I absolutely agree with you.
The potential to track everywhere you go is disturbing on several levels.
When I lived in Singapore I saw this first hand because all the freeways are toll roads. I believe that an electronic toll pass thingamabob is required or at least I didn’t know anyone that didn’t have one. If someone robs a 7/11 and leaves the scene of the crime in a white Camry but nobody saw the license plate the first thing the police do is check the tolls system for any toll tag registered to a person with a white Camry. They then start knocking on the doors of every white Camry owner who happened to be on the road in that area, at that time. I understand the crime fighting element but the total lack of privacy and lack of a presumption of innocence is disconcerting at a minimum and frightening when I thought about it.
That said owners of electric vehicles are getting price brakes through government subsidies to the cost of vehicle and they pay no road maintenance tax. Thus, the present system is just as intrusive is some important respects because it creates a privileged class of drivers who are directly subsidized by other drivers, often of lower socioeconomic classes who can’t afford the still expensive even after subsidy Tesla. Tesla drivers need to pay the $1100 dollar a year they owe in road tax. The average gasoline powered car owner does this electric and hybrid owners should too because. When you consider the government incentives drivers in hybrid and electric vehicles are really driving vehicles that are very expensive to operate, they just get other people to pay for part of the operation cost. That is not just and it should not be so.
If I convert my Mazda to propane and don’t pay the road tax as if I was running on gasoline I go to jail. Why should a “Model S” Tesla driver not be arrested for doing the same thing?
The only real alternative to the wide spread use of toll roads if hybrid and electric vehicles continue to become more common is some form of straight “Transportation tax” accessed to all vehicle owners (Not drivers but owners) that is based not upon distance traveled but upon the weight of the vehicle owned. This has its own problems not the least of which is suddenly charging people $1100 dollars a year just to have a valid driving license tag.
It's certainly a boon for Divorce Lawyers.
A quick search of "trucks vs cars road wear" found that an 80,000 18-wheeler causes 9,600 times the damage as a 4,000 pound car! Source
The article states the damage is exponential. The weight doubles 4.322 times from 4,000 to 80,000. (See MATH NOTE below.) The increased damage from one doubling is 8.345 times. So even an 8-ton (16,000 pound) truck would cause about 70 times the damage as a 4,000 pound car (8.345 x 8.345)!
If fuel taxes were actually based on road wear caused, trucks should pay almost all the tax. As usual, anything politicians and government do is messed up.
MATH NOTE: The doubling factor would at first appear to be 4.25 since 4,000 --2x--> 8,000 --2x--> 16,000 --2x--> 32,000 --2x--> 64,000 --1.25x--> 80,000. However, since the change is exponential 2^4.322=20, which is the ratio needed for 80,000/4,000.