8 ms·

An exception for the rich people to be able to ignore what's best for humanity while we ask all the regular people to make sacrifices. How surprising. Never see

An exception for the rich people to be able to ignore what's best for humanity while we ask all the regular people to make sacrifices. How surprising. Never seen that one before.

shapefrog 5y ago
Yeah, a Tesla after all is the car of choice for the poor working joe.
- LadyCailin 5y ago
  They will most definitely eventually fill the used car market.
  - skhr0680 5y ago
    Will they? Where I live even hybrids don’t do well at all in the used market, replacing the battery is a huge cost
    - sharpneli 5y ago
      Where I live (Finland) hybrids on the other hand retain their value the best, with diesels being the worst. The fuel savings are so significant that people do flock to them.
- masklinn 5y ago
  I'm not sure what's your rejoinder is supposedly about. The article is specifically about Europe's (hopeful) ban of gas engines, and one of the members asking for an exemption for its home-grown luxury brands. Tesla has nothing to do with it.
  - shapefrog 5y ago
    > An exception for the rich people to be able to ignore what's best for humanity while we ask all the regular people to make sacrifices. So at the moment it is the regular people are driving around in electic cars and the rich in the gas cars ... no and if there is a class war at work it is the other way round. At this moment the ev revolution is being driven by the rich, this will trickle down over time naturally, but the choice to go electric means paying more. Tesla dont have a comparable product but VW do, pretty consistntly $10,000 more for electric. If 'regular' people are making sacrifices as the previous person suggested it is by spending so much more on a car (or lease) and not eating or being broke, because it is the only way they are participating at the moment.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  You do realize pretty much all car manufacturers either are already selling electric cars or are working feverishly on designing one?
- oytis 5y ago
  Tesla is a luxury brand. China produces a lot of electric cars, some of the cheaper models are sold for under $5000.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
We already have similar exceptions, in Europe at least. Old cars past a certain age (usually over 30 years old AFAIK) are considered old timers and are often excempt from modern emissions and safety regulations so someone driving a priceless exotic like a '69 Boss Mustang V8 could end up paying less tax and insurance than your Average Joe middle classer pays on his 10 year old 1.6L family econobox.
- masklinn 5y ago
  The ban is obviously for the sale of new ICE cars, it's not economically or structurally possible for 300 million cars to get fully replaced over that period, and the infrastructure to manage charging for 300 million EVs is simply not there.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  That’s not “similar”. It would be similar if we granted emissions or safety exemptions to new cars from a different manufacturer. My uncles 1942 Jeep is exempt for historical purposes, not so rich people can play with fast, expensive cars.
  - PaywallBuster 5y ago
    double standard if your uncle can keep driving old, low efficient, highly polluting vehicles why can't a rich person buy a ICE ferrari? Makes much more sense to charge on "pollution/gas usage" Kind of wealthy tax but without intervening in the market and picking winners or the "right solution"
    - foepys 5y ago
      Because the general expectation (and current reality) is that old cars will break and be scrapped eventually. Only few remain and those few don't matter in regards to global emissions as they are mostly not daily drivers. They instead contribute to keeping tiny bits of history alive. I'd compare it to old houses which are often designated as landmarks. We don't demolish them just because they are not energy efficient by modern standards.
radu_floricica 5y ago
Or you could say it's petty envy. It's about a tiny minority of vehicles that can easily cover in their price several times all the negative externalities. I want non polluting transport. Far more than you do, I'm pretty sure. I lived for years in Bucharest, the most polluted and congested city in Europe, with two air purifiers working non stop in my apartment. But I don't see anything productive in your comment. Mostly pettiness.
- ResearchCode 5y ago
  Romania is a tiny minority country, guess they could be exempt too then from all this whole climate change deal.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  Not wanting two sets of rules, one for the rich and one for everyone else isn’t “pettiness”. Especially when we’re taking minimal steps to save the planet and the rich are already asking for special privileges.
  - ResearchCode 5y ago
    Yes, and it would be a great way to convince the populace to take climate change seriously if the rich also needs to follow the rules.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    This constant "eat the rich" mentality is doing more harm than good, and can't see the forest for the trees. If Ferrari were to close down, the impact is not on the rich guy that can't buy a new high-powered car, but the thousands of workers without a job, with the resulting hit to the economy. If it's not pettiness, it's short-sightedness and black-and-white thinking.
    - Ensorceled 5y ago
      I would argue that almost all of society’s woes can be traced to wealth inequality and the legal trappings necessary to maintain that disparity, but, sure, fighting that is doing more harm than good.
mrtksn 5y ago
