[vtsnowedin]

Personally, I'm for accomplishing that for huge gas guzzling non-work vehicles with CO2 taxes

I'd rather have a simple (but hefty) gas tax. Phased in over maybe 10 or 20 years (so there's no shock effect). Every year a percentage higher, towards to total of maybe $5 or $10/gallon of tax.
The smart ones will realize what's going on and plan their life accordingly. The stupid ones are caught holding the bag.

I'm wondering at what point electric cars are going to be taxed to fund road construction?

I have long thought a nickel per gallon increase every year or six months would do the trick if announced in advance to let buyers be aware of what they will pay over the life of a car without causing a sudden flight from big cars with a lot of life left in them.
As to the Electric car taxes some states are already considering it. They can just up the yearly registration fees or go to a by the mile registration fee which would require your mileage being reported at your yearly inspection and not all states have yearly inspections. Any way they do it they need to let the total taxes paid on the EV be less then that paid by the ICE owner to encourage EV sales over ICE.
Currently state gas tax in Vermont is 31 cents per gallon or about one cent per mile on a efficient ICE sedan so assuming 15,000 miles average driven about $150 per year
Of course heavier vehicles pay more so You could charge EVs $100 more per year and give them a bargain over any ICE vehicle paying both registration and fuel tax.

[asg70]

There are also toll roads. They aren't just for gas cars.

[vtsnowedin]

There are also toll roads. They aren't just for gas cars.

Yes but the EV will pay the same toll as the ICE so there is no problem there.
Of course if a city wanted to reduce pollution downtown they could charge lower EZpass rates to the EVs at the toll gateways to the city. A less Draconian method then just banning ICEs by a arbitrary date.

[Plantagenet]

All discussions of taxing or eliminating ICE vehicles and replacing them with EVs to benefit the environment assume there is a significant benefit to the environment.

But when you do the numbers, the benefit to the environment from EVs is minimal.

Manufacturing any new car, whether ICE or EV, results in the emissions of large amounts of CO2 as the raw materials are mined, transported, manufactured into parts and then transported again and then manufactured into the car.

AND manufacturing EVs results in the release of far more CO2 then ICE vehicles, because the lithium battery requires an entirely separate mining, transporting, and manufacturing etc. process, each step of which releases more CO2. The CO2 footprint of just the battery for an EV is equal to another 1/2 to 2/3rds of the CO2 footprint of the basic car.

This means EVs actually have much higher CO2 footprints then ICE cars the day they roll off the showroom floor. When you do the math it will take ca. 5-7 years of use of the ICE car to "catch up" for it to catch up with the EV so that both cars have equal CO2 footprints.

But that assumes the EV doesn't emit any CO2. Again, when you do the numbers most EVs in the world plug into dirty power systems which are dependent on coal or natural gas to generate the electricity. Some calculations suggest the typical EV is releasing 1/2 to 3/4 of the CO2 of an ICE car because the electricity used to charge the EV has its own large CO2 footprint.

The bottom line is that there is a small reduction in CO2 production for most EVs vs. ICE cars over the entire life of the car, but this reduction is much smaller then many EV owners assume. And in some places where most electricity is generated using fossil fuels, like China and Germany, EVs actually have LARGER CO2 footprints then ICE cars.


most-electric-vehicles-dont-reduce-carbon-emissions-

Personally, I would rather all the government subsidies going into EVs were being put into mass transit (electric trams, electric high speed rail, autonomous EV taxis, etc.) because this would reduce CO2 emissions much more then having every person buying and driving their own personal EVs. IMHO the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and other countries are on the right track to put so much investment into their mass transit infrastructure, as opposed to the US approach of mostly ignoring mass transit and infrastructure in favor subsidizing affluent people to buy expensive EV sports cars.

Cheers!

[vtsnowedin]

Electric powered mass transit would still be a carbon source if the electricity comes from coal. As to the carbon foot print of manufacturing and Ev and it's battery being higher then casting iron engine blocks and the steel mills making the steel for the other drive train parts you would have to show me the numbers from a good source.
Even if the EV is behind the day it is delivered the 8000 gallons of gas the ICE will use over it's lifetime is a huge carbon source and the EV can use totally carbon free electricity and even if connected to the present grid would be 37% fossil fuel free.
I expect that as we move to EVs we will also move to more and more renewable sources for their electricity so whatever the numbers actually are today they will steadily improve.
Of course if we don't try we will continue to burn oil until it is all gone and then we can switch if we can still breath.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Even if the EV is behind the day it is delivered the 8000 gallons of gas the ICE will use over it's lifetime is a huge carbon source and the EV can use totally carbon free electricity and even if connected to the present grid would be 37% fossil fuel free.

The sources I've read re articles tend to agree with this assessment.

A lot depends on the SIZE of the EV, especially re batteries. A Tesla Model S with a 100 kWh battery takes a LOT of miles to become carbon neutral. OTOH, something more like a Leaf with a 40 kWh battery gets there a lot quicker. And this true even if the power source for the charging is all coal, though on average, that's far from true, as you point out (and the grid is getting cleaner over time, re its power sourcing).

And it makes a lot of sense, re burning gasoline. Each 6.3 pounds per gallon of gasoline burned in an ICE produces roughly 20 pounds of CO2, due to the chemical reaction adding the weight of the oxygen, in the burning. So that's a metric ton of CO2 per 110 gallons of gasoline. For the typical ICE, that's roughly a metric ton of CO2 per 3000 miles of driving. Over the 200,000 or so mile life time of a modern ICE car on average, that's about 67 tons of CO2, JUST from burning the gasoline.

I've seen articles re, say, a late model Toyota Camry HEV having a lower carbon footprint than, say, a Tesla Model S, but for a more efficient BEV like a leaf, though an efficient HEV is MUCH better than a pure ICE, the smaller BEV wins over time -- just by a much smaller margin.

If one feels they truly can't afford a BEV or use a BEV due to range restrictions, temperatures, etc, then an efficient (i.e. modern) HEV still goes a LONG way toward making things better, and for little or no money, considering the gasoline savings over time.

[vtsnowedin]

As I'll become a 65 year old seasoned citizen next month I have to consider that any vehicle ,new or used, I buy might be the last one I ever buy. At present I'm looking at a full two years before I can take delivery on the two motor cyber truck I placed my $100 on. The technology in this industry is changing so fast 24 months is a lifetime and anything known or said now may well be obsolete when the day arrives. When I have to buy or collect my refund I'll take a hard look at what is really available at that time and choose the truck that will serve me best. There appear to be several good options in the pipeline and it maybe a very close call. I doubt if any ICE truck will be the best option by then but time will tell.