEVs. Shocker. The government, being perpetually short of funds "cannot afford to lose any fuel tax".
So what do they do ?
Flat fee.
BEV. Ok, when you get your plate renewal, there's an extra fee, if it's not paid, no license sticker for you.
They just average out the fuel tax loss, and every one pays the same fee, whether driving one mile in their BEV or 100K miles. Easy to administer. No fretting and fuming over "fairness" because it's "not fair".
And that's an example of a perfectly workable BEV tax. Costs nothing to administer, because it's just an extra line on a computer screen when paying to renew the plate sticker for road license. The government didn't have to hire extra civil servants.
See how easy tax design is ? Piece of cake.
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What is the leverage point on BEVs ?
It's the car firmware.
Virtually all the cars will support OTA firmware updates.
OK, let's invent a 13A charger I'll call a "Type 2" charger. It's a Type 1 charger that has an Ethernet socket on the side.
Next, the government changes the highway law, such that "BEVs must insist on Type 2 charging from home, or they may not be driven on the road". This causes the car manufacturer to send an OTA update adding "Type 2 only" behavior.
You take the car home. You plug in the 13A cord. Status: "Not charging, no network cable". You plug in the Ethernet cable. Status: "Valid Type 2 network connection established with Gov.HQ, charging".
As long as roads have regulations, and BEVs have OTA update, you have a tech marriage made in heaven. You can post-annotate the desired behavior. The *car* can insist on charging only from government approved devices.
The reason for the "Type 2" charger, is so the electrical company can send out a packet "Stop Charging" to alleviate electrical network load. Such as when the wind aint blowin. When the Type 2 charger is connected to the network, it asks "Is it OK for me to charge?". The server from the power grid will give a thumbs up or thumbs down.
The car will also not charge, if measurements show the power source is not stable. Which is why a Honda generator won't work. With an insistence on my hypothetical "Type 2 charger", that completes the picture.
With the network connection, the necessary billing information can be extracted. And, the behavior can have any level of refinement, for "emergencies". The car firmware is perfectly capable of recording unlogged charge events. The car could insist, for example, that every third charge be done with an "approved" charger. Then all three charging sessions could be uploaded at once.
On a Rivian truck, some of the kWh of lekky, could be used to run power tools on the job site. You would not want a "road tax" to bill for kWh exactly. An odometer reading at each charge session, would be "more fair".
Summary: Computers are involved. You have no privacy. Enjoy! If it wasn't for the OTA update feature, there'd be no leverage.
The Ethernet cable in the above, was only used for its didactic properties - your tech may vary. I can't say "4G", as that would be a distraction. Using satellite service, you can get packets virtually anywhere. Even at your cabin in the woods.
Also, what about any off-grid charging? There are many private wind turbines around, and some water flow generators, and solar.
Be ludicrous to charge a full tax rate on a BEV charging from such a renewable source. And to prevent charging when at least some of these off-grid options will themselves be off-net.
I don't see it as ludicrous: most charging from the grid is supposed to be from renewable sources i.d.c.; and the rationale for the tax on electricity for EVs wd be that it is a proxy for the external costs of driving so how it is generated is irrelevant. OTOH I do agree you have raised another problem in selling to the public such a tax. Off-grid greenies would hiss loudly.
If it were that much cheaper than grid electricity ebveryone would be doing it. Besides, electricity is infinitely convertible. Very hard to avoid punters using leccy to run rotary converters, that then run the car.
No, leccy cars will be taxed per mile. Probably using built in satbavs that cant be tampered with
A second reason, would be so if you press the "OnStar" button, the operator on the other end of the communication, knows exactly where you are.
For example, you attempt to ford a river, car conks out, you press the OnStar button and report "I'm drowning, but I don't know exactly where I am". The GPS rats you out.
Cars with the extensive computing facilities of the modern ones, can record GPS waypoints, speeds (whether you've been speeding), and the large flash memory keeps the info for posterity. Great for accident reconstruction. Or court cases.
The odometer is a primary source of information. The GPS log would be a secondary sanity check. And computers being what they are, you could easily just dump the whole log, GPS and all.
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The great part about computerized cars, is they can be exploited too. There's already been one article about hackers remotely controlling the steering on a moving car. It was done as a demo of the possibilities.
Considering the amount we know, about the downsides of computerized devices, I would be hesitant at this point to put a computerized device in a "life critical" situation. The notion of cars without steering wheels or pedals, now, that's scary. Just from a "computer failure or insanity" perspective.
Fuel tax plus VAT (20% value added tax) plus road fund tax is 1000+ GBP (1.400 US Dollar) per annum for an average domestic mileage. There is also a minimum of 12% tax on car insurance.
MOTs are not required for the first 3 years of a new car's life.
It doesn't make any difference how the EV is charged. We all know that most of the taxes motorists pay have nothing to do with roads or cars or alternative road transport. It is just a large source of tax revenue that will have to come from somewhere else when people are no longer using petrol/diesel to power their cars. My bet is that the equivalent tax income will be obtained from the motorist in a different way.
Current on facebook is someone selling plans (@ 40 dollars) for a snake oil perpetual motion generator that has allowed him to stay off grid with free electricity for 3 years. The cost of the parts to build this generator only are 110 dollars!
Tens of thousands of people have purchased the plans so it must work!
Or use the ANPR network - that way there is less argument about who "owns" the data collected...
(ignoring the fact that most people have willingly submitted exquisitely detailed information about their movements to Google or Apple and their mobile operator for years!)
I think that's a long way off as a compulsory scheme. Too expensive to retrofit to all the existing cars. And too easy to scare people about invasion of privacy. Much better to start simple - e.g. self-reporting (with checks at MoT time) for total mileage plus some ANPR charges for congested zones/roads. Offer GPS only as a totally optional way to pay-as-you-go. Then ramp up the security as people complain about the unfairness of all the avoidance*. And perhaps offer off-peak discounts for users with GPS and time-of-travel data.
*e.g. cloning looks set to increase further if ANPR is used. And then there's all the white vans registered in Eastern Europe.
It will be done by road pricing. For many reasons.
- It can be applied to all vehicles, so ICE drivers (people who can't afford a new milk float) get double-taxed as punishment.
- It can be ramped up and down to punish congestion (people daring to go to work).
- It's a good excuse to track where everyone is going.
- It will allow the usual suspects to trouser the profits from building and running the infrastructure for it.
- It can be set to an arbitrary level, unrelated to cost incurred (distance travelled / road quality), so it can be used to raise income for tin-pot councils (or the government) who find themselves a bit short.
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