I think an emission allocation plan can be worked out where there's a limited spots for ICE cars and whoever wants to run one pays very large allotment fee. That way we have emissions cut when we still keep some legacy when transferring some wealth to those who give up access to the ICE. The number of spots should be truly limited though, you don't want to create a class of people who pollute and pay for thanks to inheritance or luck like the way society is divided into people with large homes and people who share rooms. The carbon footprint of the super rich's personal consumption is negligible. 1000 Ferrari cars don't pollute as much as 3000 economy cars. Banning Ferrari is like saving the planet by using paper straws. It makes sense to take 290,000,000 ICE cars off the street of Europe and leave a spot for a few thousand exotic ICE cars as a cultural artefact. The emission difference that would do is at a rounding error scale. Actually, using paper straws probably has larger impact. People don't actually ride these cars that much, they move them around with trucks to keep the milage down. [0] https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/Car-CO2-and-fuel-economy-mpg-figures?manufacturer=ferrari https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/Car-CO2-and-fuel-economy-mp...
- scns 5y ago
  Sounds like a reasonable proposal to me. Instead of exemption, paying a high price for it could give other people a sense of fairness. (edit) Using that money to finance switching to battery/hydrogen/whatever powered cars for people with less resources could even offset it fairly. Let them help the rest improve the situation for everyone and they can keep their toys.
- amelius 5y ago
  > The carbon footprint of the super rich's personal consumption is negligible. The same holds for the carbon footprint of any minority group. And everybody belongs to some minority group in some way. Does that mean everybody is exempt from the law? (No).
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    I don’t suggest exemption from the law but an arrangement that doesn’t break the goal and preserves some legacy for those who want to keep it and are willing to chip in. It’s like not demolishing the Parthenon and some other old buildings even if they don’t meet the modern construction requirements.
ethbr0 5y ago
> ... able to ignore what's best for humanity while we ask all the regular people to make sacrifices What is the purpose of life without joy? If we pass a working planet onto future generations, then those of the future who want the thrill of a finely tuned ICE engine should have an opportunity to experience it. After all, we did. The greatest tragedy of the environmental movement is it has allowed its well-funded adversaries to cast it as a a dour, sacrificial dogma. We can and should leave room for joy. Because, in the broader calculus, occasional joy + usual responsibility >> no joy + all responsibility.
- pawelmurias 5y ago
  Plenty of joys will be left alone. We don't need to make new special exceptions for rich pigs to preserve their rare decadent pleasures.
- Maarten88 5y ago
  > After all, we did. And we destroyed much of the planet doing it. Maybe it was a bad idea when we did it too. When joy becomes an argument for leniency you imply there is really no urgency. That is probably why the environmental movement is not very joyful. They want change now.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    They've wanted change now, since the 1970s. And while there have been some wins (air, water, ozone, banned pollutants), there has been little action on the part of the public. Other than an awareness of recycling, which is the least good lesson to take away. At some point, practice needs to be informed by results. Leniency is distinct from tolerance. The former allows rules to be broken; the latter formulates flexible rules that still accomplish the overall goal.
- jeffrallen 5y ago
  Most driving enthusiasts, once they experience the instant torque of electric cars, never look back. That's joy. Perhaps a tiny minority are more interested in exhaust notes than accelerating out of a corner, and I suppose they will remain petrol heads, but with classic cars, since ICE technology is a dead end now.
thesimon 5y ago
As long as they pay for it, why not? Also a ban on new petrol cars I think might not really be necessary if petrol is properly taxed with carbon pricing.
htamas 5y ago
This has nothing to do with that. Especially considering how electric cars are still way too expensive for the working class. The EU is just out of touch with car manufacturing. They are to blame for the SUV-epidemic in Europe. Basically they are making laws that sound good on paper but unrealistic in real world scenarios. Consumption and emission levels are skewed by the hybrid motors in the SUV. The laws are written so the mini cars like the Volkswagen Up are just not financially worth to produce. So in conclusion, the laws that were supposed to reduce the CO2 emissions actually made everything worse. More on this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2020/08/04/just-how-polluting-is-your-suv-this-new-campaign-might-shock-you/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2020/08/04/just-ho...
- shapefrog 5y ago
  The manufacturers do share some blame as well, they have failed to see what the spirit of the regulations are and done a goalseek on the spreadsheet to where we are now. I do wonder if they went too far too fast with some of the regulations. If it is beyond the edge of what is possible, the incentive becomes seeking loopholes, juicing numbers. However, the gains have been incredible the last 10-20 years in just raw efficiency. Beyond the regulations, society and virtue signaling appears to have had a strong impact, on all side of the political spectrum. Capitalism does sometimes work, and the current 'desire' is to have either an electic clean car or to roll coal and shoot your m50 at commies in their liberal prius.
avereveard 5y ago
As if a hundred rich people rarely used Ferrari can make a dent on the pollution from million paesants buying AliExpress trinket shipped overseas in what's likely the most polluting form of transport.
B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago
The cars are a rounding error, where's at is aviation. They're fixing to stick it to general aviation - mass market plane travel. Perhaps only after private jets are outlawed - what, no?
AniseAbyss 5y ago
Yes seeing millionaires go up in space doesn't help to get normal people motivated to change their habits.
systemvoltage 5y ago
It is year 2030. HN is advocating that we should all kill ourselves in the developed nations for the sake of poor people and their well being, of course, for the planet as well. It will reduce climate emissions by 75%! Government kill-yourself pills will be forcefully distributed and mandated. Having kids was banned in 2025 so that's already taken care of. Total wokeness extravaganza.

