[HN Gopher] Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electri...
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Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
Author : oxplot
Score : 104 points
Date : 2020-11-21 17:25 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thedriven.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (thedriven.io)
| Causality1 wrote:
| Road taxes should be directly proportional to how much wear a
| vehicle causes to the road. That ranges to effectively zero for
| bikes and pedestrians to dozens of times as much as a car for
| eighteen-wheelers.
| cityofdelusion wrote:
| Indeed, road damage is a 4th power function off the load of a
| vehicle. I feel this would be fairly easy to implement at
| registration (at least here in the states, weight is part of
| the registration application).
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| This sounds fair except that trucks perform an essential
| service. Heavy taxation of the trucking industry just raises
| the price of food and other necessities.
| ggreer wrote:
| Shipping is important but current trucks aren't the only way
| to transport goods. Taxing vehicles based on their road wear
| would incentivize the industry to move to smaller trucks that
| don't cause as much damage to roads.
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| But you'd need more trucks to move equivalent goods; seems
| like a wash to me.
| ggreer wrote:
| The point is to tax externalities so that incentives are
| aligned. In this case you'd get much less road wear for
| the same cargo delivered.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Sure, but you're still paying the same tax, its just buried
| under a different line item.
|
| And at least for non-food goods, I tend to think usage taxes
| are appropriate, since consumption (usage) tends to go up as
| income goes up.
|
| I'm particularly interested to see where we go as more and
| more shopping moves to home delivery. In theory, you save
| wear because each individual isn't driving to the store and
| back, but you're also increasing the number of large/heavy
| vehicles. And heavy vehicles account for basically all road
| damage.
| peapicker wrote:
| Further, large trucks don't travel on many roads, which are
| useful roads to people throughout suburban and rural areas.
| These roads need maintenance too, even if the wear is more from
| weather. As a car owner, one has to participate in maintenance
| of the system somehow.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| If the taxes are going in a road maintenance fund, yes. In many
| countries road taxes are just taxes, in my country they are
| used to fund the general budget and over 50% of the budget is
| going to various forms of benefits.
| bedhead wrote:
| I love these little examples of the government acting literally
| like mafia bosses.
| StreamBright wrote:
| That, and it usually against progress.
| ezzaf wrote:
| I actually think this is quite reasonable. One issue with the
| "wait until they are a larger share of the market" argument is
| trying to add a tax gets harder the more people are used to not
| paying it. The earlier you introduce it the easier it should be.
|
| EVs clearly use roads and should pay to use them. Yes ICE
| vehicles have serious side effects, and we should encourage a
| switch. But it shouldn't have to be by giving EVs a free ride. A
| carbon tax would discourage both CO2 emitting cars, and the coal
| power generators that make up the majority of Victoria's energy
| generation.
|
| Note: I live in Victoria, but don't drive an EV (yet).
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| Everyone benefits almost equally from the road system, regardless
| of whether they drive. Emergency services, food and other goods,
| the entire economy depends on the roads. Taxation to fund road
| maintenance should be central and universal, and not directed at
| individual vehicles, other than perhaps a sales tax based on
| weight.
| Zigurd wrote:
| That sounds "fair" but amounts to a massive subsidy of diesel
| powered heavy trucking.
|
| TBF, it is possible to build roads that trucks do not quickly
| destroy, and maybe the expense of doing that makes sense in
| some cases.
|
| Everything _except_ heavy trucking would pay much less to
| maintain roads, but for trucks wearing them out. While you
| suggest a tax based on vehicle weight, which might also seem
| "fair," that still does not capture the disproportionate wear,
| order of magnitude more, caused by heavy trucking.
| tomp wrote:
| So? You need trucks to deliver stuff (food etc) if you want
| to live in a city.
|
| The correct way of looking at this isn't by asking "what's
| fair" but instead "what we want to incentivise". People
| moving out of cities? Ramp up city property taxes. People
| moving into cities (more efficient)? Subsidise transport of
| goods. More green energy? Tax CO2 / fuel, subsidise (clean)
| electricity. Less trucks, more railways? Tax trucks more,
| _but_ this hardly makes sense _unless_ rail a viable
| alternative (i.e. there's enough railways leading to the
| city).
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| There are different ways to ship by truck. Maybe you want
| to encourage more axles and a slightly lighter max load,
| which could easily drop the damage by a factor of 10.
| upofadown wrote:
| >It points out the petrol excise goes into general revenue rather
| than road funding...
|
| OK, but this is incomplete. We would have to know how much the
| government spends on roads. For all we know the government spends
| more than they get in excise tax.
| guerby wrote:
| Tax on using roads make sense as road maintenance costs money
| that has to come from somewhere.
|
| But climate change is also a question of timing and transition,
| EV will be taxed at some point what about timing and message:
|
| - do we want to replace fossil fuel for transportation? - if so
| how fast do we want to do it?
|
| Taxing EV right now might not be the best idea...
|
| EV is also less imports, less pollution (including less noise) so
| it will have some net positive budgetary effect.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The correct thing might be to add the road tax early as to not
| need to change the TCO calculation later, when people already
| own the vehicles.
|
| To keep encouraging EV purchases, instead offset the road tax
| by subsidies for new cars. That brings more cars into the pool.
|
| The subsidies can be more or less than the road tax, the point
| is that the subsidies are trivial to remove later, but a tax is
| harder and more unfair to those who already purchased a car
| assuming a specific cost of ownership.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Oregon decided last year? Year before? That their registration
| fees were going to be based on efficiency of the vehicle, so the
| gas burning cars end up paying less to register. I get trying to
| have EVs pay their fair share, but having to pay more than double
| what a massively polluting much heavier truck has to pay is kind
| of a slap in the face. I'd much rather pay per kwh.
| dsq wrote:
| Governments that have fuel excise taxes will do anything to keep
| their income flowing, including sabotaging EVs and public
| transport. This is why I would always snicker when reading Tom
| Friedman's harping on a fuel excise tax:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20friedman.html
|
| Every new tax always leads to increased spending then to more tax
| ad nauseum.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| The problem with all these taxes is one of 'pain' and political
| cost.
|
| If fuel taxes and, say, VAT, were abolished and personal income
| tax adjusted to make up the revenue that would create a
| political shitstorm and public outrage even if people end up
| paying exactly the same amount per year.
|
| Governments like relatively "stealthy" taxes. At the same time
| people want public spending so it's a political game of giving
| people what they ask for without making them feel too much that
| they need to pay for it...
| moralsupply wrote:
| Also: taxes are arbitrarily imposed through coercion, therefore
| they are not legitimate under an ethical standpoint, no matter
| how one wants to cut it. The idea of a "social contract" to
| justify taxation is absurd, to say the least (did you ever sign
| it voluntarily?).
