LETTER: More on EVs and the gasoline tax

In his recent letter, Dennis Shinn says the average driver in Nevada pays $2,400 in state gasoline taxes. In reality, if you use the numbers he provided, the number is $96. The $2,400 figure would be correct if the “average car” got 1 mpg. He said drivers average 10,000 miles per year, and that they average 25 mpg. Therefore, one needs to divide 10,000 miles by 25 to obtain the actual number of gallons our fictional driver bought. The answer is 400 gallons. At 24 cents per gallon, the tax comes out to $96.

However, as to the reasonable point he was trying to make, we own a plug-in hybrid that is presently getting 125 mpg (three long highway trips brought our mileage down). In order to maintain our roads, I would gladly pay an additional $96 per year, and I won’t even subtract the approximately $12 in gasoline taxes we paid in 2023.