Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

Electric cars?

Would you buy an electric car?

  • Already own one

    Votes: 10 5.1%

  • Yes - would definitely buy

    Votes: 43 21.9%

  • Yes - preferred over petrol car if price/power/convenience similar

    Votes: 78 39.8%

  • Maybe - preference for neither, only concerned with costs etc

    Votes: 37 18.9%

  • No - prefer petrol car even if electric car has same price, power and convenience

    Votes: 24 12.2%

  • No - would never buy one

    Votes: 14 7.1%
  • Total voters
    196
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I think a broader consequence of a reduction in fuel consumption will be the reduction in bitumen production and that's going to knock on to less roads, less quarries, etc. What do they do with the petroleum by products like petrol itself in that situation ... power stations?
 
Tisme said:
I think a broader consequence of a reduction in fuel consumption will be the reduction in bitumen production and that's going to knock on to less roads, less quarries, etc. What do they do with the petroleum by products like petrol itself in that situation ... power stations?
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Fertilisers, plastics ?
 
SirRumpole said:
Electric cars are breaking our roads ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-...ralia-roads-reform-road-user-charging/9235564
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I think thats a pretty easy fix, once electric cars hit a certain number on the road the taxes just need to be changed to include them.

But, electric cars also provide financial and non financial benefits to other Australia, which may be worth a lot more than the road tax.

For example

1, Reduced demand for oil based fuel reduces the cost of fuel for other users.
2, Lower air pollution in our cities improves health and lowers the health care costs
3, Using Australian sourced fuel eg Coal, gas and renewables increases fuel security and lowers the trade deficit compared to imported fuels.

these and other benefits may totally offset the 50% lower road tax paid, and may at least justify not taxing the electric car until it becomes a major user of the roads.
 


half a milliwatt might not seem much unless its the exoskeleton suit of a robot coming to kill you....or a can opener.....
 
Value Collector said:
I think thats a pretty easy fix, once electric cars hit a certain number on the road the taxes just need to be changed to include them.

But, electric cars also provide financial and non financial benefits to other Australia, which may be worth a lot more than the road tax.

For example

1, Reduced demand for oil based fuel reduces the cost of fuel for other users.
2, Lower air pollution in our cities improves health and lowers the health care costs
3, Using Australian sourced fuel eg Coal, gas and renewables increases fuel security and lowers the trade deficit compared to imported fuels.

these and other benefits may totally offset the 50% lower road tax paid, and may at least justify not taxing the electric car until it becomes a major user of the roads.
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Nuance Collector, Imagine how all the facts that you've quoted will play out in the visceral pressure cooker of the easily bought comments of the Shock Jockery by aready entrenched players who are set to lose.
The importance of cubic inches of displacment to ones thinking are inversely proportional an IQ's capacity to imagine National betterment....
 
orr said:
Nuance Collector, Imagine how all the facts that you've quoted will play out in the visceral pressure cooker of the easily bought comments of the Shock Jockery by aready entrenched players who are set to lose.
The importance of cubic inches of displacment to ones thinking are inversely proportional an IQ's capacity to imagine National betterment....
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If owners of petrol cars complain that electric vehicle owners get away with paying 50% less to cover road costs.

Maybe we should point out that currently petrol car owners are not covering any of the costs related to the air pollution they are generating and disposing of into the local environment for free that contributes to higher health care costs.

those higher health care costs are just as real as the road funding costs.

I wonder how they would react to an extra tax put onto fuel sales to cover health care costs, I don't think they would like it.
 
Value Collector said:
Maybe we should point out that currently petrol car owners are not covering any of the costs related to the air pollution they are generating and disposing of into the local environment for free that contributes to higher health care costs.
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I'm no fan of petrol but to be fair there's a pretty substantial tax on the stuff which raises far more revenue that that used to maintain roads. So it could reasonably be argued that everyone who buys petrol is paying at least part of the costs it imposes on society.

At $175 per tonne of CO2 (not including GST on the excise) the rate of tax on petrol at present is already far higher than anyone seriously proposes apply to coal or gas. :2twocents
 
Smurf1976 said:
I'm no fan of petrol but to be fair there's a pretty substantial tax on the stuff which raises far more revenue that that used to maintain roads.
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Not according to the article posted by Sir Rump that I was commenting on.

According to that article the Fuel excise only covers a little under 50% of roads expenditure.

