Electric cars were sold as the cheaper way to get around, with low charging costs and no gas taxes quietly trimming every commute. A wave of new pay-per-mile proposals is about to test that promise by shifting what drivers owe from the pump to the odometer. The headline change is not just another fee, but a rethink of how road budgets work and who really pays to keep asphalt from crumbling.
Rather than being buried in the price of a gallon, road funding is starting to show up as a line item on electric driving itself, from pilot programs in the United States to a planned 3p-per-mile system in the United Kingdom. How those numbers stack up against fuel costs, tax credits, and registration fees will decide whether the next generation of buyers still sees plug-in cars as a smart money move.
How pay-per-mile EV taxes actually work
At its core, a mileage fee is simple: every mile driven is multiplied by a set rate, then tallied up as a tax or “road use” charge. In Illinois, lawmakers are weighing a plan that would pair a new annual fee with a rate of 1.5 cents per mile, which critics see as punishing drivers who thought they were escaping gas taxes, and supporters frame as a fair way to keep up road funding as more cars go electric. The proposal has drawn sharp reactions that range from frustration about being charged twice to questions about whether there is anything officials cannot tax, exactly the kind of backlash that can shape how aggressively other states move.
The politics around that Illinois debate have a face and a byline, since reporter Daniel Gala has detailed how the per-mile idea would sit on top of existing registration charges rather than replace them outright. Earlier coverage of the same plan highlights how some residents feel that “Not having to pay ever-increasing gas prices and the gas taxes that go along with them” was part of the EV bargain, only to see that advantage chipped away by a 1.5 cent rate that follows every trip. That tension between expectations and reality is likely to repeat as other states and countries copy the model.
Across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom is moving toward its own version of a per-mile system for electric cars, still in the planning phase rather than live on the street. A widely watched Budget decision set out a future 3p-per-mile charge, and industry groups have been busy Putting It Into by comparing that figure with what petrol and diesel drivers already pay through fuel duty and other taxes. Even with 3p penciled in for later years, advocates argue that electric cars should still be substantially cheaper to run than combustion models, especially if future governments keep their word and avoid ratcheting the rate up for the duration of their term.
What it really does to the cost of driving electric
The raw math of a mileage tax can look scary in isolation, but it only makes sense when stacked against what drivers already spend for energy. For a typical U.S. commuter charging at home, one analysis pegs electricity costs around $0.04 to $0.06 per mile, a spread that reflects everything from local power rates to the efficiency of models like a Tesla Model 3 or Hyundai Ioniq 6. That same research notes that gas vehicles often land much higher on a per-mile basis, especially when prices spike, which is why the Key takeaway is that electric cars still tend to win on running costs even before tax credits are counted.
Layer a road charge on top of that, and the picture gets more complicated but not necessarily disastrous. In states that already experiment with distance-based systems, drivers can opt into a $0.02 per mile program in exchange for an $86 annual registration bill, effectively swapping a flat fee for a usage-based one and giving lower-mileage households a chance to save. That structure, documented in a breakdown of electric vehicle taxes, shows how policymakers are trying to balance fairness for rural and urban drivers while still making up for fuel tax revenue that is shrinking as cars sip less gasoline.
Zoom out to the broader tax picture and the numbers get even more interesting. The IRS has set the 2026 business standard mileage rate at 72.5 cents per mile, up by 2.5 cents from the prior year, which is the benchmark companies use to reimburse workers for trips in their own cars. A separate summary of Key Takeaways notes that the IRS also pegs medical and moving travel at 20.5 cents per mile, underscoring just how much total cost is already baked into every mile before any new EV-specific charge is added. Against that backdrop, a few cents of road tax can be significant for tight budgets, but it is still just one slice of a much larger per-mile expense pie.
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