Forbes Magazine recently published an article headlined "California Mileage Tax—Pilot Programs And Permanent Policy Inertia" by Andrew Leahey. It noted that California has been studying road user charging (which it calls Road Charge for a reason that is banal and barely worth noting) for nearly 10 years and there is next to no indication that the state will be implementing distance based road user charging soon.
This is despite nearly hysterical media coverage in recent weeks because of legislation that will essentially continue the status quo for another decade. This is adequately answered by this article in The Californian, but it is fairly damning of the California Road Charge program that this sort of coverage repeats.
The idea that it would be "extremely intrusive" to implement RUC is highly misleading. The idea that it is "inequitable" to charge according to how much distance is travelled, is extraordinarily simplistic (after all, what does the gas tax do?), the idea that rural locations will suffer the most was refuted by research undertaken by RUC America years ago. What is unfortunate is that so much work has gone into pilots and studies in the state, but poor knowledge about the concept remains.
California has run pilots which have demonstrated success and generated plenty of useful data. The first pilot was one I worked on, which had over 5,000 participants, testing a range of mileage measurement and reporting options, and considering what the public response was to it. Since then California has run further pilots and studies, all examining more detailed elements of how "Road Charge" might be implemented, but there is no political mandate to actually introduce it.
In short, while many politicians and public servants know that California will have to introduce a means to charge electric (and hybrid and more fuel efficient vehicles) to use the roads, and it almost certainly will involve charging by distance, the actual political courage to advance it to implementation isn't there. As a result, there is a willingness to keep a program of investigating road user charging going, in perpetuity, until the time comes.
In the period California has been studying road user charging, Hawai'i has piloted and implemented an actual revenue raising program (as of last year), albeit it is currently an option for EV owners instead of paying a flat annual fee. Likewise Virginia has implemented a revenue raising program, as has Utah (Oregon was already operational in 2015). Iceland has gone from investigating to rolling out road user charging for ALL vehicles on all roads as of the past month.
Meanwhile, 4.3% of light duty vehicles in California are EVs, 5.4% are hybrids, 1.3% PHEVs (Source). That's around 34% of all light duty EVs in the United States.
There are no great technical issues hindering the introduction of Road Charge in California, but rather political ones, which seem astonishing in a state where the Democrats have 75% of the seats in the State Assembly and State Senate, as well as the Governorship of the state.
California's Road Usage Charge Technical Advisory Committee was set up by legislation in 2014 and a Bill before the State Assembly will extend it till 2035.
Leahey's article states:
What is really being tested is not a system, or the finances, or even the equity. What is being tested is political tolerance. The pilot is determining how long the state can talk about a road usage charge, create advisory boards, and extend pilot frameworks without triggering significant backlash or having to actually legislate the hard decision.
In other words, California will watch other US states implement road charging, and at some point there is hope that it will be just a formality, because few politicians are willing to stake any political capital on the outrageous idea that... the use of all cars, regardless of energy source, should be charged to pay for the costs of maintaining and renewing the road network.
Of course California has taken another approach, which has been to raise the state's gas tax. It was increased by US$0.12 per gallon (US$0.0317/litre) in November 2017 and again by US$0.056 per gallon (US$0.015/litre) in July 2019. Since then, legislation has mandated an inflation adjustment to the gas tax every year from 2020, meaning it is now US$0.612/gallon (~US$0.162/litre).
This is the highest state gas tax in the USA, so in effect California has been incentivising a shift towards more fuel efficient, hybrid and electric vehicles by taxing gasoline powered vehicles more.
There is a flat fee on EVs of US$175 per annum, but this is lower than the average gas tax paid per annum for a gasoline car. The effect is that around 11% of car users in California are paying less to use the roads than others.
Is that the worst outcome? Probably not, although it costs California taxpayers the resources to keep officials occupied, and pay for consultants to update information. It is entirely plausible by the time California gets to actually implement Road Charge, that there are fair questions to be asked about data collected in 2017 and its relevance. Certainly there is some ongoing technological and cost evolution in that time.
Meanwhile, I can only hope that any future narrative about road user charging in California isn't about it being a "new tax" but a replacement, to level up what vehicles are charged to use the network.
(oh, and the reason why it's called "Road Charge" and not a "road usage charge" or "road user charge", is because it was thought that the acronym RUC rhymed with a rude word. I had no idea such a word was so blasphemous in the state of California!)
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