An exception for the rich people to be able to ignore what's best for humanity while we ask all the regular people to make sacrifices. How surprising. Never seen that one before.

shapefrog 5y ago

Yeah, a Tesla after all is the car of choice for the poor working joe.

LadyCailin 5y ago
They will most definitely eventually fill the used car market.
- skhr0680 5y ago
  Will they? Where I live even hybrids don’t do well at all in the used market, replacing the battery is a huge cost
  - sharpneli 5y ago
    Where I live (Finland) hybrids on the other hand retain their value the best, with diesels being the worst. The fuel savings are so significant that people do flock to them.
masklinn 5y ago
I'm not sure what's your rejoinder is supposedly about. The article is specifically about Europe's (hopeful) ban of gas engines, and one of the members asking for an exemption for its home-grown luxury brands. Tesla has nothing to do with it.
- shapefrog 5y ago
  > An exception for the rich people to be able to ignore what's best for humanity while we ask all the regular people to make sacrifices. So at the moment it is the regular people are driving around in electic cars and the rich in the gas cars ... no and if there is a class war at work it is the other way round. At this moment the ev revolution is being driven by the rich, this will trickle down over time naturally, but the choice to go electric means paying more. Tesla dont have a comparable product but VW do, pretty consistntly $10,000 more for electric. If 'regular' people are making sacrifices as the previous person suggested it is by spending so much more on a car (or lease) and not eating or being broke, because it is the only way they are participating at the moment.
Ensorceled 5y ago
You do realize pretty much all car manufacturers either are already selling electric cars or are working feverishly on designing one?
oytis 5y ago
Tesla is a luxury brand. China produces a lot of electric cars, some of the cheaper models are sold for under $5000.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

We already have similar exceptions, in Europe at least. Old cars past a certain age (usually over 30 years old AFAIK) are considered old timers and are often excempt from modern emissions and safety regulations so someone driving a priceless exotic like a '69 Boss Mustang V8 could end up paying less tax and insurance than your Average Joe middle classer pays on his 10 year old 1.6L family econobox.