|
| If the government can print its own money (which you're forced
| to use), why does it need to make you work and pay taxes to get
| that money back?
|
| The money the government "prints" has no value on itself, it
| needs your work to "value" its money. Taxation is nothing but
| the imposition the government puts on you to work "for free" so
| that it can print as much money as it wants and increase its
| own size.
|
| Never "defend" taxes of any sort, they are unethical and
| essentially constitute slavery.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Because inflation is considered to be bad (not sure whether
| it's worse than the tax system though), but more importantly,
| an inflation tax is regressive in that richer people can
| afford to store their wealth in things that do not inflate
| away (and even deflate due to this kind of speculation).
|
| Also, taxes are probably a smarter way to deal with negative
| externalities than regulation.
| moralsupply wrote:
| Inflation is taxation on your savings. It's effectively the
| same thing as any other tax.
|
| Laws and regulations are the reason as to why taxes exist
| in the first place. The government holds the monopoly of
| force, therefore it can issue any laws and regulations it
| wants. Because of that it can have a monopoly on the
| currency and tax its people.
| ffggvv wrote:
| how is that sabotage? it's just not exempting them from a road
| tax
| hourislate wrote:
| Follow the money.
|
| This probably has little to do with maintaining roads, fairness ,
| etc. It has more to do with finding a new revenue source to take
| advantage of. Sort of like Douce Bank saying that Work from Home
| people should pay a WFH Tax.
|
| _The most enthusiastic proponent of an EV tax has been the
| Infrastructure Partnerships Australia_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Partnerships_Au...
|
| Infrastructure Partnerships Australia is an independent think
| tank that looks for ways to raise capital. To justify their
| existence, they look for ways to separate the masses from their
| money. Just another private group run by Corporate hacks and
| sleazy Gov.
|
| ICE Vehicles pay registration fees and a gas tax that's suppose
| to go into the Road Infra but never entirely does. EV's pay
| registration fees and I'm sure there is already a tax on
| electricity that is used to charge them just like there is a gas
| tax for ICE Vehicles. So isn't this double taxation?
|
| Perhaps the problem here is you could get a few Solar Panels and
| a Battery/Storage device and deny them their revenue/profit/tax.
| We can't have that, can we....
|
| As soon as technology starts digging into the pockets of Tax
| Revenue, a new Tax comes along to negate any savings benefit for
| the consumer.
| troughway wrote:
| When the brunt of the complaints amounts to people tweeting
| discontent, you know where things are headed. That's the only
| real shame in this whole ordeal.
| schappim wrote:
| In Australia most already fall under the Federal "Luxury Car
| Tax"[1]. Cars with a luxury car tax (LCT) value over the LCT
| threshold attract an LCT rate of 33%.
|
| A Tesla model 3 starts at $AUD 66,900 in Australia.
|
| https://www.ato.gov.au/rates/luxury-car-tax-rate-and-thresho...
| SilentBan wrote:
| Is there a country that is more despicable than Australia? I mean
| among the civilized world, not about the Russias and Chinas of
| the world.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I'm not really sure there's a good answer here.
|
| Fuel tax is 43 cents a litre. Australian cars right now avg about
| 13.1 litres per 100km. So you're looking at ~$5.6 per 100km for
| fuel tax.
|
| This tax is adding $2.5 tax per 100km for electric.
|
| Right now, EVs are absolutely creating an regressive tax
| situation with regards to fuel. Those who can afford to buy
| newer, efficient cars can usually save money on tax over those
| who can't. For electric, it was worse - because they do tend to
| be more expensive to purchase up front, and they paid no fuel tax
| at all.
|
| And frankly, infrastructure is expensive, and governments need to
| plan on continuing to maintain it.
|
| That said - I think the only real answer here is a more thorough
| overhaul of how you tax road usage. Perhaps it's time to ditch
| the fuel excise tax entirely, and tax all drivers based on
| (vehicle weight * kms driven * some constant).
|
| Encourage drivers to move to lighter vehicles which cause less
| wear and tear on the road, and drop the disparity between fuel
| and electric. They both use the same tires.
| coco87 wrote:
| I have to pay extra tax for my hybrid it's sucks because the
| battery is old and my fuel efficiency is way down like a
| regular car so yeah I feel picked in for having the the car hey
| upvote this because it's true you I never post but this means
| something to me guys
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > For electric, it was worse - because they do tend to be more
| expensive to purchase up front, and they paid no fuel tax at
| all
|
| California was cutting $10,000 checks to rich people buying
| $80,000 sports cars called Teslas. You could be a solo driver
| in an HOV lane for a long period of time, in a part of the
| world where rich people's negative experience with the outside
| world is disproportionately traffic.
|
| For every two Teslas worth of subsidies, for rich people who
| might actually drive very little, you could buy a poor person
| who actually needs a car a whole Prius.
|
| > Encourage drivers to move to lighter vehicles which cause
| less wear and tear on the road
|
| As other people said everyone benefits from roads. Cyclists
| still need food delivered to grocery stations in trucks.
| Parents still have their kids driven around in busses. Everyone
| needs construction vehicles to build more housing.
|
| The vast majority of the value of roads is realized by
| commuters. It's not even just the long-ass trip some sucker
| makes commuting from his low cost community in the boonies.
| There are a dozen different trucks that need to go that same
| trip to wildly inefficiently provide him with services.
|
| The most logical thing to do would be to tax surburban and
| rural residents at a state level, and sending that money back
| to cities. That lifestyle is so preposterously inefficient as
| an alternative to paying a landlord absolutely more but
| relatively less to live in a city. Suburban and rural dwellers
| just externalize their costs to the city people collecting
| their garbage, running their government, banks and hospitals,
| teaching their kids, training their police, firefighters,
| running their courtrooms, etc. - stuff they imagine is in
| "their" communities but is essentially welfare from vastly
| richer cities.
| mulmen wrote:
| I think use tax on infrastructure is a bad idea full stop. If
| you want to encourage more efficient cars or less driving do it
| with car tabs.
|
| I don't need to drive my car on a road to derive value form it.
| In the same way that I don't have children but still benefit
| from schools.
|
| Property taxes should be the source of funding for
| infrastructure projects.
|
| Use taxes are regressive and result in underfunded
| infrastructure with the wealthy paying less and adding another
| barrier to the poor making ends meet.
| ACow_Adonis wrote:
| Aside from an attempt to generate some inelastic revenue during
| a pandemic, I'm seeing very little talk of the other probable
| policy goal/implication of this change: that is to say,
| disincentives against cars and private transport in general
| with a hope to substitute to public transport. Like comparisons
| of Apple to Intel debates, this one is missing the clear other
| player in the room.
