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I am skeptical that a 180% tax on fuel-powered cars is good policy, however I can see the point given that Denmark is extremely concerned about the environment.

• adrianN 9y ago
  Cars cause other problems beside pollution (not that electric cars are pollution free). An over reliance on cars leads to sprawl, sprawl reduces quality of life. Accidents costs lives.
  • CamperBob2 9y ago
    An over reliance on cars leads to sprawl, sprawl reduces quality of life It must be so nice to have the wisdom needed to prescribe everyone else's lifestyle.
    • doktrin 9y ago
      I'm not an expert on sprawl and QoL, but I'm pretty sure sprawl makes it harder to design effective public transportation (among other things). Likewise, the unavailability of effective public transit places a heavy reliance on personal transportation (i.e. cars), and by and large means long commutes in said car. Long daily commutes in a car don't sound very desirable, and probably do negatively impact QoL.
      • CamperBob2 9y ago
        ...probably do negatively impact QoL. With all due respect, there are about 5,999,999,998 people on Earth who didn't ask you or the grandparent poster.
        • adrianN 9y ago
          Luckily, using the power of statistics we can get results using only a small number of people that are nevertheless valid for the whole population with reasonably high probability. There have been some studies regarding commuting time and well-being, for example [1], that show that longer commutes impact well-being negatively. Sprawl tends to increase commute times. [1] http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/wellbeing/measuring-national-well-being/commuting-and-personal-well-being--2014/art-commuting-and-personal-well-being.html#tab-5--How-important-is-actual-commuting-time- http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/htt...
          • CamperBob2 9y ago
            What is this "commuting" you speak of? I have to agree, it doesn't sound very pleasant.
        • mcv 9y ago
          Should people only voice their opinion after the people of the world have had a vote on whether they're interested in it? Because I don't remember voting on your opinion either.
          • mason240 9y ago
            Make you a deal: you can live in the type of community you want, and I will live in the type I want, and we won't try to block eachother's pursuit of happiness. Then we don't need to conduct a poll to determine what lifestyle everyone else is going to be forced into.
          • CamperBob2 9y ago
            I'm not seeing opinions being voiced in this thread. I'm seeing them stated as objective facts. You're entitled to your opinions, and maybe you're even entitled to your own facts in this remarkable age in which we find ourselves living. But either way, when you presume to speak for others, you should expect to be called out for it. "Quality of life" is a pretty subjective thing
            • mcv 9y ago
              > "Quality of life" is a pretty subjective thing It absolutely is, but that doesn't mean you can't know anything about it. You can research subjective things by asking people how they feel about their quality of life. How happy they are. It turns out that in general, people with long commutes in areas dominated by cars are less happy than people who bicycle to work.
              • CamperBob2 9y ago
                It turns out that in general, people with long commutes in areas dominated by cars are less happy than people who bicycle to work. Hmm. Maybe you're right. That sounds entirely free from the possible influence of any additional factors.
      • mason240 9y ago
        I would definitely prefer a longer commute coming from my single family home with a yard over being forced to use public transport and live in an apartment, and it's a preference shared by a large percentage of people.
        • Decade 9y ago
          The preference has been distorted by propaganda and coercive redistribution of wealth. https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-caused-nuclear-arms-race-and-why-matters-more-ever-today.html https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/why-sprawl-was-cause... Sure, I would like my own single family home, as long as I have access to all the other people and activities that make life worthwhile. Even better, I would like to have a castle in the wilderness, permitting no entrance without permission, with a teleporter so I can instantly commute to civilization. In the real world, we balance the things that we desire with what we need and what we can pay. Would you want to live in a single-family home if you had to pay what it really costs? https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/9/2/a-thousand-hidden-subsidies https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/9/2/a-thousand-hidd... In California, some of us recognize that castles are sprawl that destroys the wilderness. http://www.sfhac.org http://www.sfhac.org
          • mason240 9y ago
            The implied argument here is that suburban living is subsided by others, while urban living is not. This simply not true. Just as one example, the light rail lines in my metro does not even make enough in fares to cover operating expenses (which is actually a stated goal of out MetroTransit authority), much less their initial construction or ongoing maintenance costs.
            • Decade 9y ago
              Both are subsidized by unlimited debt financing. The difference is that car-free cities are physically possible to do without subsidy, mainly having a corruption problem, while suburbs as we know them are not. In particular, mass transit works if the average number passengers per mile is pretty high. The most obvious way to do that is to have a lot of homes and destinations close to each other, so the cars have a lot of passenger trips per vehicle trip. And then to take care of crowding, they can have higher frequency service and longer hours, which make mass transit more attractive, allowing more people to take transit instead of cars. Transit and housing are interconnected. If you start from a sprawled, low-density city, then light rail doesn't work economically.
    • icebraining 9y ago
      Every law does that. And sprawl does have negative consequences on others, it's not a simple sin tax.
    • CalRobert 9y ago
      When pedestrians start killing drivers at the rate drivers kill pedestrians, your comment will make more sense.
      • CamperBob2 9y ago
        I hope you don't expect to bring the rest of the world on board with your thinking. You've got a lot of work ahead of you, if so.
        • CalRobert 9y ago
          I don't, because I'm a cynical pessimist, but that doesn't counter my point. Also, the world isn't my problem, just my neighborhood, and there we're making a lot of progress.
  • zakk 9y ago
    Is there clear evidence that this reasoning justifies such a ginormous tax rate? It looks to me a lot about the story that if you run, you'll sweat. If you sweat, you'll take a cold. If you take a cold, you'll sneeze. If you sneeze, you'll catch pneumonia. And if you catch pneumonia you'll die. So don't run.
  • eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    There's a lot of evidence on how bad sprawls are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_density http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/2011/06/fun-with-urban-transport-data/ http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/2011/06/fun-with-urban-trans...
• eksemplar 9y ago
  The 180% is a good way to get people in the direction you want. The danger is that it's a huge income which the state cannot afford to lose. Because the state will still have to buy the roads for electric cars. I think most western states are struggling with how to transcend from living off income and environmental taxes to living off something else though, as automation and green tech frees us from former burdens.
• dogma1138 9y ago
  High tax rates on cars weren't set because of the environment, it's a relic of post WW2 austerity when cars and other luxury items were excessively taxed and in many places they still are.