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To avoid Finland’s tax a 1,000HP imported Hennessey RAM is limited to 55MPH
- shell0x 5y agoHas anyone based in Europe heard of that car company before? Lived in 7-8 countries and never seen one to be honest.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- smcleod 5y agoI always thought it was an American whisk(e)y company, but it seems to be a tuning company that works on American cars.
- mywittyname 5y agoFrench. Hennessy is a French cognac company. Hennessey Performance is an American car modification company run by a man with questionable ethics.
- kybernetyk 5y agoIt's a tuning house. Somewhat like Brabus. They're pretty uncommon here in Europe and most probably only known by car nerds.
- zhte415 5y agoI came to learn about how a cognac company got into the semiconductor business, exactly what export laws impose an MPH limit on RAM, and why RAM is measured in Hit Points.
- CRConrad 5y agoYup, know of them.... From the Internet; never seen one IRL. But then, I am a car nerd.
- Traster 5y agoBasically I would advocate for the government to turn up and check the limiter is there every 6 months. These regulations exist for a reason.
- Zpalmtree 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ajay-d 5y agoSeriously, how much in taxes are they saving? Is it that much to go through all these hurdles.
- dr_orpheus 5y agoAbout $120,000 I guess according to the article. They are selling it for $272k and the article says it would be subject to a 44.8% import tax.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y agoAnother question is - can the limiter be removed and the vehicle reclassified (without paying the tax) once imported? Because paying a mechanic + some paper pushers a few k (at most) at either end is cheaper than 120k in tax...
- mywittyname 5y agoYou probably don't even need to pay for it. These vehicles are modified; not factory delivered. They probably anticipate/expect the owner to have to reflash the ECU, and include a hand held tuner for exactly this reason. I'm not familiar with Hennessey products, but this is how Ford Performance handles their "factory" supercharger kits. The tuner isn't included with the kit, but owners expected to have one.
- IgorPartola 5y agoI think you misunderstand how this works. When you get a custom vehicle you don’t really give a shit about regulations or reasons for them. As long as you can register it and renew your registration you will most likely do whatever you want to it. I am fairly familiar with custom motorcycles in the US. Most states and cities have regulations regarding noise levels. The EPA requires bikes to have catalytic converters to reduce emissions. But a bike in the hands of someone who cares about its performance will not stay stock of long. Usually the catalytic converter is removed (it restricts the exhaust system and you can get a few ponies by doing this), and the entire exhaust system is replaced with a shorter and wider one that will let the engine breathe better. That makes it a lot louder. You will also modify the fuel system to run less lean (lean means higher than stoichiometric air/fuel ratio). Lean fueling runs hotter since gasoline doesn’t cool off the cylinders and it doesn’t give you optimal power, but it burns cleaner. Instead you bring the ratio closer to 14:1 to get better power and a cooler running engine. Most cops won’t pull you over for an exhaust that is too loud unless you keep blasting it in your neighborhood enough for neighbors to complain. And none of them will ever check your fueling system. Manufactures of these devices sell them as “non-public use only”, knowing full well you won’t race your 800 lb Harley. The saving grace is that most people don’t do this. Only a few people buy motorcycles (or high performance cars) and of those only a few modify them to this extent.
- blamazon 5y ago"RAM Rebel General Discussion: How to disable the [Ram 1500] speed limiter?" https://www.ramrebel.org/threads/how-to-disable-the-speed-limiter.62872/ https://www.ramrebel.org/threads/how-to-disable-the-speed-li...
- vgeek 5y agoThis is a hilarious thread. People think that just because they have the HP, that their driveline and tires are capable of safely going above the factory governed speed. People stating that they've gone north of 120 in a lifted full size pickup on presumably public road shouldn't be allowed to drive.
- blamazon 5y agoBonus: the poster that said they did that has pictures of their truck on their profile with their business name emblazoned on the side.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoIf the tires are up to it modern vehicles have no problems operating well into the triple digits. It's just a wear and tear issue. Things don't spontaneously explode if you go too fast.
- vgeek 5y agoMost modern cars, sure, but I wouldn't feel the same about a lifted truck with 36" mud terrain tires as mentioned in that thread. In a stock solid axle pickup, you somewhat frequently encounter what is referred to as a "death wobble" where the whole vehicle shakes, even at moderate speeds. Suspensions in full size trucks are commonly using 1950's era tech, not modern double wishbone or multilink setups that many cars have. This ignores that when you get into triple digit speeds, even small things like wheel balancing can make a huge difference for safety and performance (ignoring speed rating of tires). Most of the people commenting in that thread seemed to have lifted trucks (ignoring body vs suspension lifts or that they took cheap route to do so, e.g. grade 5 vs 8 hardware), so they are already changing things like center of gravity, aero and handling.
