Not really. One, the batteries are extremely heavy. And two, the heavier the vehicle, the heavier the batteries, so electric passenger trucks are much heavier due to the batteries. I agree that a weight tax might be useful—I’d like to see such disincentives levied at the manufacturer level.
Yes, they'd probably be more effective—and politically feasible—at the manufacturing level, ala CAFE standards.
Yes the eTrucks curb weights are insane. The Ford lightning is over 6,000 lbs (F-150 is 4-6k). The Silverado EV is over 8,500 and can reach 9,000! The best solution to this is for all these dumb flat EV fees states are passing to be based on curb weight (and mileage too if we can).
I would add though that road damage caused by vehicle weight scales at the 4th power of weight. So yes EVs can cause more damage and we should work to make them lighter, but the vast majority of the damage you see to the roads is much larger commercial trucks: www.denenapoints.com/relationship...
Road use fees based on vehicle weight and mileage would be politically impossible for gas cars, but right wing anti EV sentiment makes them a possibility for EVs. And EVs can be light. My Bolt weighs 3,500 lbs basically the same as a Toyota Camry. As batteries improve a new version could be lighter.
My Bolt has a 66 kWh battery. The cells have 220 Wh/kg and with all the pack structure it drops to 135 Wh/kg to give a total pack weight of ~1,000 lbs. Solid state is already producing 375 Wh/kg batteries. They're more structural and temp resistant so a 270 Wh/kg pack seems very plausible.
Such a pack would shave 500 lbs off my Bolt, putting it in Honda Civic weight territory. For a 2,800 lb 215 kWh Silverado battery this tech could cut over 1000 lbs easily. The main issue is economics of it, but a weight fee adds economic incentive to lighten cars/trucks to spur this on.
Researchers have made cells that are over 700 wh/kg in a lab, so there's a possibility of saving even more weight years down the road. The holy grail is a structural battery, so the frame of the car itself is a battery. That basically adds zero weight, though repairs after a crash might be insane.
I could get behind a linear ton-mile rate for road tax. Yeah, OTR trucks cause orders of magnitude more damage. But lighter vehicles still demand roads. Simplicity with a degree of proportionality would be easier to roll out.
If folks were going to levy tax, it could be on the mean of the tare and permitted gross weight (allowing 2000kg or what the US version of that is as a minimum). Give a discount to people based on adding up the distance from their home to the nearest 3 farms.