5 ms·

> “The government is regulating what automakers have to produce to meet new standards, but it isn’t what consumers want to buy,” said Michelle Krebs, an analyst

• jfoutz 11y ago
  a long time ago the us decided to tax gas on volume rather than price. if gas is $1 a gallon, the tax is $0.25. if it's $4, the tax is still $0.25. It would be difficult to impose a new gas tax, even more difficult to impose a price based tax. I think a lot of the oddity in regulation (and taxes) is those are fights that were won. It's not exactly sane, but sometimes you have to go with what's achievable over what's right. And then hope the net effect pushes behavior in the direction you wanted.
  • aembleton 11y ago
    You don't want a price based tax as that amplifies the fluctuation in the oil price. A volume based tax will help to stabilise the pump price.
  • patmcguire 11y ago
    A sneaky way would be to set them by percentage when gas was low such that it lowers taxes at the moment, but creates higher taxes on average through the typical boom/bust cycle of gas.
• jseliger 11y ago
  Why doesn't the fed just use higher taxes on gas to disincentivize gas guzzlers, and let the market take care of the rest? Pigouvian taxes on high-carbon fuels are ridiculously unpopular. The median voter (http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Policies/dp/0691138737 http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-Voter-Democracies-Polici...) does not perceive the TCO of cars, the fuel supply chain, and parking spaces (http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/1932...). So CAFE standards and other kinda crappy, second- and third-best workarounds get used instead.
• outlace 11y ago
  That would disproportionately penalize poor people. Imagine gas prices suddenly spike due to a new gas tax, poor people who can barely afford a used 2001 Toyota Camry are now even worse off, while your typical doctor or software engineer just goes out and buys a fancy new hybrid or electric car. Sure it may eventually change market conditions to favor electric vehicles, but it will be a long time before there are cheap, used electric vehicles for poor people to buy.
  • mgbmtl 11y ago
    Many cities have local gas taxes that are used to subsidize public transport. In Quebec for example, there is a tax applied only in Montreal (where the public transport system is almost usable, compared to other North American cities), so gas is always 5-10¢/L more expensive in the city. So people living in poorer rural areas aren't affected. Other upside: a lot of gas stations have closed, converted to apartment/condo buildings, which helps to revitalize parts of the city. Downside: I don't feel like the provincial government has been investing at all in public transport. On the contrary, they're investing in more unsustainable highways to make suburbans happy. 1960s nostalgia.
    • vlehto 11y ago
      In Finland they have envisioned somekind of transmitters to all cars that would signal if the car passes certain border close to Helsinki. This passing would cause 20 cent traffic payment to be billed from that driver. Costs of the system millions, goal is to bring down congestion. (As if people would want to sit in traffic.) You Canadians are freaking smart.
      • executesorder66 11y ago
        In South Africa our government built a system like that on most of the highways around Johannesburg. (One of our main cities) Everyone got pissed off, and refuse to pay, but still drive on the highway anyway. Result: still the same amount of traffic, and now the government is sitting with billions of Rands worth of new debt.
  • 11y ago