Lege Trend. Pay as you Drive. How do you tax Ride Share. This State has an idea:

Who will be responsible for pay as you drive taxes in Minnesota for ride sharing? Ride share companies

What is the reason for taxing the companies? More people will not own vehicles as ride share becomes more popular as do EV, and autonomous vehicles

Governing | With Gas Taxes in Peril, More States Study Alternatives

3 Bits to be informed. Public Private Ride Share Partnership. A Ride Share & a D.A. office walk into…

Where: El Dorado County, CA (Sacramento area)

The Partnership: With Lyft & Uber

The partnership benefits:

  • The El Dorado County D.A.’s goal was to increase the number of safe rides to reduce the number of intoxicated drivers
  • Lyft and Uber offered $10 discount to any new rider with a ride origin or destination in El Dorado, Sacramento, Yolo or Placer counties
  • The partnership grew from the DA’s outreach campaign to reduce the number of drunk drivers

Tahoe Daily Tribune | Lyft and Uber partner…

Regulatory TREND. 3 Study Results. Colorado Pay As You Drive vs. Gas Tax

Colorado Department of Transportation released the results of a pay as you drive pilot study & here’s the results:

  • There will be credit for any payment of the gas tax
  • Participants reported that the pay as you drive system is fair
  • CDOT remains unsure about the future of the pay as you drive program

The parameters for the pilot:

  • 4 months
  • Participants from 27 Colorado counties
  • Participants reported how much they drove by:
    • using GPS tracker
    • photographing their odometer
    • other technology…

Legal Trend. Disclosing Ride Share Data at Airports. Appellate Court Says Yes. 2 Reasons Why.

A Florida appeals court ruled that information collected by the County for ride share companies operating at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is subject to open records.

How did we get here? Taxi companies requested  the ride share data from the county under open records laws. The county said the data isn’t subject to open reocords. The taxi companies sued. The lower court said aggregate number of pickups and the fees paid were not trade secrets.

2 Reasons the appellate…

TX Attorney General Opinion Watch. Manufacturers vs. Dealers.

Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has requested an Attorney General opinion as to whether a dealer that performs manufacturer warranty repair violates the Occupations Code.

Why? A manufacturer or distributor cannot act like a dealer under Texas law.

Again, why? Texas Automobile Dealer Association filed a complaint with TX DMV claiming Cummins South Plains LLC violated this separation by performing manufacturer warranty repair work on diesel engines

Where is the legislative clean up likely?  …

5 Benefits of Texas Central Rail.

The chairman of the board of Texas Central Partners lists 5 reasons Texans should be excited about high speed rail:

  • it’ll set Texas apart
  • it’ll be the largest privately funded project in the nation
  • It won’t be disruptive, the noise is a “swish” from the electric train
  • it won’t have any crossings, because of the speed, the train will be elevated 25-35 feet
  • jobs. there will be 10,000 jobs for 5-6 years

KWTX | Temple: McLane says high speed rail is something to get excited about

4 Reasons a High Speed Rail Study Was Shut Down in the Midwest.

Where: Minnesota

The reasons that the Minnesota Department of Transportation was stopped from completing a high sped rail study:

  • Republicans denied the study federal funds for completion
  • Republicans said the study was a waste of taxpayer dollars
  • Republicans say Minnesotoans opposes high speed rail
  • A Republican said its not an economically viable project

Governing | High-Speed Rail Study Shut Down in the Midwest

Lege Trend. Direct Sales Bill Draft in the Empire State.

State Legislature looking to expand electric vehicle manufacturer sales: New York

What does the 2018 bill look like?

  • Limits current manufacturer sales of EV vehicles to 20 locations in New York
    • Requiring geographically diverse locations in upstate New York
  • Requires that the manufacturer-seller also have repair services
  • Applies only to manufacturers that were licensed to sell in March 2014

What’s current law on electric vehcile manufacturer sales in NY? 5 Tesla sales locations are…

Business TREND begets Lege TREND. Airbnb for Cars. Rent your unused car.

The business trend: Turo, a car sharing platform that describes itself as Airbnb for cars

The policy issues: liability and insurance

The platform offers insurance coverage, how are policy affected: Coverage levels and addressing the platform in statute

Business Insider via Register Citizen  | We tried the ‘Airbnb for cars,’ and it could upend the car-rental industry