Senator Hawkins’ FCEV sales tax reduction bill passes major barrier
March 9, 2021The proposal is meant to increase adoption of hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles in Washington.
Senator Brad Hawkins’ FCEV bill proposing to slash sales tax on hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle purchases in Washington state has managed to move beyond an important barrier.
The state Senate voted 49-0 to approve Hawkins’ Senate Bill 5000.
SB 5000 is Hawkins’ FCEV bill that would put into place a statewide pilot project that would run for eight years. It would reduce the sales tax people would be required to pay on the purchase of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles.
“I’m pleased to see such strong support from my Senate colleagues for this bill,” stated Hawkins following the vote. “Our state is still in its infancy regarding electric vehicles, so I think it’s helpful to promote different types of zero-emission vehicles, both battery electrics and fuel cell electrics.” Hawkins represents the 12th District. “Washington has the potential to be a key producer of renewable hydrogen, so it makes sense to make it easier to purchase hydrogen-fueled vehicles.”
The FCEV bill would be only one component of a much broader addition of hydrogen to the state economy.
The idea behind SB 5000 is to provide consumers and businesses with a vehicle sales tax exemption comparable to that applied to purchases of electric vehicles.
The Douglas County Public Utility District (PUD), which is located in Hawkins’ district, intends to use its surplus hydropower for the production of hydrogen fuel out of water. This would result in renewable hydrogen fuel produced using renewable hydropower and may lead to the construction of hydrogen fuelling stations as well.
The PUD is building its hydrogen production plant near East Wenatchee. The facility is slated to be finished close to the end of 2021.
Washington state expects that the first of its hydrogen fueling stations will be operational by next year. If the FCEV bill is passed, it would make it possible for up to 650 fuel cell electric vehicles to be purchased at an exemption rate of 50 percent off what would otherwise be paid. This would continue from 2023 through 2029 and the fueling stations would mean that it would be notably more practical to drive these vehicles.
With over 15 years of reporting hydrogen news, we are your premier source for the latest updates and insights in hydrogen and renewable energy.
Dear President Biden:
You want to convert the whole 650,000 USPS vehicle fleet to EVs.
Small passenger vehicles, vans, LLVs equal 88% of the total. 78,517 are heavy duty Over the Road Trucks.
If you would support Hydrogen and the US Hydrogen Highway, you can have the Treasury reclaim $1,950,000,000.00 in $3,000 per vehicle Excise Tax.
The USPS fleet drove 2,829,706,000.000 miles in 2020. If you had all 650,000 vehicles exchanged for H2 vehicles 88% of them would get 68 miles to the KG of H2. The heavy duty trucks would get 12 miles to the KG for 78,517 vehicles.
88% of 2,829,706,000,000 = 2,490,141,280,000 / 68 = 36,619,724,705 KG of H2.
12% of 2,829,706,000,000 = 339,564,720,000 / 12 = 28,297,060.000 KG of H2.
The two combined = 64,916,784,705 KG of H2 Fuel. At $7.50 per KG that annual cost of 2020 driving would have been $486,875,885,287. How does that compare with the actual 2020 fuel bills for gasoline, diesel, and natural gas which was used by USPS?
$486,875,885,287 / 2,829,706,000,000 =$0.172058823527073 cost per mile driven. That is under $.18 cents per mile driven. Much cheaper than current fuel costs.
With 650,000 vehicles each will take 25 additional minutes to fuel as an EV versus the current fueling time of five minutes per vehicle (650,000 X 25 minutes =16,250,000 minutes / 60 = 270,833 hours /24 = 11,284 days of fueling per day of operation.
In a delivery week of six days you will have 6 X 11,284 = 67,704 days of refueling the fleet each week. That is a big expense and by the way takes the fleet longer to perform delivery as refueling now takes a big toll on the work force.
How many charging stations will you need to charge 650,000 vehicles daily? What is the expense of all those charging stations?
Private Investors would fund, build and operate the HFS (Hydrogen Fueling Stations) so no budgeting would be needed to accomplish this.
Your H2 fuel cost for 2020 would have been under $.18 per mile.
Please consider Hydrogen and the US Hydrogen Highway as an alternative to USPS Evs Fleet Wide.
Best regards,
Steve Kovacs
President
Hydrogen Fueling Stations USA
[email protected]
720-401-6644 cell
Senator Hawkns:
You support the Green New Deal so why not add Hydrogen and the US Hydrogen Highway to your support. We would welcome any support you can give us.
We have investors that would fund, build and operate 3,000 HFS (Hydrogen Fueling Stations) across the USA. Like the HFS in California, we would be dispensing H2 fuel. Unlike California, all our fuel would be made on site, not trucked in and we only use Electrolysis which uses municipal water and municipal electric. We are the Green New Deal energy and we need you to speak with President Biden about his support for our HFS.
We can have KG of H2 for $7.50 and that give you 68 miles of driving passenger cars. That is just over $.11 per mile driven and gasoline and diesel are much more expensive per mile driven. When H2 is burned what comes out of the tail pipe is WATER not carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and unburned hydrocarbons.
President Biden could create thousands of Green Jobs by his support of Hydrogen and the US Hydrogen Highway. Not only in the fuel production but also in the H2 vehicle production of cars, pickup trucks, buses and Class 8 Over the Road Big Rigs. Have you ever followed a city bus in town? Lots of pollution there. Municipal bus line can be Hydrogen vehicles.
Big Rigs hauling freight across the country can all be Hydrogen vehicles. H2 will give the truckers twice the mileage per equivalent of a gallon of Diesel fuel and H2 is cheaper than diesel by a lot.
Please let me know if you can help. Also if there are congressional drafters of Hydrogen projects possibly our program can be added for review and consideration by the Ways and Means Committee and President Biden. It is a winner. Hydrogen is Clean and Renewable and GREEN, GREEN, GREEN.
Thank you.
Best regards,
Steve Kovacs
President
Hydrogen Fueling Stations USA
720-401-6644 cell
We need president Biden to end discrimination from the non rate regulated utility such as the RECs which receive their financing from the USDA and let the REC utility customers produce renewable energy on a non discriminatory manner at equal pay that the distributing coops pay from their power suppliers (G&T)