A mileage tax is going to be a necessity with electrification in the future, and it doesn't make sense for all weight-classes to pay the same tax as they don't do equal damage to roads.
That's an understatement. Afaik damage to the road scales with weight to the _FOURTH_ power.
Adding a disincentive creates an unpredictable incentive. Just add an incentive to the thing you actually want and be done with it.
Doing both lets those causing the harm to subsidise those providing the solution. Finding everything out of general revenue means taking public-transport riding city folks’ funds to pay for suburbanites’ electric SUVs.
That's how government works. Everybody pays for things that the majority agrees are good for the people.
It's not like a gas tax doesn't cost those public-transport riding city fold money. A gas tax increased the price of everything that uses gas, from the bus they ride in to every single product they purchase. They're subsidizing those electric SUVs either way, it's just hidden from them, which is how politicians like it.