- Der_Einzige 5y agoAs mentioned in the reddit thread, the limitation device will be promptly removed by whoever bought this.
- mwint 5y agoI’m kind of hoping it’s a big bright red fuse in the fusebox labeled “government fun preventer”. Probably not, but you can dream.
- opencl 5y agoBack in the day the R32 GT-R had a boost restrictor marked in bright yellow. Removing it gave an extra ~4PSI from the turbos good for about 60 extra HP.
- specialp 5y agoThis is usually done by setting the variable in the ECU for top speed. Tuning software (which was already used on this vehicle to mod it) like hptuners can change this in 1 minute. So it is easy.
- oh_sigh 5y agoAnd then they take it in for inspection and get hit with a $100k tax bill, with a fine on top for tax evasion.
- dr_orpheus 5y agoHere in the US there are definitely people that uninstall-reinstall equipment to do emissions checks so I imagine that might not be the biggest risk, but in one of the comments on the article it also mentions that you could still be pulled over for speeding if someone sees you going over 55 and could likely lose your license.
- CRConrad 5y ago> you could still be pulled over for speeding if someone sees you going over 55 That risk is mainly significant when there's a "general speed-check raid" going on, the periodical drives the police undertakes to remind motorists that speed limits exist and should be obeyed. If you're just going between 55 and the speed limit in this thing, it's not all that likely to attract the attention of any passing traffic plice officer so they even aim their radar at it, since it looks pretty much like any other (penis-envy variant of) pickup truck.
- superasn 5y agoThe same thing was being in India where home inverters were sold with a UPS toggle switch on the back (which did absolutely nothing). But due to the low tax rate on computer components at that time significantly drove the price of the item lower.
- anikan_vader 5y ago>> Because Finland is a member of the European Union, it must adhere to a particular directive that requires speed limiting devices to be installed if the N2 vehicle is used on the road. Does this mean that no vehicle in this weight class is permitted to go over 55 mph anywhere in the EU, regardless of tax and whether the vehicle is foreign or domestic?
- albertopv 5y agoNever heard of before, not in Italy at least.
- lobochrome 5y agoThis is most certainly true for Italy as well. All semi trucks have to be limited
- lobochrome 5y agoThat is correct. It’s essentially classified as a semi so it needs a limiter. It also needs to be equipped with driving time measurement equipment
- aaaaaaaaata 5y agoNo recreation exemptions on this seems so obviously intentional, and hilarious.
- Ekaros 5y agoActually there is, but is complicated mess... Like recreation is fine as is transporting food you yourself produced. Or tools for work, unless the distance is over 50km... More pain than gain I say...
- dn3500 5y agoI don't think so. The 44.8% tax is levied because of the CO2 emissions. The workaround involves classifying it as an N2, which requires the speed limiter. A vehicle with normal CO2 emissions would simply be registered as a passenger vehicle, not an N2, because it wouldn't require the workaround.
- jamesliudotcc 5y agoThe Ford Transit Connects made in Europe and are sent to the US with seats in them. In the US, the seats are removed and then sent back to Europe, presumably to be installed in new Transit Connects. This is also to avoid taxes.
- kowlo 5y agoPerhaps a little too cheeky https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-says-it-could-face-13-billion-new-penalties-after-court-ruling-2021-06-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-s...
- iancmceachern 5y agoYeah, the chicken tax
- bragr 5y agoTo be fair, the government caught onto that scheme and was not amused. https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2021/06/03/ford-transit-connect-van-import-penalty/7524765002/ https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2021/06/03/ford-...
- Rebelgecko 5y agoThe EU only considers an electric bicycle an "ebike" if it has a motor that's 250 watts or less. Anything labeled above 250w is considered a motorcycle and requires more fees, taxes, licensing, etc. The "workaround" is that vendors kept shipping the same bikes but edited the spec sheets to say "250w", regardless of the motor's actual power output (often 2x that wattage)
- FastMonkey 5y agoA half a kilo of CO2 per km is pretty hefty... Edit: 1.8lbs/mile of you prefer.
- Mikeb85 5y agoYup. On the other hand cars such as these are rarely driven.