|
| While it's arguable about how successful this is in either
| pragmatic or policy terms, dropping the context that the
| government is investing in both:
|
| a) cross city train tunnel
|
| b) outer suburban loop
|
| c) airport line through Sunshine interchange
|
| d) faster trains from Geelong upgrade
|
| is to likely lose some important perspective.
|
| This is on top of Melbourne's (which makes up easily the vast
| majority of the population of the state) already impressive
| public transport infrastructure.
|
| Again, maybe this seems weird because people are interpreting
| it from the frame of private vehicle ownership, where the
| comparison is between ICT and EV. But that's not the correct
| comparison: it's actually a policy of moving between private
| and public transport. And from that perspective, it can also
| arguably make sense from an environment perspective as well.
| ip26 wrote:
| One of the simplest arguments against it to me is basically to
| look at the landscape. For example, in the US, ballpark 1% of
| cars are electric. Meanwhile, the flat federal fuel tax is not
| indexed to inflation & hasn't been increased in almost thirty
| years. Yet everyone is in this panic about how EVs are going to
| cause a huge revenue shortfall!? I'm not opposed to EVs paying
| their share, but something is rotten in Denmark.
|
| Anyway, shifting fuel taxes onto tires might make sense. All
| cars use tires, no matter the fuel, it requires no odometer
| reading, and a tire has a designed application & load range
| which ought to translate reasonably well to anticipated road
| wear.
| markdown wrote:
| If you make it too expensive to change tires, people will
| drive for much longer with worn out tires, risking lives.
| [deleted]
| mikeklaas wrote:
| Good thought, but that might incentivize not replacing worn
| tires
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| This is exactly right. You're in a sense taxing safety!
| rconti wrote:
| yeah, once we get to 25% adoption (or something) we can talk
| about how badly EVs are hurting fuel tax revenue. in the
| meantime, jack up the fuel tax in a planned, regular way, and
| let the market decide :)
| riversflow wrote:
| 2 things. First, pretty sure it's been discussed here
| previously(edit: and is down thread), but I believe the wear
| on the road is like the 4th power of the weight.[1] here's a
| chart describing it. with that considered, I don't think it
| makes sense to even really charge passenger vehicles in the
| US, when we have huge fleets of 80k pound big rigs on the
| road(and the limit is uncapped with overweight
| permits)--charge them.
|
| Second, the problem with tires is that depending on what and
| where you drive you'll use them considerably faster. I live a
| few miles down a very windy chip-sealed[2] road, that I have
| to drive down any time I go anywhere. As a result(best I can
| tell) my tires tend to go bald 10k-20k miles early. Chip seal
| is used because it is cheap, seems regressive that I'd be
| taxed at a higher rate for a poorer road.
|
| [1] https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-
| weigh...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipseal
| [deleted]
| dalbasal wrote:
| Who says you should tax directly based on wear anyway? The
| bigger scarcity is often traffic in any case. Some roads
| have higher costs than others. etc.
|
| Maybe we want to lower transport costs by charging trucks
| less. Maybe we want to encourage electric car viability by
| charging them less. I mean, tax policies have outcomes.
| Doesn't it make sense to target outcomes we want?
|
| Obviously the road needs to be paid for and fuel taxes
| won't work if people don't buy fuel. That said, I think
| it's inevitable that whatever comes next is a policy...
| encourage some stuff, discourage other stuff, benefit
| certain people/sectors and such. ATM, encouraging electric
| vehicle adoption with a fuel tax exemption doesn't seem
| crazy.
|
| It _does_ create a regressive dynamic, where new electrics
| are subsidized by legacy ICE. By the time that represents
| more than a rounding error the fuel tax deficit will be big
| enough that the tax system will be changing anyway.
|
| A better approach is probably a time-of-purchase tax. =
| wldcordeiro wrote:
| That sounds like a solution that wouldn't ever get traction in
| the US with the love of stupidly large trucks and SUVs.
| somesortofsystm wrote:
| I dunno, I think this is a pretty draconian imposition by a
| state known for its decadence in a country that used to like to
| think it was a leader in building new infrastructure in tough
| conditions.
|
| With all the energy resources at Australians' disposal, it sure
| seems off-kilter to not be rewarding those who chose to go more
| efficient.
|
| Would that there were Australias own local industry capable of
| competing with Tesla .. and I say that as a once-proud
| Australian.
|
| With a local industry leading the way, as usual, the Australian
| government could get a clue.
| coryrc wrote:
| The vast majority of road damage is done by heavy trucks. Don't
| need to tax these cars at all.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I think there's a lot of truth in that. That why I was so
| specific about including weight as a factor.
| bnt wrote:
| But you still need to maintain existing and build new roads,
| and not only trucks drive on the road. What about snow? It
| needs to be removed for normal cars as well as trucks.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Snow removal is probably different, but the point is that
| road maintenance due to regular road wear would be
| significantly (perhaps at least an order of magnitude) less
| if there were only passenger cars on the road.
| coryrc wrote:
| In the USA, snow removal is (mostly) not paid from gas tax.
|
| Growth should pay for growth, so, no, we also don't need to
| pay for new roads.
|
| Roads are also funded by property tax.
| adrianN wrote:
| It also needs to be removed for bicycles and pedestrians,
| who don't pay special taxes for that.
| bnt wrote:
| But bicycles don't cause air pollution nor do they damage
| the roads. So you got me puzzled why they should be
| taxes. Pedestrians are taxed too much anyway
| adrianN wrote:
| I was making an argument against taxing EVs. Or I tried
| to.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Passenger car road taxes are an immense subsidy of road
| freight.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| ... and this is why price comparisons between rail and
| truck freight are typically bad, my dad tells me: because
| railways are expected to pay for their tracks, whereas
| trucks' use of the road network is massively subsidised by
| passenger cars.
| truculent wrote:
| > Perhaps it's time to ditch the fuel excise tax entirely, and
| tax all drivers based on (vehicle weight * kms driven * some
| constant).
|
| How about means testing through progressive taxation of income
| or wealth?
| recursive wrote:
| I read somewhere that road damage caused by vehicles is not
| linear with weight. Heavy vehicles do much more damage. I can't
| cite a source, but I recall an exponent between 3 and 4 on the
| leading term. With that in mind, everything but heavy freight
| is basically negligible. And then it's generally for businesses
| where privacy isn't so much of an issue.
| tgb wrote:
| A lot of road damage in some parts of the world is caused by
| nature itself, though. Even roads without any freight traffic
| get frost heaves.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| But for Australia specifically (this article being about
| Australia), frost damage to roads is typically either non-
| existent or negligible. There aren't many roads that are
| exposed to substantially freezing conditions often.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| This is true, but some portion of road maintenance costs is
| independent from vehicle-caused wear-and-tear on the actual
| road surface. You would want this portion to be paid also by
| standard, non-commercial vehicles since these users are
| clearly receiving some value from the existence of a well-
| maintained road.
