Electric vehicle owners in Texas will now have to pay an additional $200 per year, following a new tax signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott. The law, which was signed without any public announcement, will come into effect on September 1. The Texas House passed the bill for the fee in late April but it was signed off on Saturday, May 14, reported The Dallas Morning News.
Under the new law, electric vehicle owners will be required to pay a $400 registration fee for new electric vehicles, in addition to other existing fees. The cost of renewing the registration will be $200. The tax, however, does not apply to electric motorcycles, mopeds, and autocycles.
Owners of hybrid and gas-fueled vehicles are exempt from such fees. Instead, they pay a 20-cent per gallon gas tax.
According to data from the Dallas-Fort Worth Clean Cities Coalition, Texas currently has nearly 200,000 electric vehicles, with more than 30,000 new electric vehicles added to the roads this year alone.
Both the gas tax and the new electric vehicle tax are dedicated to the state highway fund, with some gas tax revenue also diverted to schools. The new tax is expected to contribute at least $38 million to the state highway fund. In contrast, gasoline and diesel taxes are projected to generate an estimated $3.8 billion in revenue for the state in 2024, according to the comptroller’s office.
State House Representative Terry Canales, a Democrat from Edinburgh, emphasized the importance of the new tax during the law’s debate in April. He stated, “This is extremely important to make sure people are paying their fair share and that we have adequate funding for the preservation and maintenance of our highways in the future.”
The average owner of a gasoline-fueled vehicle pays approximately $130 in state gas taxes per year, based on average annual mileage and fuel economy data from the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.
During the debate over the bill in the House on April 24, legislators considered creating a lower tier of electric vehicle fees set at $100 a year for lighter-weight vehicles. However, this idea was defeated, and the bill was passed with wide bipartisan support.
