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What an overcomplicated way of doing what would be achieved very simply by raising petrol fuel taxes by a few cents? If you want to penalise carbon emission, t
by MagnumOpus 6y ago
What an overcomplicated way of doing what would be achieved very simply by raising petrol fuel taxes by a few cents?
If you want to penalise carbon emission, tax carbon, not cars.
- llampx 6y agoRaising taxes on a fuel is not as effective, first because its harder to get through to the consumers - they don't care because the tax would be pennies on the liter/gallon, and people are used to prices going up and down anyway. Secondly because such an annual tax would hurt the wallet more - paying $100 once hurts more than paying $1 a hundred times with every fill-up. Yes it is overcomplicated but it is a solution that targets the core of the problem - that people are not charging their PHEV's enough.
- markvdb 6y agoThat depends on the tax rate. The >$4/gallon price delta between most of the EU and the US is entirely taxes. That's quite a bit more significant than pennies on the gallon...
- llampx 6y agoI mean the marginal tax rate increase from current levels. Unless you mean gasoline taxes should be $4+ additional per gallon compared to what they are now.
- markvdb 6y agoRaising fuel taxes to EU levels would not be enough, but it would be a significant start towards environmental improvement, and not necessarily bad for the economy. In a hypothetical future that is where people realise there is only one earth and some compensations are provided for the economically weaker whose livelihood suddenly gets threatened by these changes.