BYD Auto 3/manufacturer
A significant decree for 110,000 electric car owners, many of them residents of the periphery, was approved today in the Knesset: the Finance Committee approved the regulations comparing the amount of the license fee for electric vehicles to the license fee for non-electric vehicles.
The regulations were approved at the end of a stormy debate after the proposal for them had already been rejected once, and will result in the cost of the license fee increasing by an average of 2,300 shekels per vehicle, with the aim of bringing into the state coffers about 230 million shekels per year. However, the chairman of the committee Moshe Gafni (Torah Judaism) agreed to make it easy for the drivers, and stated that the change will only take effect in January 2025 instead of this coming July.
Meaning: any tram driver whose test is before December 31, will be able to pay the current rate of NIS 546 The rest will pay a toll like gasoline and diesel vehicles, depending on the price group and the age of the vehicle, ignoring the type of drive.
The Ministry of Finance, with the support of the Minister of Transportation Miri Regev, stated in the explanation of the regulations that the impact of electric vehicles on the infrastructure and the resulting economic costs, as well as the costs of handling them In the licensing system, they are no different from non-electric vehicles.
MK Yanon Azoulai (Shas): "It can't be that with one hand they tell us to encourage green, subsidize, and tax, and with the other hand they do the opposite. Do you want to introduce a travel tax? When, how much? And how does it work out with the environment and health? It will benefit traffic jams "Will they travel less?".
MK Noor Shiri (Yesh Atid): "The state does not want to encourage electric vehicles, it's money, it's revenue for it."
MK Imtan Khatib Yassin (RAM): "Electric vehicles are also purchased today by the middle class, By those who want to save fuel."
Itai Rabad, CEO of Tesla Israel, said in the discussion that "the most expensive Tesla in the world is sold in Israel. In the world it is sold for 40 thousand euros, in Israel it starts at 220 thousand shekels. What the State of Israel is doing, through the purchase tax that climbed to 35%, the percentage of car deliveries is going to decrease. Europe is moving forward, with benefits for buyers, manufacturers, importers, we are going in the opposite direction. The base vehicle will cost NIS 300,000 when the state compares the purchase tax between an electric vehicle and gasoline. We are keeping the electric vehicle away from the Israelis."
Eitan Ferns, CEO of the Association of Green Energy Companies for Israel, said that "after so many years of green taxation, the tax authority is ruining the issue of the electric vehicle. They are signaling to the public: do not buy an electric vehicle. Let's introduce everything, you bring the benefit, then you define the electric vehicle only for those who have a private charger. You run to bring money, impose the tax on 3.3 A million polluting vehicles."
In the discussion, the Treasury presented data according to which drivers already pay about NIS 5.3 billion a year in licensing fees. They also argued that the tax increase is not expected to harm the penetration of electric vehicles, and presented that the gradual reduction in benefits for the electric vehicle does not harm its entry into the market in Israel either, and that the benefits provided in Israel are relatively high compared internationally.
The chairman of the committee, MK Moshe Gafni, said that "we held a discussion, various questions were raised, we will hear the various answers and I intend to put the wording up for a vote. I agreed to this since it was explained to me that without this funding there is no budget for public transportation reform, if not It will have a majority, it won't."