Blog Posts
Should Pickup Trucks Fees Subsidize Future Tech?
Our friends over at TxGarage.com are proposing an interesting idea based on the size, weight and actual usage of your pickup truck. The author, David Boldt, lives in Texas and notes that governmental subsidies for many popular electric vehicles will soon run out, along with the fact that many cities in the Lone Star State, as you might expect, are heavily populated with large pickups. Why not have pickup truck owners pay an added registration fee (based on the weight of their pickup) to make up for lost governmental cost breaks?
Yes, there are quite a few flaws in this thought process here, but it's likely something that will be suggested by some politician in the near future. It seems like politicians are always pretty good at suggesting what should be done with other people's money or choices.
Boldt suggests that basing a "surcharge" on weight, size and usage could make up for the lost dollars from the government and provide a pool of money to help support more forward-looking technologies and EV solutions. It might even make sense if we can encourage those who may not need a full-size pickup (although he's not clear how we would make those determinations) to move down to a more appropriately-sized mid-size choice.
From our side of the fence, it's always interesting to hear people — mostly car guys — make the argument that most people who purchase and drive pickup trucks don't really use them as they were intended. This is from the same people who purchase sedans with four seats but spend the vast majority of their time with only one person in the vehicle, or sports car drivers that never take them on a track and rarely get more than 10 or 20 mph over the speed limit. Yet when a pickup truck isn't hauling cord wood for the majority of its odometer reading, that somehow is an abuse of power and wasted resources. I'm guessing these same people probably have a spare bedroom or dining room or a large portion of their backyard that never gets used, either, but we're not talking about restricting people from buying the house they want.
When will these people figure out that pickup trucks are not always about what they do most of the time, but more about what they can do if the situation calls for it? There's a "just in case" aspect to pickups and 4x4s that don't apply to the common automobile. From what we've heard when talking to pickup truck owners, whether they're using all or a majority of that capability (or bed capacity), sometimes having that "just in case" ability is worth the extra cost.