| adrianN wrote:
| Everybody is receiving benefits from well maintained roads,
| just like everyone is receiving benefits from schools. Why
| special taxes for users unless you want to discourage use?
| Just pay for maintenance from the general budget.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| Because you want to discourage use.
| perlgeek wrote:
| If you pay for maintenance from the general budget, you
| are allowing shipping companies (for example) to
| externalize cost that they incur on society.
|
| This is generally a bad thing, but very concretely it led
| to road traffic growing much faster than rail traffic (or
| canal ship traffic) even in countries with a very dense
| rail network.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _This is true, but some portion of road maintenance costs
| is independent from vehicle-caused wear-and-tear on the
| actual road surface._
|
| A lot it is caused (around here anyway) by water permeating
| and expanding as it freezes.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Road wear creates the variations that ice exacerbates.
| SECProto wrote:
| > This is true, but some portion of road maintenance costs
| is independent from vehicle-caused wear-and-tear on the
| actual road surface.
|
| Possible formula to account for all the variables:
|
| annual tax = F * (A + [B _C_ {D^E} ] )
|
| A = constant for non-loading based degradation (frost
| heave, slope maintenance). Base tax
|
| B = constant to scale the following terms
|
| C = distance driven in km
|
| D = axial weight
|
| E = exponent to account for non-linear relationship of
| axial weight to road degradation
|
| F = adjustment for usage (could adjust for anything - user
| type, income class, vehicle class, etc etc)
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Fourth power of the axle weight.
| adrianN wrote:
| Wikipedia says damage is proportional to axle weight to the
| 4th power:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_weight#cite_ref-13
| chrismorgan wrote:
| I remember my dad telling me that when I was in my late
| teens. That it's the _fourth_ power startled me.
|
| To give an idea of what this means:
|
| For a 50 tonne semi-trailer with five axles, (50/5)4 =
| 10,000 units of damage.
|
| 2 tonne vehicle with two axles, 1 unit of damage.
|
| That one truck, only 25 times as heavy as a pretty heavy
| car, is doing _10,000 times_ as much damage to the road.
|
| Thus indeed if you have basically any heavy freight at all
| on a road, the rest is negligible.
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| The last time this was posted I dug in to this and it
| appeared as though 2 vs 4 tires per axle was not tested,
| in the original or follow up paper usually referenced.
| They were testing trucks vs trucks with the same axle
| type, but different numbers of axles (hence axle weight
| instead of vehicle weight).
|
| It could be that four tires on a truck axle are much more
| effective at spreading the weight than two car tires. Or
| it could be that it's not much better, as the forces are
| still placed on a relatively small area of asphalt.
|
| How this makes cars and trucks compare is, as far as I
| could understand from the literature when I dug in to it,
| an untested open question.
|
| There could be a 10,000 factor difference. Or if two
| tires at each end are spreading the weight over 2x the
| surface area and you assume that matters, then you have
| to divide that 10,000 by 2^4 and it's now only 625x as
| damaging.
|
| I suspect the reason nobody cares enough to test this is
| that it would still be a gap large enough to make cars
| insignificant.
| Someone wrote:
| 100 kg bicycle (including rider), 0.00000625 units of
| damage.
|
| So, getting people out of their cars onto bicycles cuts
| road maintenance cost.
|
| Because of that, building bike lanes/paths can be cheaper
| than not building them.
|
| (And 50 tonne trucks are very rare on most city roads, I
| hope)
| jeffbee wrote:
| Your analysis is fine but the first step, or a concurrent step,
| needs to be tripling that motor fuel tax. That would only just
| barely bring it up to the necessary level of carbon taxation,
| nevermind the roads.
| robocat wrote:
| Facts:
|
| * One litre of petrol creates 2.3kg of CO2.
|
| * A going market price for an offset is $25-50 per metric ton
|
| So the tax per litre to offset the CO2 is 6 to 12 cents.
| gambiting wrote:
| "Australian cars right now avg about 13.1 litres per 100km"
|
| Wait, that can't be true. That's an insane number if correct.
| Here in EU a car that averages 7-8L/100km is considered to have
| poor fuel economy. My previous car was a Mercedes AMG that over
| 4 years averaged 12L/100km and that was considered absolutely
| abysmal by everyone, people were wondering how I can afford the
| fuel for it. And you're telling me that the _average_ for
| Australian cars is higher than that??
| mcguire wrote:
| For USians, that's 18 mpg. Low, but not horrible for some
| trucks and large SUVs.
| rconti wrote:
| can't be a fleet average though.
| basicneo wrote:
| https://www.caradvice.com.au/658919/australia-could-
| become-a... might explain some of it.
| 0xfaded wrote:
| 1. Ford Ranger 2. Toyota Hilux 3. Toyota Rav4
| 4. Hyundai i30 5. Mazda CX5 6. Toyota Land
| Cruiser
|
| 13.1L/100km seems pretty good in context.
| gambiting wrote:
| Does it? In Europe you would only have something like the
| Hilux, RAV4 or the Land Cruiser with a diesel engine, and
| then maybe on a bad day they would average 8L/100km. More
| like 5-6L/100km in normal use. I imagine if those were
| fitted with a big petrol engine then those numbers would
| explode, but then the idea of a big work truck fitted with
| anything other than a diesel just seems wasteful.
| 0xfaded wrote:
| Diesels are about 25% in Australia. In my extended
| family, several are mechanics, everyone has land
| cruisers. But second cars are also common. My parents
| have a Hyundai Ionic and a Prado (smaller land cruiser).
|
| I live in Europe now, and you simply can't compare the
| driving to Australia. Some roads are genuinely scary with
| the occasional cow or roo to hit.
|
| Electrification is much more feasible in Europe, and the
| sooner the better. Every little diesel engine sounds like
| a truck. Now if only they would stop piling the taxes on
| electrics ...
| davidivadavid wrote:
| As a European, 13.1 l/100 km seems... insane. What's happening
| here?
| pmontra wrote:
| The last time I was in Australia I rented a Toyota
| Landcruiser and went from Cairns to Cape York and back.
| Probably all the cars on that road did 13 l / 100 km or
| worse. Then I rented a small Kia from Sydney to Bathurst.