- JohnBooty 5y agoI think people might drive this sort of thing on a regular basis. Traditional "supercar" sports cars are rarely driven and especially not on daily basis. Partly because of their value, but also because they tend to be spectacularly impractical and are usually uncomfortable to boot. Can't even fit your groceries in them half the time. This monster pickup truck is actually practical as an everyday driver. (I'm not saying that 1000HP is something people actually need; I'm just saying - you could drive it to the store and carry your groceries home with it comfortably)
- Bud 5y agoPractical? Practical? That's laughable. It's not even good for groceries, for reasons anyone who has actually bought groceries can readily fathom. You want your groceries in a backseat or in a trunk, not in the cab of this stupid testosterone-poisoning-advertising machine. In any warm climate, you don't want your groceries out in the hot sun while you drive home, and in any cold climate, you don't want them damaged by that weather, either. A Honda Civic is 20x more practical and carries 2.5x more passengers and gets 5x better mileage. If you want to roll coal, fine, but just admit it. Let's not pretend this vehicle is in ANY way "practical". It's just not.
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoOk, it's not practical if you define practical as carrying things it's not good at carrying and ignore the ability to load wood, tools, furniture, etc.
- santoshalper 5y ago[flagged]
- aserdf 5y agothere are a myriad of wasteful, polluting machines in the world today. who is the arbiter of who is and who is not allowed to use such a machine? also why blame anyone who purchases such a vehicle for nonsensical tax laws? it is not clearly a commercial vehicle yet the laws are such that it is considered so simply by weighing a certain amount. that is what creates the tax loophole, not the speed limiter. the limiter is simply a consequence of an arbitrary classification.
- drekk 5y agoIt's not arbitrary. The weight and speed have external impacts on road durability as well as air quality. Compare the amount of carbon dioxide released by a truck of that size and most other residential polluting machines and it doesn't come close. If you want to push the cost of your hobby onto society by commiting tax fraud I don't think it's the democratically elected legislature that's at issue here.
- aserdf 5y ago> The weight and speed have external impacts on road durability as well as air quality. Compare the amount of carbon dioxide released by a truck of that size and most other residential polluting machines and it doesn't come close. Correlation, causation regarding weight/size of vehicle and external impact. Its actually quite simple to objectively determine that sort of impact on a vehicle by vehicle basis, all of this is known. No reason to anchor it to the weight of a vehicle. Again, the tax aspect ("fraud") is NOT being pushed by a potential purchaser. the laws FORCE it to be a vehicle that is tax exempt (according to the article).
- 8note 5y agoThe laws allow for it to be tax exempt, they aren't forcing it to be. You can just pay proper taxes and avoid the fraud
- itronitron 5y agoReminds me of being in Oklahoma City, where almost every pickup truck and SUV has a sticker on the back bumper that says 'Commercial Vehicle' presumably as some local tax loophole.
- dharmab 5y agoIIRC if you have a vehicle with a body on frame truck chassis and claim it is used 51% or more for business purpose you can pay much lower registration.
- causality0 5y agoIt is perverse that vehicle registration isn't limited by law to at-cost fees.
- eqvinox 5y agoWhy is it perverse? It's a tax like many others?
- Enginerrrd 5y agoBecause a car in America is fairly essential for upward mobility and that tax hits the poorest the hardest making it harder to keep that car. It's effectively rent-seeking for a low-level good without taking into account usage. They can't scale back usage to reduce that tax. It just is. Compare it to similar rent-seeking taxes on land ownership (i.e. property taxes), which affect wealthier people more able to afford the tax. I know when I was a college student, affording the registration and bare-bone insurance payments on my 25 year old honda was actually pretty non-trivial. If I couldn't afford gas on a particular month, I could find creative ways to ride-share / take public transit (sometimes) / not drive / etc. But that didn't do ANYTHING to my registration payment.
- nicoburns 5y ago> Because a car in America is fairly essential for upward mobility Really it's this that ought to be changed. Although I realise that's a much bigger task.
- Ekaros 5y agoAlso further fun bonus is that this requires special license as it is too heavy. The smaller truck license C1 qualifies, but still that means extra tests and training.
- dahfizz 5y agoThe truck costs $150,000 to start. What is the use case of spending that much on a truck but not spending the extra $66k tax to unlock its full power? A car collector who wants to own it, but never use it, and wants to save a buck? If you just like the look of the truck, you could buy a RAM 3500 and install the liftkit and bumper yourself for less than half the price. This is clickbait. The article takes some technically possible bizarre situation and presents it as though this is something that happens regularly.