masklinn 5y ago
The ban is obviously for the sale of new ICE cars, it's not economically or structurally possible for 300 million cars to get fully replaced over that period, and the infrastructure to manage charging for 300 million EVs is simply not there.
Ensorceled 5y ago
That’s not “similar”. It would be similar if we granted emissions or safety exemptions to new cars from a different manufacturer. My uncles 1942 Jeep is exempt for historical purposes, not so rich people can play with fast, expensive cars.
- PaywallBuster 5y ago
  double standard if your uncle can keep driving old, low efficient, highly polluting vehicles why can't a rich person buy a ICE ferrari? Makes much more sense to charge on "pollution/gas usage" Kind of wealthy tax but without intervening in the market and picking winners or the "right solution"
  - foepys 5y ago
    Because the general expectation (and current reality) is that old cars will break and be scrapped eventually. Only few remain and those few don't matter in regards to global emissions as they are mostly not daily drivers. They instead contribute to keeping tiny bits of history alive. I'd compare it to old houses which are often designated as landmarks. We don't demolish them just because they are not energy efficient by modern standards.

radu_floricica 5y ago

Or you could say it's petty envy. It's about a tiny minority of vehicles that can easily cover in their price several times all the negative externalities. I want non polluting transport. Far more than you do, I'm pretty sure. I lived for years in Bucharest, the most polluted and congested city in Europe, with two air purifiers working non stop in my apartment. But I don't see anything productive in your comment. Mostly pettiness.

ResearchCode 5y ago
Romania is a tiny minority country, guess they could be exempt too then from all this whole climate change deal.
Ensorceled 5y ago
Not wanting two sets of rules, one for the rich and one for everyone else isn’t “pettiness”. Especially when we’re taking minimal steps to save the planet and the rich are already asking for special privileges.
- ResearchCode 5y ago
  Yes, and it would be a great way to convince the populace to take climate change seriously if the rich also needs to follow the rules.
- 1_player 5y ago
  This constant "eat the rich" mentality is doing more harm than good, and can't see the forest for the trees. If Ferrari were to close down, the impact is not on the rich guy that can't buy a new high-powered car, but the thousands of workers without a job, with the resulting hit to the economy. If it's not pettiness, it's short-sightedness and black-and-white thinking.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    I would argue that almost all of society’s woes can be traced to wealth inequality and the legal trappings necessary to maintain that disparity, but, sure, fighting that is doing more harm than good.

mrtksn 5y ago

I think an emission allocation plan can be worked out where there's a limited spots for ICE cars and whoever wants to run one pays very large allotment fee. That way we have emissions cut when we still keep some legacy when transferring some wealth to those who give up access to the ICE. The number of spots should be truly limited though, you don't want to create a class of people who pollute and pay for thanks to inheritance or luck like the way society is divided into people with large homes and people who share rooms. The carbon footprint of the super rich's personal consumption is negligible. 1000 Ferrari cars don't pollute as much as 3000 economy cars. Banning Ferrari is like saving the planet by using paper straws. It makes sense to take 290,000,000 ICE cars off the street of Europe and leave a spot for a few thousand exotic ICE cars as a cultural artefact. The emission difference that would do is at a rounding error scale. Actually, using paper straws probably has larger impact. People don't actually ride these cars that much, they move them around with trucks to keep the milage down. [0] https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/Car-CO2-and-fuel-economy-mpg-figures?manufacturer=ferrari https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/Car-CO2-and-fuel-economy-mp...

scns 5y ago
Sounds like a reasonable proposal to me. Instead of exemption, paying a high price for it could give other people a sense of fairness. (edit) Using that money to finance switching to battery/hydrogen/whatever powered cars for people with less resources could even offset it fairly. Let them help the rest improve the situation for everyone and they can keep their toys.
amelius 5y ago
> The carbon footprint of the super rich's personal consumption is negligible. The same holds for the carbon footprint of any minority group. And everybody belongs to some minority group in some way. Does that mean everybody is exempt from the law? (No).
- mrtksn 5y ago
  I don’t suggest exemption from the law but an arrangement that doesn’t break the goal and preserves some legacy for those who want to keep it and are willing to chip in. It’s like not demolishing the Parthenon and some other old buildings even if they don’t meet the modern construction requirements.