| Maybe I refueled only before returning the car in Sydney.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| It seems insane to me as well. My 2010 Mazda 3, used almost
| entirely on country driving with an average speed of 81km/h
| since I got it, sits at an average of 5.2L/100km. I recall
| figures from a couple of family members with similar or
| slightly larger cars on mostly Melbourne suburban driving,
| and they're something like 8-9L/100km. My parents' Nissan
| Elgrand (2007 I think?) hit something like 13-15L/100km
| before it got switched to LPG, if I recall correctly, and it
| was acknowledged to be a _huge_ fuel guzzler (so they got rid
| of it once enough of their children had left home that they
| didn't need it), far more than the smaller-and-lighter-but-
| same-seat-count '86 Tarago had been.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Has to be including heavy vehicles?
|
| Australians still by V8's but not _that_ many of them can
| be...
| dmurray wrote:
| It is including heavy vehicles, but also motorcycles. The
| average for "passenger vehicles" is still about 10.5 l/km.
| Just bigger cars I think.
|
| https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/car-
| insurance/research/avera...
| Baeocystin wrote:
| Motorcycles, perhaps surprisingly, aren't all that much
| more efficient than regular gas cars. The tl;dr is that
| their aerodynamics are terrible, and their engines not
| tuned for fuel efficiency.
| ElKrist wrote:
| I've lived both in France and Australia.
|
| Australians love 4 wheels drive and bigger cars. In some
| cases it's justified for obvious reasons: rough environments
| with less infrastructure (bush, outback..). In other cases it
| is for softer reasons: a big camping culture, having a big
| car being a social status, towing your boat/jet ski etc.
|
| Also a few other points to consider:
|
| _ Australia enjoyed economic growth for a long time and
| Australians are rich.
|
| _ Fuel is cheap. According to www.globalpetrolprices.com
| right now a liter of gasoline is 0.74 euros compared to 1.33
| for France
|
| _ The road infrastructure is more favourable for big cars
| than in Europe (big/plenty parking spots in most towns in
| Australia).
| chrismorgan wrote:
| It's funny: as an Australian that has visited the USA a
| couple of times (and never been to Europe), I'd repeat half
| of your points but for _America_ rather than Australia.
| Some Australians certainly have large vehicles without good
| cause, but that number is nowhere near as big as in
| America. (Notwithstanding this, my Dad and I have discussed
| the concept of a ban or extreme tax on owning big vehicles
| unless you can justify why you need them (e.g. tradie or
| large family), with country dwellers immediately exempt for
| convenience.) And fuel is _way_ cheaper in the USA than in
| Australia.
| anthonygd wrote:
| I don't see why a large family would be an excuse. You
| need a large vehicle because you chose to need a large
| vehicle?
| javagram wrote:
| A large family creates many future taxpayers. The state
| has an interest in subsidizing or at least not
| discouraging the creation of large families
| mulmen wrote:
| That seems like an oversimplification. Rural states
| receive more in benefits than they pay in federal tax.
| Large families by necessity are going to favor rural
| areas and states. It is not clear to me how a large
| family is a net tax benefit, there are too many other
| factors to consider.
|
| Having more people pay tax does not mean there is a net
| increase in tax collected.
| dschuler wrote:
| In France, you end up paying a lower tax on your vehicle
| the more children you have, so a family with four
| children might pay the same taxes on a large diesel as a
| childless couple with a tiny gas car. I was trying to
| register my 3-cylinder 1.0 liter vehicle, just to find
| out I'd have to pay 1500 Euro tax for my gas guzzler.
| Ugh.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I suppose just larger cars coming from larger roads and
| smaller fuel tax ?
| perlgeek wrote:
| > That said - I think the only real answer here is a more
| thorough overhaul of how you tax road usage. Perhaps it's time
| to ditch the fuel excise tax entirely, and tax all drivers
| based on (vehicle weight * kms driven * some constant).
|
| If you want to tax fairly based on road wear, you have to tax
| by axle weight to the 4th power * distance driven.
|
| That said, there's a pretty simple solution that doesn't send
| the same "we are punishing EV owners with an extra tax"
| message: have a road usage tax for everyone, and slightly
| decrease the fuel tax.
|
| But please, PLEASE, keep most of the fuel tax. Climate change
| is a real, urgent issue, and everything that encourages change
| away from fossil fuel should be kept.
| IronRanger wrote:
| The solution is to tax vehicles by weight, and time and
| location of use.
|
| Melbourne, the State Capital of Victoria, has a big problem
| with congestion at peak hours.
|
| If road use charging like in Singapore or London was
| introduced, it would shift usage to non-peak hours, and raise
| sufficient revenue to offset fuel excise.
|
| But that's politically difficult - whereas applying a tax to
| EVs, which currently very few people use, is much easier.
| bigbubba wrote:
| Taxing milage directly seems to have worse distribution
| properties than taxing gas. Here is what I mean:
|
| Suppose I am driving from New York to Alaska; I fill up my car
| with gas then drive into Ontario. I have now paid New York a
| gas tax but I'm driving on Ontario roads; Ontario gets paid
| nothing for this wear and tear.. until I run out of gas inside
| Ontario. Then Ontario gets their cut. This continues all the
| way until I reach Alaska. The money isn't distributed
| perfectly, but it _is_ distributed.
|
| Now imagine I am instead taxed by the mile. If the car is
| registered in New York, does New York get all the milage tax?
| Do they give any of that to Ontario when I tell them I was in
| Ontario? Probably not, and it would require a lot of book
| keeping for me to keep track of all the places I've been. Does
| Ontario instead check my milage at the borders and charge me an
| exit fee? That seems impractical and potentially problematic.
| Is some sort of vehicle tracking system used to fairly
| distribute the money wherever I drove? Such mass surveillance
| is obviously problematic.
|
| I don't know what the answer is, except for imposing a tax
| anywhere I purchase gas (or electricity.) That's the least bad
| solution I can think of.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| You could tax electricity at public EV charging stations.
| That would have the same desirable distribution properties as
| the existing gas tax.
| bigbubba wrote:
| Yes, I think this is the best way to do it. It may also
| make sense to tax residential power to fund roads, since
| many electric car owners will primarily be charging at
| home. Perhaps this electricity tax could be limited to
| people who are registered as owning electric cars. That
| would follow the same principle of applying the tax where
| the fueling/charging is performed.
| dmurray wrote:
| It's likely most electricity for EVs will be consumed at
| home, though.
| adrianN wrote:
| In Germany, water used for watering your lawn is taxed
| differently from water you use to fill your tub. I'm sure
| we could mandate a separate meter for recharging cars.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Just curious, are there 2 meters?
|
| (I think we do it smarter for electricity: the first x
| kWh at one rate, then up from there, among other billing
| complexities).
