Ohio’s high electric-vehicle registration fees hinder a climate solution: Teagan Banyard and Leyah Jackson

An electric vehicle charges at an EVgo fast charging station in Detroit, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022.

An electric vehicle charges at an EVgo fast charging station in Detroit, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022. In a guest column today, Hathaway Brown students Teagan Banyard and Leyah Jackson argue that Ohio's high electric-vehicle registration fee is unfair and hinders state efforts to address climate change. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) AP

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio -- The price of gas continues to fluctuate, and Cleveland has experienced this firsthand. Accompanying this high cost is the gas tax, a federal and state tax added straight to the price of your gas. The main purpose of the tax is to fund certain infrastructure in Ohio, such as roads, bridges, and highways. In addition about one-third of the gas tax goes to the federal government.

Electric vehicles, as they do not need gas, seem to be cheating the system, but this is not true. Ohio’s method of solving this is to put a giant yearly registration fee on electric and hybrid vehicles, but this is unfair, as it leaves EV and plug-in vehicle drivers to pay a lot more than what the average Ohioan pays in gas taxes. Something needs to be done.

Electric vehicles are key in slowing climate change, which needs to start now. The high registration fee decreases the public incentive to purchase electric vehicles, as people do not want to pay more just because they have chosen to help the environment.

In Ohio, the annual registration fee is set by law. For electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles, it adds $200 to the regular passenger-car registration fee, and for other hybrid motor vehicles, it adds $100. Ohio’s current passenber-car registration fee is $31 annually, and the state gas tax is 38.5 cents per gallon.

According to an Ohio Department of Transportation study presuming an average 10,000 miles driven per year, the owner of an average-efficiency, gas-powered car (getting 20 to 30 miles per gallon) currently pays -- between gas taxes and registration fees -- $191 per year. The registration fee for electric vehicles alone is $231, a big difference.

For high-efficiency gas-powered cars (getting 30 to 50 mpg), the total is even less, coming to $117 per year versus $277 for hybrid cars with the same gas mileage, making an insane difference between electric and gas.

In addition, the EV registration fee in Ohio is one of the highest in America today. According to a 2021 report from the Montana state legislature, only 30 states had a registration fee for electric and hybrid vehicles that was higher than for gas-powered cars. And only seven of those 30 states, including Ohio, had a fee of $200 or more. Most of those state fees were around $100.

However, simply ending the extra registration fee would be unfair to the gas-powered drivers, since the gas tax would most likely go up. For the future, Ohio legislators should create new legislation to solve this issue.

One proposed idea is to tax the number of miles driven in any given registration year. This would allow all of the gas cars, whether they are low-efficiency or high-efficiency, hybrid cars, and fully electric cars to be charged the same if they have driven the same number of miles in the year.

A potential hitch in that plan regards what happens when drivers drive out of state. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, in 2021, only 2% of trips in all modes of transportation were greater than 50 miles. With this in mind, the chances that people will drive out of state in one trip are very low. This means that the proposed tax would not have a negative impact on a majority of drivers in Ohio.

Teagan Banyard and Leyah Jackson

Teagan Banyard and Leyah Jackson are sophomores at Hathaway Brown school studying sustainability.

The whole point of the gas tax is that you are taxed based on how much you use the roads. This means the people who use the roads more, pay more for the maintenance of them. Using a mileage-based form of taxation would do the same across-the-board for all car types instead of imposing unfairly high fees on electric and hybrid vehicles.

We need a compromise that accommodates all methods of transportation in order to drive incentives for electric-vehicle ownership. With a fair method of taxation and fees, more people will buy electric cars to help the environment, as they will not be overcharged. This will help Ohioans do their part to slow climate change.

Teagan Banyard and Leyah Jackson are sophomores studying sustainability at Hathaway Brown school in Shaker Heights.

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