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This is an interestingly a reverse of Europe's (effective) policy and on greening the auto-market. Most European jurisdictions effectively^ tax (and otherwise d

This is an interestingly a reverse of Europe's (effective) policy and on greening the auto-market. Most European jurisdictions effectively^ tax (and otherwise discourage) old cars wuth a higher rate. For an example from my country. A 2007 2L Passat is a common old car currently taxed @ €1,000 pa. It quickly escalates to 2,000 as engine size/emissions increase. Passats are decent quality cars with long lived engines, so most of the 10-15 year olds are still alive. For their time, they were average CO2 producers, say 200g/km. The tax system is designed so that an incremental decrease in emissions substantially decreases annual tax. A 30% carbon saving (say 60g/km saved, in this example) will save you 60% -70% on your annual tax (€600-€800 ish). People buy/drive 12 year old cars for value, and the tax system (by design) takes that value away. The way to lower your annual tax is to buy a car designed after the new tax regime was designed. The net effect of the policy is that perfectly good old cars are being crushed and replaced with newer, "greener," short lifecycle cars. There's no point building a car that will last more than 8-10 years because tax laws will probably get it off the road by that time. The most economical way to drive is not the old cars, it's cheap new cars. The real (environmental) question is whether the net effects of building a new car outweigh the case by output of the older car. Idk what the carbon cost of manufacturing a car is, but the number to beat (for my example, anyway) is about 600 kg co2. My uneducated guess is that it's about even, ie the policy is just another Volkswagen subsidy.

lloeki 8y ago
> A 2007 2L Passat Turns out my SO got her hand on a second hand '06 New Beetle which has a TDI engine with a CO2 production of ~146g/km. The car has 300000km on the clock. > 600 kg co2 How did you get there? I seem to miss something to make sense of this value. Over the 12 years the car has been on the road it emitted: 300000 km * 146 g/km => 44 metric tons The equivalent engine today is the 1.6L BlueMotion and emits ~85g/km. That's 40% less, about 18 tons saved. But such a churn is quick at first yet soon enough has diminishing returns, as the low hanging fruits get reaped until we reach minimal ICE emissions or even zero emission, then (environmentally) you'll soon want the longest living cars, so this phenomenon should only be temporary.
- llampx 8y ago
  Its not only about tons of CO2 saved, since that can be fixed by trees. Asthma-causing particulates and other cancer-causing compounds are completely ignored in that calculation, not to mention the opportunity cost of not having that $25k go into something else, like a house.
  - lloeki 8y ago
    I agree, but: - the point was about whether changing cars every 5-10 years offsets the cost of building a new car - whatever the car you can still plant the same trees - living near a heavily polluted crossroad in a city, I guarantee you I'd rather have less CO/CO2 (as well as all the other NOx/particles crap) right out of the exhaust, not captured over decades
    - llampx 8y ago
      Most of that pollution is coming from diesel engines in the form of particulates. Which the EU happily allowed so as to reduce CO2 emissions. Which they're backtracking heavily on at the moment. Not to mention that cars by themselves are a very small part of overall pollution today, compared to good transportation and factories.
llampx 8y ago
Europe was also all-in on diesels and focussed on reducing CO2 emissions, and look how that worked out for its cities. We have to admit that the EU is no panacea, and much of the legislation it passes is also written by and for self-interest groups and lobbyists. Take the recent copyright law as an example.

lloeki 8y ago

> A 2007 2L Passat Turns out my SO got her hand on a second hand '06 New Beetle which has a TDI engine with a CO2 production of ~146g/km. The car has 300000km on the clock. > 600 kg co2 How did you get there? I seem to miss something to make sense of this value. Over the 12 years the car has been on the road it emitted: 300000 km * 146 g/km => 44 metric tons The equivalent engine today is the 1.6L BlueMotion and emits ~85g/km. That's 40% less, about 18 tons saved. But such a churn is quick at first yet soon enough has diminishing returns, as the low hanging fruits get reaped until we reach minimal ICE emissions or even zero emission, then (environmentally) you'll soon want the longest living cars, so this phenomenon should only be temporary.

llampx 8y ago
Its not only about tons of CO2 saved, since that can be fixed by trees. Asthma-causing particulates and other cancer-causing compounds are completely ignored in that calculation, not to mention the opportunity cost of not having that $25k go into something else, like a house.
- lloeki 8y ago
  I agree, but: - the point was about whether changing cars every 5-10 years offsets the cost of building a new car - whatever the car you can still plant the same trees - living near a heavily polluted crossroad in a city, I guarantee you I'd rather have less CO/CO2 (as well as all the other NOx/particles crap) right out of the exhaust, not captured over decades
  - llampx 8y ago
    Most of that pollution is coming from diesel engines in the form of particulates. Which the EU happily allowed so as to reduce CO2 emissions. Which they're backtracking heavily on at the moment. Not to mention that cars by themselves are a very small part of overall pollution today, compared to good transportation and factories.

llampx 8y ago

Europe was also all-in on diesels and focussed on reducing CO2 emissions, and look how that worked out for its cities. We have to admit that the EU is no panacea, and much of the legislation it passes is also written by and for self-interest groups and lobbyists. Take the recent copyright law as an example.