| detaro wrote:
| AFAIK: If you want to claim cheaper rate for part of it,
| you need to install a second certified meter for that
| part. If you are willing to go by default rate (which at
| least in some places assumes some ratio) you don't.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Ah. I guess this is all because you don't get charged for
| sewerage on the lawn watering.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| But regardless of whether you charge your EV at home or
| at a supercharger, you will almost certainly be using it
| on public roads.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I remember a comment on HN that said the authors city
| analyzed license plate reader data to find out who was
| driving on the cities roads. 80% of the drivers were from out
| of town. The annoying thing about that, unlike highways much
| of the funding for residential and commercial roads is paid
| for by local taxes.
|
| When I think about transportation I think about a paper I
| read about development of rail. The US and UK's experience is
| you run into market failure with private rail. The broad
| based benefits and network effects are diffuse, too many
| people and businesses benefit indirectly. Which means you
| can't charge high enough fares to pay for a optimal system.
| stouset wrote:
| Taxing mileage (and gas) also has the unfortunate property of
| being generally regressive. Roads benefit us all, but those
| who drive the furthest are often the poorest who live far
| from city centers.
|
| In my (admittedly uneducated) opinion, road taxes should be
| overwhelmingly be paid by commercial vehicles since they
| contribute much more to road damage, their costs will be
| passed on to consumers, and the largest consumers are the
| wealthy. Mileage might make the most sense for that type of
| tax, and I think wouldn't unfairly burden the poor. Maybe
| multiplied by the value of the cargo?
| bigbubba wrote:
| This seems like a pretty good solution; the infrastructure
| is already in place for weighing trucks at borders. Raising
| taxes for trucks to replace gas taxes for cars would also
| incentivize the use of trains, which would be nice.
| repsilat wrote:
| Progressiveness should happen elsewhere -- in income taxes
| and transfer payments. The road user charges can be
| regressive without making the whole system regressive.
|
| If every part of the system needs to be progressive it's
| much more difficult to get the behavioural incentives you
| want.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > Suppose I am driving from New York to Alaska; I fill up my
| car with gas then drive into Ontario. I have now paid New
| York a gas tax but I'm driving on Ontario roads; Ontario gets
| paid nothing for this wear and tear.. until I run out of gas
| inside Ontario. Then Ontario gets their cut. This continues
| all the way until I reach Alaska.
|
| It works roughly like this for trucks through the
| "International Fuel Tax Agreement". Like the "World Series",
| its international because it applies to Canada and US:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=international+fuel+tax+agree.
| ..
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fuel_Tax_Agree.
| ..
| xupybd wrote:
| Pay as you go roads?
|
| RFID tag for your car with roads reading your entrance and
| exit. Then a bill at the end of the month from a single body
| that then divides the tax back to the area that maintains the
| various roads you used. High traffic roads get proportional
| funding. You could even have seamless integration with
| private roads. If someone thinks they can make money out of
| an expensive by pass the government doesn't want to build
| they can.
| bigbubba wrote:
| That seems like an implementation of the 'mass
| surveillance' solution to distribution. That probably
| appeals to many politicians, but to me that is intolerable.
|
| It would also require different governments to cooperate;
| New York would have to be able and willing to redistribute
| part of my milage tax to a foreign country when that
| country says my car has been there. I don't know if that's
| feasible, but cynically I assume it would be difficult at
| best to put into practice.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| You know that's already happening right? For example,
| SunPass in FL will bill you by your license plate as you
| go through automatic readers, and mail you a bill to
| California if that is where your car is registered.
| bigbubba wrote:
| The 'mass' in 'mass surveillance' is a matter of degree.
| Most roads are not presently toll roads. Most are not
| presently tracking all cars that drive on them.
|
| I don't find _' some surveillance happens already, so we
| may as well go all in'_ a compelling argument.
| jdashg wrote:
| Is this a problem big enough to be worth solving?
|
| There are places in the US where people live in no-income-tax
| states but shop across the border on no-sales-tax states.
| This is obviously an abuse, but it's never been enough of a
| problem to really crack down on.
|
| If we can reduce our problems to known problems that aren't a
| big deal, that's good enough! Ship it!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| They've cracked down on it online. eBay now collects sales
| taxes on all US sales.
|
| As a Canadian, I can't offer my items as "no tax" if I
| include US as a shipping destination.
| yaacov wrote:
| > The EV industry accepts that a road user charge is inevitable
| as the car fleets transition to electric, but argue it should
| be introduced fairly and evenly. It points out the petrol
| excise goes into general revenue rather than road funding, and
| EV owners pay more tax than petrol car owners due to higher
| taxes from GST, stamp duty, and luxury car tax.
|
| I think it's ok for one particular tax to be regressive if the
| general taxation scheme is not.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I'm not really sure I agree the general taxation scheme is
| not regressive still. It varies, but at least for ACT, they
| waive stamp tax on new electric cars, and registration is
| $100 cheaper. I also didn't include GST tax for fuel in my
| numbers above (10% of total fuel cost).
|
| So yes, luxury tax does kick in at a lower number (which I
| find silly), but I think overall, you're still creating a
| situation where electric is paying less to use the same
| roads.
|
| That said - Agree with the line you quoted. I think an even
| and fair tax makes sense, but I don't see how you do that at
| the local level when the fuel tax is federal.
| viraptor wrote:
| > tax all drivers based on (... kms driven
|
| This is just not realistic to apply, and especially in
| Australia. You'd need someone to actually record those numbers,
| which would be a massive overhead of salaries on its own. Then
| you have crazy distances... you'd either send the inspector to
| that single farm 300km from the nearest town, or force people
| running it to being the trucks in for a check monthly.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| No reason to not just tie it to the rego.
|
| Let the drivers report the odometer reading, and add the
| amount for the last period to the new cost.
|
| You'd get some folks who lie, but there's already inspections
| in place for sales in some states. If the owner wants to sell
| the vehicle, require an odometer check and a final payment.
|
| Basically - I don't really think there's a ton of extra admin
| cost here. Most folks will self report just fine.
|
| Plus, we should be encouraging emissions inspections anyway.
| At least in the US many states require yearly or bi-yearly
| inspections to confirm nothing is wrong with the emissions
| systems in the vehicle. Good way to encourage basic
| maintenance and to vet manufacturer emission claims against
| real world data.
|
| It's tied to yearly vehicle registration there too, and
| includes an odometer reading.
| donaltroddyn wrote:
| How do you track the number of Kms driven? Is it possible to do
| so while maintaining the privacy of individuals?
| singhrac wrote:
| Every car has an odometer... one could think of a relatively
| convenient scheme where you can get your car inspected once a
| year at any refueling station, and tampering with the
| odometer is a crime. Won't stop everyone, but does it matter?
| donaltroddyn wrote:
| I don't think Odometers are reliable enough, especially as
| the basis for a tax. You'd certainly see an increase in
| average tyre size!
