The Kansas House bill requires a tax on public electric vehicle charging—not home charging.
The proposed tax 3 cents per kilowatt hour will go to the Kansas highway repair fund based on revenue, according to Kansas reflexr, but it could force EV drivers to pay more than other drivers.
Any tax on public charging would actually be “double taxation,” an EV researcher told Reflector, because EV owners already pay a higher subscription fee. The Kansas Legislature in 2019 passed a measure to increase the fee to $100 for electric vehicles, from $30 for internal combustion vehicles, arguing that it offsets electric vehicle drivers avoiding state fuel tax of 24 cents per gallon.
2022 Hyundai IONIQ 5 at the Electrify America DC fast charging station
Taxing public charging is also a double standard for people who live in apartments or parks across the street and rely on public infrastructure. The proposed tax is reported to not apply to home-based drivers.
How to tax electric vehicles for road use has been a hotly debated topic recently, as states aim to restructure their gasoline tax policies, in anticipation that gasoline fleets will fall. . One of those solutions is tax “electrical fuel” for electric vehicles.
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However, Kansas in particular has a history with proposed EV taxes, becoming one of the first states consider taxing electric cars with a 2012 bill, also based on the argument that the final gasoline tax would not be enough to fund road maintenance.
But Kansas is also where Panasonic last year decided to build what it later claimed to be biggest battery factory around the world (by region). Panasonic’s first plant in the US outside of its partnership with Tesla, the $4 billion plant is positioned to supply EV batteries to automakers other than Tesla.