At $175 per tonne of CO2 (not including GST on the excise) the rate of tax on petrol at present is already far higher than anyone seriously proposes apply to coal or gas. :2twocents
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The fuel excise is used to cover the roads being maintained and built.

Any carbon tax would be in addition to the fuel excise, So if petrol owners wanted the system to be fair, they should be covering all three separate issues.

1, there part of the road maintenance
2, there part of the health care costs
3, their C02 emissions.

If only coal has a carbon tax, then that is a tax being paid by EV owners that petrol cars are avoiding.
 
Value Collector said:
Not according to the article posted by Sir Rump that I was commenting on.

According to that article the Fuel excise only covers a little under 50% of roads expenditure.



The fuel excise is used to cover the roads being maintained and built.

Any carbon tax would be in addition to the fuel excise, So if petrol owners wanted the system to be fair, they should be covering all three separate issues.

1, there part of the road maintenance
2, there part of the health care costs
3, their C02 emissions.

If only coal has a carbon tax, then that is a tax being paid by EV owners that petrol cars are avoiding.
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Are there not other taxes associated with car ownership? Registration, toll roads, speeding fines etc.
 
Junior said:
Are there not other taxes associated with car ownership? Registration, toll roads, speeding fines etc.
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Yes they make up the other 50% of road funding, but Electric vehicles would be paying those,

The only vehicle associated tax that Electric vehicles currently avoid paying is the fuel excise, which according to the article posted makes up about 50% of the road funding, the rest of the road funding comes from rego, stamp duty, license fees and other stuff
 
I’m no expert on road funding so I could well be wrong but my understanding is that a lot of it goes into general revenue.

Local roads are funded by councils (ratepayers) and they don’t get the $ from fuel excise.

Some other roads are funded by the states. They get registration, traffic fines etc but not excuse.

So of the $16 billion or so that is collected as fuel excise that’s only funding roads to the extent that the Australian government is spending it.

A quick Google search finds that infrastructure spending has ranged from $3.2 to $7.2 billion a year over the past decade or so and that 78% of that is on roads. That’s a very long way short of what’s collected as fuel excise.

Someone might have better figures than I’ve found, I might be missing something, but I can’t find anything to show that the Australian Government is spending all $16 billion a year on roads at least not consistently.

It was once the case that fuel excise was linked directly to road funding but that was ended decades ago so it’s a political decision how it gets spent.
 
Smurf1976 said:
I’m no expert on road funding .
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Nor am I, but I think you missed something

Local roads are funded by councils (ratepayers) and they don’t get the $ from fuel excise.
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That might be the "other sources", mentioned in the graph.

Some other roads are funded by the states. They get registration, traffic fines etc but not excuse.

So of the $16 billion or so that is collected as fuel excise that’s only funding roads to the extent that the Australian government is spending it.

A quick Google search finds that infrastructure spending has ranged from $3.2 to $7.2 billion a year over the past decade or so and that 78% of that is on roads. That’s a very long way short of what’s collected as fuel excise.

Someone might have better figures than I’ve found, I might be missing something, but I can’t find anything to show that the Australian Government is spending all $16 billion a year on roads at least not consistently.

It was once the case that fuel excise was linked directly to road funding but that was ended decades ago so it’s a political decision how it gets spent.
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it's my understanding that the fuel excise (or some portion of it) is handed over to the states, So it's not just funding federal roads, but the state spending also.

this is from wikipedia
The states used to levy fuel franchise fees until the High Court of Australia in Ha v New South Wales (1997) ruled that a licence fee based on the value of tobacco was unconstitutional, as it was an excise tax that only the Commonwealth can levy. The ruling brought into doubt the revenues of the states. In consequence, the federal government introduced a fuel excise tax and gave the revenue to the states.
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SirRumpole said:
Something that will interest a few people here no doubt.
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This man seems to actually have a vision for the future.

Not much more to say really but he's showing the deficiencies in many others pretty clearly if he can make things work (Eg Whyalla steelworks) that others can't.

Let's hope something comes from his latest ideas.
 
Smurf1976 said:
This man seems to actually have a vision for the future.

Not much more to say really but he's showing the deficiencies in many others pretty clearly if he can make things work (Eg Whyalla steelworks) that others can't.

Let's hope something comes from his latest ideas.
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VC has just cancelled his Tesla order. ;)
 
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