ethbr0 5y ago

> ... able to ignore what's best for humanity while we ask all the regular people to make sacrifices What is the purpose of life without joy? If we pass a working planet onto future generations, then those of the future who want the thrill of a finely tuned ICE engine should have an opportunity to experience it. After all, we did. The greatest tragedy of the environmental movement is it has allowed its well-funded adversaries to cast it as a a dour, sacrificial dogma. We can and should leave room for joy. Because, in the broader calculus, occasional joy + usual responsibility >> no joy + all responsibility.

pawelmurias 5y ago
Plenty of joys will be left alone. We don't need to make new special exceptions for rich pigs to preserve their rare decadent pleasures.
Maarten88 5y ago
> After all, we did. And we destroyed much of the planet doing it. Maybe it was a bad idea when we did it too. When joy becomes an argument for leniency you imply there is really no urgency. That is probably why the environmental movement is not very joyful. They want change now.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  They've wanted change now, since the 1970s. And while there have been some wins (air, water, ozone, banned pollutants), there has been little action on the part of the public. Other than an awareness of recycling, which is the least good lesson to take away. At some point, practice needs to be informed by results. Leniency is distinct from tolerance. The former allows rules to be broken; the latter formulates flexible rules that still accomplish the overall goal.
jeffrallen 5y ago
Most driving enthusiasts, once they experience the instant torque of electric cars, never look back. That's joy. Perhaps a tiny minority are more interested in exhaust notes than accelerating out of a corner, and I suppose they will remain petrol heads, but with classic cars, since ICE technology is a dead end now.

thesimon 5y ago

As long as they pay for it, why not? Also a ban on new petrol cars I think might not really be necessary if petrol is properly taxed with carbon pricing.

htamas 5y ago

This has nothing to do with that. Especially considering how electric cars are still way too expensive for the working class. The EU is just out of touch with car manufacturing. They are to blame for the SUV-epidemic in Europe. Basically they are making laws that sound good on paper but unrealistic in real world scenarios. Consumption and emission levels are skewed by the hybrid motors in the SUV. The laws are written so the mini cars like the Volkswagen Up are just not financially worth to produce. So in conclusion, the laws that were supposed to reduce the CO2 emissions actually made everything worse. More on this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2020/08/04/just-how-polluting-is-your-suv-this-new-campaign-might-shock-you/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2020/08/04/just-ho...

shapefrog 5y ago
The manufacturers do share some blame as well, they have failed to see what the spirit of the regulations are and done a goalseek on the spreadsheet to where we are now. I do wonder if they went too far too fast with some of the regulations. If it is beyond the edge of what is possible, the incentive becomes seeking loopholes, juicing numbers. However, the gains have been incredible the last 10-20 years in just raw efficiency. Beyond the regulations, society and virtue signaling appears to have had a strong impact, on all side of the political spectrum. Capitalism does sometimes work, and the current 'desire' is to have either an electic clean car or to roll coal and shoot your m50 at commies in their liberal prius.

avereveard 5y ago

As if a hundred rich people rarely used Ferrari can make a dent on the pollution from million paesants buying AliExpress trinket shipped overseas in what's likely the most polluting form of transport.

B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago

The cars are a rounding error, where's at is aviation. They're fixing to stick it to general aviation - mass market plane travel. Perhaps only after private jets are outlawed - what, no?

AniseAbyss 5y ago

Yes seeing millionaires go up in space doesn't help to get normal people motivated to change their habits.

systemvoltage 5y ago

It is year 2030. HN is advocating that we should all kill ourselves in the developed nations for the sake of poor people and their well being, of course, for the planet as well. It will reduce climate emissions by 75%! Government kill-yourself pills will be forcefully distributed and mandated. Having kids was banned in 2025 so that's already taken care of. Total wokeness extravaganza.