Is road-user charging for EVs a good idea?

Electric vehicles charging (via Joenomias)

Following South Australia's announcement a few weeks ago, Victoria has just announced that it will be the second state in Australia to introduce a road-user charge (RUC) for Electric Vehicles. The stated rationale is to replace fuel excise - EVs don't burn petrol, so this revenue source will disappear as we transition from Internal Combustion Engines (ICEs) to EVs. But critics say that this disincentivises EV ownership, and will slow down that transition. So is it a good idea or not? 

Primer: Should you buy an electric car?

Electric vehicle and charger (via Walter Baxter)

Knowing my keen interests in transport and climate change, people sometimes ask me whether they should buy an electric car for environmental reasons. The short answer is "it depends", and the long answer is annoyingly complicated, so to help others who might be wondering the same thing (and to help illustrate a point I want to make in tomorrow's blog post) I thought I'd summarise the key points here. 

Airport Rail and the Geelong Diversion

HCMTs will run to the Airport via the Metro 1 tunnel (via RPV)

The Age and the Herald Sun are reporting that the State and Federal governments have come to an agreement on the Airport Rail project. Let's take a look at what they've agreed to, and what it means for different groups.