| adrianN wrote:
| They're probably accurate to within less than 10%. How
| many kilometers would you have to drive to save a dollar
| from slightly bigger tyres?
| donaltroddyn wrote:
| I was being slightly facetious in referencing tyre size,
| although people regularly have to adjust speedo/odometers
| by 10% or more when fitting large tyres on off-roaders.
|
| Odometers can have their values changed at will, at least
| in ICE vehicles, often for valid reasons.
| jdashg wrote:
| Fudging do numbers illicitly is already a _huge_ no-no in
| the US.
| donaltroddyn wrote:
| It also is in Ireland, but there are valid reasons, such
| as as replacing an ECU or dash cluster.
|
| Unless auto manufacturers are required to fit much more
| secure odometers, I can't see them in their current
| incarnation used as the basis for a tax.
| bigbubba wrote:
| How do you distribute the money to places where people
| drive but don't live? Gas tax handles this to an extent,
| but milage tax wouldn't; not without border checkpoints or
| mass surveillance.
| canofbars wrote:
| The government has stats on how busy easy road is. Just
| pool all of the money and distribute it based on those
| stats.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| So is Australia that country that actually uses the road tax to
| pay for roads?
| Zenbit_UX wrote:
| No but they are that country that was on fire this year due to
| climate change... How quickly they've forgotten.
| jpollock wrote:
| In many countries, fuel taxes don't go into general revenues,
| they are ring-fenced and allocated for road maintenance. Even if
| they aren't, a reduction in revenue must be offset.
|
| The fact that they aren't charged taxes for use of the roads was
| the incentive. This is removing it in recognition that electric
| vehicles are now enough of a percentage of the fleet to affect
| tax revenue.
|
| New Zealand does the same, with diesel and commercial vehicles
| already paying "road user charges" (RUC) to fund road
| maintenance. Petrol (gasoline) vehicles pay this tax at the pump.
|
| EVs are exempt from the RUC until they represent 2% of the fleet.
|
| https://www.transport.govt.nz/area-of-interest/environment-a...
|
| https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/107372241/ev-drivers-are-bl...
| layoric wrote:
| This approach makes sense, but with Australia, EV sales are not
| close to 2% and are still 0.6% [0], and they are still really
| expensive upfront to buy.
|
| Also in Australia, the fuel tax isn't isolated for use only for
| roads, it is a federal tax that can be (and has been), used for
| other more general expenses.
|
| In a time of "money printer goes brrr" and tax cuts
| disproportionately benefiting the wealthy, nickel and diming
| things like EVs keeping their cost higher makes little sense. I
| like cleaner city air for everyone, reduced CO2 etc, adding
| this tax will make EV choice a lot harder as you'll be hit with
| a tax larger than your fuel bill total, especially if you
| charge off your own solar and for people who buy a second hand
| EV just to drive around town. A 2.5c per km is equivalent to
| doubling the cost of a lot of EVs, example 2015 Nissan Leaf
| 24kWh does ~100km on a full charge of say 20 kWh, at 15c per
| kWh you are looking at $3 fuel and $2.5 tax. 15c is low but
| with combo of solar (which is very common in Australia) or off
| peak this is pretty reasonable. What isn't reasonable is that
| level of tax for something that has more general benefits for
| trying to generate such a small total of revenue at such an
| early stage of sales. There are so many other ways this tax
| could be generated in relation to cars that would encourage
| uptake of these cars while still reducing impact on
| lower/middle income earners, I think this is a very poorly
| thought out tax.
|
| [0]
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/19/electric...
| jdhn wrote:
| I don't understand the opposition to this. These vehicles
| continue to use roads but don't pay any taxes that would help
| maintain roads if they were gas or diesel cars. How is that fair?
| Lammy wrote:
| Probably a lot of Tesla owners on here upset at the thought of
| losing any of the privilege it brings.
|
| Full EVs do more damage to the road than ICE vehicles since
| they're a lot heavier. I'm totally pro-EV, but we should
| definitely pay some part of the tax necessary to maintain the
| roads we drive on.
|
| Some quick searches show:
|
| Mazda MX-5 Miata MY2020 base curb weight: 2403lbs
|
| Toyota Prius MY2020 base curb weight: 3010lbs
|
| Tesla model 3 base curb weight: 4072lbs
| oh_sigh wrote:
| A 4 door luxury sedan would be a better comparison. For
| example, an Audi A4 has a 3700 lbs curb weight.
|
| Also, since road damage scales at something like axle weight
| ^ 4th, balance issues could completely override the 300 lbs
| difference in mass.
|
| For example, if the Tesla 3 can have 2 axles each with 2036
| lbs/axle (because there is no ICE weighing down the front),
| it could theoretically be less damaging to roads than an ICE
| that has one heavy axle and one light axle.
|
| 2 _2036^4 = (x_ 3700)^4 + ((1-x) * 3700)^4. Solving for x =
| 63%, so if more than 63% of an Audi A4s weight is on the
| front axle, it will be approximately worse than a balanced
| Tesla 3 for road wear and tear.
| guerby wrote:
| Model 3 SR+ is 3627 lbs
| dmurray wrote:
| That's an incredibly disingenuous comparison. The Miata is a
| two-passenger roadster, and one of the lightest cars on the
| road. The Model 3 is a 4-door sedan.
| Lammy wrote:
| I tried to think of a fun car that goes fast and a thicc
| hatchback that can carry stuff, because the Tesla is kinda
| both :D
| Zigurd wrote:
| While maintaining pavement is not all of road maintenance, it
| is the central aspect. Trucks wear out roads orders of
| magnitude more than cars. In the US trucks pay much less than
| cars, in total, for road maintenance. It is likely the same in
| Australia. Simply rebalancing the taxation to the amount of
| road wear would eliminate the need to tax EV road use without
| it being a significant subsidy of EVs.
|
| Diesel trucks are also the dirtiest vehicles on the road. It
| makes absolutely no sense to subsidize trucking.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Actually Diesel engines are the most efficient ICE in mass
| production, modern engines respecting the latest emission
| standards (ex: EURO 6) are some of the least dirty vehicles
| on the road. If you compare fuel efficiency per ton per
| kilometer and what is the pollution caused, they become quite
| clean. Yes, older Diesel trucks are dirty and also the ones
| with improper maintenance, but hitting at all trucks because
| of some is not fair.
| Zigurd wrote:
| In the real world, diesels should be taken off the road as
| quickly as possible due to the impracticality of
| controlling particulate emissions and the damage to human
| health caused by those emissions.
|
| Also, euro 6 emission standards are for diesel passenger
| cars. Diesel cars, even with strict emission controls,
| still emit too much dangerous particulates.
