Nine states, including Nevada, don't charge electric vehicle (EV) owners any additional registration fees, mileage fees or charging station fees.

The reason most states charge additional fees to EV owners is because EVs, which don't require fuel, don't pay fuel taxes. Because fuel taxes are a primary source of revenue for road and highway maintenance — for example, more than 60 percent of the $194 million budgeted in fiscal year 2026 for streets and highways by Washoe County's Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) is collected from fuel taxes — EV owners in Nevada aren't paying to maintain the roads they're driving on.

When EVs were more of a curiosity instead of an increasingly popular and viable method of personal transportation, fuel taxes seemed like a perfectly fair way to tax drivers for the roads they used. Most cars, trucks, semis and other roadbound vehicles used gasoline, diesel or some other taxable fossil fuel, so taxing fuel at the pump was a straightforward way to ensure all vehicle owners were taxed for their road consumption. Those who drove more bought more fuel, which caused them to pay more fuel taxes. Heavier vehicles, which produced more wear and tear on roads, also used more fuel and correspondingly paid more fuel taxes.

Now that Nevada ranks sixth in the nation for EV ownership, however, those old intuitions are no longer holding up. According to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, more than 4 percent of all passenger car miles were driven by EVs during the first six months of 2025, with hybrid vehicles accounting for another 5 percent. Consequently, nearly 10 percent of all road miles are being driven by vehicles that either don't pay any fuel taxes at all, such as EVs, or pay substantially lower fuel taxes than their fully gas-powered counterparts because they use much less fuel — if, in the case of plug-in hybrid EVs, they use any fuel at all.

Based on a report published by the Kenny Guinn Center for Policy Priorities last August and updated driver statistics, the RTC painted a sobering picture for Washoe County commissioners during last week's board meeting. Despite drivers in Washoe County driving as many miles as ever, fewer gallons of fuel are now being taxed than were taxed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This led the Washoe County Commission to sound the alarm last week and place an advisory question on the November ballot. Though the question is nonbinding, its passage would send a strong signal to the Legislature to allow Nevada's local governments to raise fees on electric and hybrid vehicles.

A natural follow-up question, though, is this: Which fees should EV drivers pay in lieu of fuel taxes?

The most seemingly intuitive approach would be to simply tax electricity delivered via charging stations the way we tax fuel at gas stations. One advantage of this approach is that EV-driving tourists visiting Nevada from other states would pay such taxes the way they currently pay fuel taxes — similar taxes have been applied in Utah, Montana and a few other states. 

There is one important difference between EVs and gas- or diesel-powered vehicles, however. Unlike fuel-powered vehicles, EVs can and frequently do charge at home where charging station taxes seldom take effect. Thus, according to an analysis prepared by the Kansas Legislative Research Department, revenue from such taxes is underwhelming — Utah, for example, collected only $239,402 during the first five months its charging station tax was in effect.

Additionally, according to the Guinn Center report, owners of charging stations are frequently required to bear the cost of any administrative expenses incurred in collecting and reporting the tax. Given the scarcity of charging stations outside of Nevada's two largest urban areas, increasing the cost of running one would be extremely unwise. For example, none of Tesla's Supercharger stations between Reno and Las Vegas is currently compatible with other EVs. Consequently, non-Tesla EV drivers can recharge at a single charging port in Beatty, four charging ports at the Goldfield Visitors Center, and similarly sparse facilities in Luning and Schurz. Many of those ports, including the one working one in Beatty, are Level 2 charging ports — these ports provide approximately 10-20 hours of range per hour of charging. 

That means a non-Tesla EV driver who needs to charge in Beatty to make it to Goldfield must charge for 3-6 hours before completing that leg of the trip — assuming the lone charging port is available and functional when they need it.

Instead, most states simply increase registration fees on EVs — this, in fact, was the preferred solution suggested by the Guinn Center's report since it's relatively straightforward to deploy. There are, however, a few issues with this approach as well.

The most serious problem with this approach is that, if the fees are large enough to fully offset fuel tax losses, they would add hundreds of dollars to annual registration fees that are normally spread out across the full year. To understand why, however, requires a bit of math.

Assuming each driver in Washoe County drives approximately 10,000 miles each year — this is slightly higher than the 4 billion vehicle miles traveled figure reported by RTC divided by the 412,362 registered vehicles reported by the Department of Motor Vehicles in October — they likely consume between 390 and 541 gallons of fuel each year, based on average fuel economy ratings for cars and light trucks provided by the U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center. Each gallon of fuel in Washoe County, in turn, is taxed at a rate of 68 cents per gallon — the highest rate in the state. So each driver in Washoe County ordinarily pays between $264 and $367 in fuel taxes each year.

