3 ms·

The amount of energy isn't relevant though? The road wear is. Unless you're talking about like, indirectly taxing the emissions (since the UK is pretty bad, 30

The amount of energy isn't relevant though? The road wear is. Unless you're talking about like, indirectly taxing the emissions (since the UK is pretty bad, 300gCO2e/kWh). I would have thought it makes sense to just apply that, at the grid level, on all electricity consumption.

gambiting 7y ago
I mean, I'm just thinking that's how it works with petrol/diesel already - we're taxing it on per litre basis, so if you drive a very efficient vehicle(or just drive gently) then you will pay less of that tax than someone who drives a very inefficient car, even if the distances covered are exactly the same. Obviously just because that's how we do it now doesn't mean we have to keep doing that forever.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Sure, the purpose of those taxes are completely different though. Emissions taxation obviously makes sense to apply per unit of fuel - if you buy 1L of petrol you're almost certainly going to burn it, and the CO2 produced is going to be pretty much identical regardless of which vehicle it's used in or whether it's used in a generator or whatever. Road wear is more indirect and really just sort of works out on balance (e.g. some pay more than they should, some less). With an EV only the road wear is relevant. If you're inspecting the car, it makes no sense to use kWh (a proxy for road use) when you can just use mileage (the actual road usage).
  - dbdjdbd 7y ago
    No, because driving like an asshole wears roads more than driving like a grandma. In both ICE and EV this is not by captured by millage, but is captured by energy consumed.
dbdjdbd 7y ago
Road wear depends also on the torque applied on the road. I mean, torque becomes a shear pressure on the asphalt surface after all. And since asphalt is pretty much a liquid with theological properties (unlike glass, which doesn’t flow)... ya road wear depends on driver driving style! Which is the genius of gas tax, btw. Simple to implement and captures a lot of the externalities of driving. The Europeans get this and tax gas significantly more than ya.

gambiting 7y ago

I mean, I'm just thinking that's how it works with petrol/diesel already - we're taxing it on per litre basis, so if you drive a very efficient vehicle(or just drive gently) then you will pay less of that tax than someone who drives a very inefficient car, even if the distances covered are exactly the same. Obviously just because that's how we do it now doesn't mean we have to keep doing that forever.

esotericn 7y ago
Sure, the purpose of those taxes are completely different though. Emissions taxation obviously makes sense to apply per unit of fuel - if you buy 1L of petrol you're almost certainly going to burn it, and the CO2 produced is going to be pretty much identical regardless of which vehicle it's used in or whether it's used in a generator or whatever. Road wear is more indirect and really just sort of works out on balance (e.g. some pay more than they should, some less). With an EV only the road wear is relevant. If you're inspecting the car, it makes no sense to use kWh (a proxy for road use) when you can just use mileage (the actual road usage).
- dbdjdbd 7y ago
  No, because driving like an asshole wears roads more than driving like a grandma. In both ICE and EV this is not by captured by millage, but is captured by energy consumed.

dbdjdbd 7y ago

Road wear depends also on the torque applied on the road. I mean, torque becomes a shear pressure on the asphalt surface after all. And since asphalt is pretty much a liquid with theological properties (unlike glass, which doesn’t flow)... ya road wear depends on driver driving style! Which is the genius of gas tax, btw. Simple to implement and captures a lot of the externalities of driving. The Europeans get this and tax gas significantly more than ya.