| josephcsible wrote:
| My opinion: The transition from ICE vehicles to EVs is a very
| large net benefit to society, so during this period when new
| ICE vehicles are still legal, we should be giving EVs special
| ("unfair") benefits to encourage people to switch. If this new
| tax results in people choosing to buy an ICE vehicle who would
| have bought an EV without it, that's a very bad outcome.
|
| As for the loss of revenue from the gas tax, I think a two-
| phase solution would be best to solve that. In the first phase
| (now), make up the revenue by raising the gas tax. In the
| second phase (once ICE vehicles are almost gone), ban new ICE
| vehicles and then implement this tax. This way, the tax would
| never result in someone buying an ICE vehicle instead of an EV.
| rconti wrote:
| There's a huge gulf between not understanding opposition to a
| particular scheme, and thinking the existing scheme is unfair.
|
| I didn't see anything in this article about how it's levied,
| for one. Are they doing vehicle tracking, as was proposed in
| places in the US? Certainly I can see opposition to that.
|
| Maybe people driving a Renault Twizy don't think it's fair to
| pay the same tax per mile as an electric Hummer (whenever that
| comes out).
|
| All kinds of reasons to be opposed to it.
| adrianN wrote:
| Gas and diesel cars don't pay for the damage they cause to the
| climate, or for the local air pollution. How is that fair?
| xd wrote:
| What's the cost of mining lithium for starters.. before
| talking about fair.
|
| edit: down voted for stating facts.. I've noticed this place
| is becoming very ideological.. or maybe I'm getting old.
| adrianN wrote:
| What's the cost of oil spills? It's not like gas and diesel
| magically flow out of the pump either.
| xd wrote:
| I never said anything that implied gas wasn't an issue ..
| simply stating a truth bomb about EV's environmental and
| human costs; lithium mining being the biggest one.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| I didn't downvote you and I think you bring a useful
| point to the discussion, but I also think you'd be
| better-received if you completed your argument.
|
| Please tell us, what is a good estimate for the impact of
| producing and EV on the planet? And how does it compare
| to a gas vehicle? If that's too much work I'd be glad to
| learn more about battery production, since that's the
| point of difference.
| xd wrote:
| Not an argument, just a point of view for which I'm open
| to any and all.
|
| edit: but the cost of rare earth mining is huge and if
| you don't want to do your own research... that's your
| call.
| [deleted]
| ajmurmann wrote:
| That is the real problem. We need to properly price in the
| negative externality. However, that would mean that driving
| (and even more so flying) becomes almost prohibitively
| expensive for many. We already saw with the yellow jackets in
| France that this would lead to unrest.
| adrianN wrote:
| You know what else will lead to unrest? Unmitigated climate
| change. We need to drastically reduce driving. Making it
| more expensive is just one of the measures to take here. We
| also need to alternatives easier to use. Better city
| planning and better infrastructure need to go hand in hand
| with price signals.
| bigbubba wrote:
| > _That is the real problem_
|
| _A_ real problem. Both are real problems. The importance
| of road maintenance isn 't diminished by the importance of
| environmental considerations. Roads are vital to the
| economy. Governments need to multitask; they need to handle
| many important matters at once , not focus on one issue at
| a time while letting others fall to the wayside.
| jdhn wrote:
| That's a completely separate issue from what I brought up.
| The fact is that EV owners don't pay maintenance taxes that
| are captured through gas taxes, and are complaining when they
| have to pay additional fees at other times such as
| registration.
| mtgx wrote:
| Trucks do...wait for it...1,400x more damage to roads than
| standard passenger vehicles do.
| blendo wrote:
| We could put the tax on each tire. $1 per tire for a Miata,
| $100 per tire for an 18-wheeler. Just look at the tire load
| rating.
|
| Also, tax based on tire speed rating, to capture the 0.5 m
| v^2 energy.
| waiseristy wrote:
| This is the solution I ended up settling on. I can't think
| of any other use-indexed item for a vehicle that you can
| tax. It fixes the ridiculous registration pricing for
| people who rarely use their vehicles. Fixes the odd taxing
| of high capacity trailers. Fixes the indexing on damage
| caused to the roads as you mentioned. The only real
| downside I can see is it puts pressure on drivers to not
| replace old unsafe tires
| xd wrote:
| Probably because they transport 1,400x more economic goods?
| adrianN wrote:
| No, because road damage is proportional to axle weight to
| the fourth power.
| xd wrote:
| And axle weight comes from the weight of the cargo be it
| human or goods...
|
| edit: just looked up what you said, really interesting,
| but makes me wonder if the transport of goods in smaller
| lorries for instance would ultimately be beneficial when
| you factor in cost of fuel, maintenance etc
| adrianN wrote:
| Yes, but note the "to the fourth power".
| 9HZZRfNlpR wrote:
| But EVs themselves are very heavy compared to similar gas
| powered cars.
| adrianN wrote:
| A truck still does orders of magnitude more damage. "To
| the fourth power" makes a big difference.
| xd wrote:
| What about EV trucks?
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Same issue is looming for many jurisdictions that have funded
| roads and public transit with gas taxes. As gas taxes decline,
| there becomes a hole in the budget.
|
| Yes EVs are better than ICE vehicles on CO2 emissions, so of
| course we should pivot to that, but beyond that cars are still
| harmful and need to go away as much as they can. EVs create toxic
| road dust (brake pads + tire wear), congest the roads and kill
| pedestrians just like regular ICE cars.
|
| Better for the taxpayer, the pedestrian, and the environment
| would be to fund roads and public transit through other, more
| stable means that don't rely on stable/increasing car ownership
| (eg. income taxes, wealth taxes), and then save money by limiting
| road expansion and taking cars off the road as we improve active
| and public transport.
| Tepix wrote:
| EVs create less toxic road dust from braking.
|
| As long as there's so few EVs on the road, it makes no sense to
| tax them. You want more EVs, right?
| quicklime wrote:
| I agree that EVs cause problems and should be taxed too. In
| addition to the issues you mention, I also worry that subsidies
| for luxury car brands like Tesla are funded by redistributing
| wealth from the poor to the rich.
|
| But the problem with funding roads from income/wealth taxes is
| that it moves it further away from being a user-pays system,
| which creates the wrong incentives. One way to avoid this would
| be a variable tax that shifts continuously with the mix of
| vehicles on the road.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| I agree that there's advantages to the user pay system.
| People are enthusiastic to use a new bridge, less so when
| they find out that they have to pay a toll to drive over it.
| Various charges can be used to manage congestion.
|
| In a system where road use is "free" there would need to be
| significant government discipline to not heed demands of road
| users for more roads.
|
| Heavy taxes on the purchase of new cars may be a good
| strategy to dissuade vehicle congestion, with lesser taxes on
| new EVs and lesser still on used vehicles.
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