The Guinn Center's report, which worked with more time and personnel than this lone opinion columnist ever could, came up with a similar but higher range between $295.66 and $425.04. The lowest fee was based on a calculation of total statewide motor vehicle fuel tax collections. As previously discussed, however, Washoe County's fuel taxes are much higher than any other county in the state — the $425.04 figure more closely matches Washoe County's expected fuel tax collections from a fueled vehicle each year.

To put those figures into perspective, the National Conference of State Legislatures reports that there is only one state — Utah — that currently assesses an annual EV registration fee in excess of $260 in 2026. Utah assesses two $180 annual fees for EVs, making its EV registration fees the highest in the country. Texas requires a $400 registration fee for a new EV but only requires $200 in each subsequent year. New Jersey's EV registration fee, which is currently $260, isn't expected to exceed $290 until July 1, 2028. Most states charge between $100 to $200 each year.

These registration fees all rest on the political logic that most voters don't drive EVs and therefore aren't currently required to make large payments each year for the privilege of driving one. As adoption of EVs increases, however, this logic will rapidly become electorally untenable.

Another serious problem with EV registration fees is it treats all drivers the same. An EV driver who's on the road constantly pays the same registration fee as an older driver who leaves their car in their garage most of the time. This approach consequently penalizes those who use the roads the least and rewards those who take a drive every chance they get.

There is, however, another option.

A Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax, which taxes vehicles based on the number of miles they've traveled in a given period, restores the logic of the original fuel tax. Based on the Guinn Center's report, a VMT tax rate of 4.5 cents per mile would reflect the highest fuel tax per mile a driver would have paid between 2021 and 2024. Using that figure, our hypothetical 10,000-mile-per-year driver would pay $37.50 each month — a much more reasonable sum to expect a driver to produce on short notice than the $425 increase in vehicle registration fees mentioned above.

The Tax Foundation, in fact, recommends replacing fuel taxes with VMT taxes so that states can more easily and equitably raise enough revenue to fund transportation spending without having to account for continual changes to fuel efficiencies, vehicle types and consumer preferences.

There are, however, challenges with this approach as well. 

The most convenient option for consumers and tax officials alike would be for vehicles to automatically report their mileage, presumably through some sort of GPS tracking system that can identify which county and state a car is driving in and tax it accordingly. This, however, raises obvious privacy concerns — the Fourth Amendment, which protects our privacy by prohibiting warrantless searches and seizures, doesn't magically disappear the instant the RTC needs to raise some money to pave a neighborhood road. Additionally, many older cars don't have the necessary equipment installed to provide this information automatically. Getting such information from those that do, meanwhile, requires cooperation from manufacturers and location brokers that prefer to sell driver location data to the highest bidder rather than providing that information to state and local tax authorities at no additional cost.

Of course, it's conceptually possible to collect the necessary data from SignalTrace-enabled automatic license plate readers that can read and store Bluetooth and other wireless signal data from passing cars. A broad enough network of such devices could even enable authorities to tax individual passengers for their road consumption based on signals produced by their cellphone or fitness watch. Once again, however, storing such detailed data about passing travelers would (or at least should!) raise extremely obvious privacy concerns.

Even so, many states use detailed location data to assess VMTs on an opt-in basis. Oregon's OReGO system, for example, allows drivers to choose between GPS-enabled mileage reporting options and a manual reporting option. Those that choose the GPS-enabled mileage option have their location data anonymized by a private company prior to it being furnished to Oregon's tax authorities. Those that do not, meanwhile, have to track their out-of-state mileage and submit it through a form if they wish to be reimbursed for those miles.

For those who are understandably reluctant to voluntarily provide GPS data to their government, manual tracking of driver mileage can be provided through the same infrastructure used to provide smog checks to drivers in Washoe and Clark counties. Increasing the cadence from once a year to once per quarter — or giving drivers the choice of how often they check their mileage and pay their VMT — may help drivers spread the pain of their tax payments across more manageable time spans instead of having to pay hundreds of dollars in one annual payment. 

That said, prior to rolling out a statewide VMT, additional infrastructure would need to be provided for rural drivers who are not currently required to perform annual smog checks. Since Washoe and Clark counties lead the state in EV adoption, it makes some sense to apply VMTs at the county level on an opt-in basis until rural county EV adoption increases enough to justify the expense and additional infrastructure required to administer one.

Regardless of which method is best, one thing is certain — fuel taxes alone won't pay for Nevada's roads once Nevadans stop buying fuel. The only questions remaining are what fuel taxes will be replaced with and when we should start.

David Colborne ran for public office twice. He is now an IT manager, the father of two sons and a recurring opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. You can follow him on Mastodon @[email protected], on Bluesky @davidcolborne.bsky.social, on Threads @davidcolbornenv or email him at [email protected]. You can also message him on Signal at dcolborne.64.