‘Pro-EV’ New Jersey just OK’ed the US’s highest dumb EV fee
New Jersey just signed a law approving a punitive new EV registration fee – and at $250, it’s the highest in the country.
New Jersey’s EV registration fee kicks in July 1, and then rises by $10 each year before it caps out at $290 in July 2028. Plus New Jersey new car purchases require a four-year upfront registration, so that’s more than $1,000 for new EV purchases.
The money goes into the state’s Transportation Trust Fund for road, rail, and bridges along with gas tax money. New Jersey also raised revenue targets for gas taxes by around 18% over five years – around 2 cents annually to the state’s fuel levies.
Electrek’s Take
Thinking of buying a new EV in New Jersey? Your new EV will be exempt from state sales tax, so that’s cool. And of course you get the federal Inflation Reduction Act upfront tax credit of $7,500. Nice one, Biden administration.
But wait. You’ve gotta pay $1,000 upfront for four years of registration since your EV is new. Oh, and the state funding that provided incentives of up to $4,000 for the purchase or lease of new EVs for 2022, 2023, and 2024? Afraid that’s already tapped out. Or as the state puts it, “temporarily unavailable.” Kinda takes the joy out of buying a new EV, Garden State – the thing you’re trying to get people to adopt since you banned the sale of new gas cars by 2035.
Or as Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, put it: “New Jersey EV policy shouldn’t be schizophrenic, and this EV tax is a blunt instrument which will suppress EV sales.”
He also called the EV tax “punitive,” and we agree. O’Malley suggested before this tax was OK’ed that the tax should have been set at $75 to reflect EV efficiency.
As we at Electrek have said before, shift the entire transportation fund away from gas, diesel, and now EV taxes, and figure out a better way to raise very-much-needed money.
Calculate the taxes based on vehicle weight – and the damage the vehicle does to roads and bridges – instead. According to a US Government Accountability Office study, “a truck axle carrying 18,000 pounds is only nine times heavier than a 2,000-pound automobile axle, [but] it does 5,000 times more damage.” This can be completed when the vehicle is registered. Because, as my colleague Jameson Dow said when we discussed this, “This EV registration tax is targeting a thing that isn’t the problem, and its disincentivizing the most necessary thing.”
Another option: Eighty-four percent of US EV owners charge their cars at home. People pay tax on their electric bills – the state could tap into that extra tax income through the utilities.
But the proponents of these EV fees wouldn’t advocate for that, because these fees are pushed by the fossil fuel industry. These laws were not conceived of to fix a shortfall in revenue, but rather to target a competitor to the fossil fuel industry. And they’ve spread to many states with this disingenuous motivation – even states that have pro-EV policies.
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![Day 1 of the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025 [Gallery]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/07/54629423281_6315c46dff_k.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Today was the official start of racing at the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025! There was a tremendous energy (and heat) on the ground at NCM Motorsports Park as nearly a dozen teams took to the track. Currently, as of writing, Stanford is ranked #1 in the SOV (Single-Occupant Vehicle) class with 68 registered laps. However, the fastest lap so far belongs to UC Berkeley, which clocked a 4:45 on the 3.15-mile track. That’s an average speed of just under 40 mph on nothing but solar energy. Not bad!
In the MOV (Multi-Occupant Vehicle) class, Polytechnique Montréal is narrowly ahead of Appalachian State by just 4 laps. At last year’s formula sun race, Polytechnique Montréal took first place overall in this class, and the team hopes to repeat that success. It’s still too early for prediction though, and anything can happen between now and the final day of racing on Saturday.
Congrats to the teams that made it on track today. We look forward to seeing even more out there tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some shots from today via the event’s wonderful photographer Cora Kennedy.
Stay tuned for more!
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The numbers are in and they are all bad for Tesla fans – the company sold just 5,000 Cybertruck models in Q4 of 2025, and built some 30% more “other” vehicles than it delivered. It just gets worse and worse, on today’s tension-building episode of Quick Charge!
We’ve also got day 1 coverage of the 2025 Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix, reports that the Tesla Optimus program is in chaos after its chief engineer jumps ship, and a look ahead at the fresh new Hyundai IONIQ 2 set to bow early next year, thanks to some battery specs from the Kia EV2.
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If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
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Tesla has launched its new Oasis Supercharger, the long-promised EV charging station of the future, with a solar farm and off-grid batteries.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to the Supercharger stations, and CEO Elon Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
All of these pieces have been in place for years, and Tesla has now discontinued the Powerpack in favor of the Megapack. The Supercharger network is also transitioning to V4 stations.
Yet, solar and battery deployment haven’t accelerated much in the decade since Musk made that comment, but it is finally happening.
Last year, Tesla announced a new project called ‘Oasis’, which consists of a new model Supercharger station with a solar farm and battery storage enabling off-grid operations in Lost Hills, California.
Tesla has now unveiled the project and turned on most of the Supercharger stalls:
The project consists of 168 chargers, with half of them currently operational, making it one of the largest Supercharger stations in the world. However, that’s not even the most notable aspect of it.
The station is equipped with 11 MW of ground-mounted solar panels and canopies, spanning 30 acres of land, and 10 Tesla Megapacks with a total energy storage capacity of 39 MWh.
It can be operated off-grid, which is the case right now, according to Tesla.
With off-grid operations, Tesla was about to bring 84 stalls online just in time for the Fourth of July travel weekend. The rest of the stalls and a lounge are going to open later this year.
Electrek’s Take
This is awesome. A bit late, but awesome. This is what charging stations should be like: fully powered by renewable energy.
Unfortunately, it will be much harder to open those stations in the future due to legislation that Trump and the Republican Party have just passed, which removes incentives for solar and energy storage, adds taxes on them, and removes incentives to build batteries – all things that have helped Tesla considerably over the last few years.
The US is likely going to have a few tough years for EV adoption and renewable energy deployment.
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