Well, you referred to it as a 'hit'.
Roads are paid for by gas taxes, as a user fee. There's nothing wrong with electric cars also paying a user fee to maintain those roads.
It is a hit. If the people who are purchasing these $41,000 golf carts want to delude themselves into believing that they are "saving" money by purchasing one, I think a government imposed user fee is yet another pin in their balloon of self delusion.
I think your premise is wrong. The rich people who are early adopters of new technology are buying it because that's what they do. That includes the Michael Moores, Bill Mahers, and assorted Hollywood types who also were the first to buy the Prius.
Then there are the people like Slapstick, who could have bought another BMW, or an Acura TL, or an Audi A6, or any number of similarly priced sports cars. For them, there is significant savings by not having to buy gas (or as much of it).
I seriously doubt that there is anyone who normally would buy a $25k car paying an extra $16k to save gas money.
You should talk to Don...see his post above.
So, you gonna man up? or crawl back to mommy?