- Ekaros 5y agoAdditional saving is yearly tax, but even then 654€ compared to 76€ isn't that much...
- Guthur 5y agoMay be more interested in the power than top speed. It's a very comfortable tractor.
- masturbayeser 5y agobecause the speed limiter will just be removed aftermarket by the buyer, so I'm sure people are actually doing this
- throwthere 5y agoI suspect the speed limiter isn’t exactly soldered in place if you get me
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- thematrixturtle 5y agoIt's news because somebody is actually doing this.
- arbol 5y agoDisappointing to see most of the comments here discussing either how to remove limiters or specs of cars. We should be looking to reduce polluting vehicles like these and also the fetishisation of cars in general.
- arrakis2021 5y agoWe are fortunate we have you to tell us what we should think. Talk of car specs and removing limiters is disappointing you? This is “hacker news” after all?
- 55873445216111 5y agoMany people have hobbies that drive CO2 emissions. Should we ban all of these too?
- twelvechairs 5y agoWhat hobbies are you referring to specifically?
- onetokeoverthe 5y ago
- nsxwolf 5y agoMaking sourdough.
- rzzzt 5y agoKnitting
- calumetregion 5y agoExisting
- 55873445216111 5y ago
- criddell 5y agoReminds me of how the Converse shoe company glues a thin layer of soft fabric to the bottom of the rubber souls so they can be imported as slippers which are taxed differently. https://www.gearpatrol.com/style/a715423/converse-chuck-taylor-fuzzy-soles/ https://www.gearpatrol.com/style/a715423/converse-chuck-tayl...
- voz_ 5y agoModern taxes are idiotic, and built for loopholes. Just do a flat x% tax on every dollar of revenue. That's it. Forget income, loss, expenses, tariffs, etc etc. Make $1? Pay x cents. Done.
- murderfs 5y agoSure, if you want literally everything to be vertically integrated. Either your tax is meaninglessly small, or everything that exists today in a supply chain (e.g. iron ore -> iron pellets -> steel billets -> steel wire -> nails) would have to get conglomerated into a single entity to compete against other companies doing the same.
- voz_ 5y agoJust trust bust for that.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y agoYou don't understand the problem. If you have 4% tax and it takes 10 steps to manufacture the product, you will be paying 48% effective tax. If it takes 2 steps, you are paying 8% effective tax. That's why VAT is a thing, and one of the numerous reasons why a flat tax on everything is a bad idea.
- jsnell 5y agoThe Value Added Tax (which is the way sales taxes are structured in most of Europe) only taxes the sale to the final (non-business) consumer. The length of the supply chain doesn't matter, the aggregate tax burden will only depend on the price of the final product.
- murderfs 5y agoYes, but that's not what the original poster proposed! "Just do a flat x% tax on every dollar of revenue. That's it. Forget income, loss, expenses, tariffs, etc etc." The way that VAT is implemented is that every intermediate pays VAT, but gets a credit for the VAT that they paid.
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoThe old Heathkit HAM radio had a red wire that was tagged "Don't remove this or you will be able to transmit on regulated frequencies!" This kind of thing has been around 50 years at least :)
- _fat_santa 5y agoThe article doesn't hint at the limiter being removed (or not installed in the first place) until the end of the article. But yeah I would venture to guess that limiter won't be on that truck for very long. Maybe just long enough to get it registered and pass inspection.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoDuring prohibition you could buy bricks of compressed grape must with instructions on how to avoid accidentally turning them into wine.
- boogies 5y agoDiscussed 22 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30254234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30254234
- drivingmenuts 5y agoThe kind of person who can afford this won’t enjoy the speeding ticket if they remove the speed limiter. Finland issues fines based on income. They’ll avoid the tax, but pay it in other ways.
- kjkjadksj 5y agoNissan did something similar with their gtr 30 years ago, limiting the boost to skirt Japanese regulations but its apparently easy to remove the limiter and put down a lot more horsepower.
- ttGpN5Nde3pK 5y agoYea think it was because of the 276hp limit.
- giantg2 5y ago"From the factory, the TRX has a top speed of 118 mph before any Hennessey upgrades. And while the tuner doesn't actually reveal the Mammoth's top speed,..." Do they make tires that size that are rated higher? And of course, do you want to take something like that (aero, celery of gravity, etc) faster than that?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ivolimmen 5y agoRules and regulations make things difficult. It is even more difficult to people that operate on different ones on a regular basis but never read the rules. A lot of Dutch people often visit Germany. Driving in Germany is considered fun by most because they do not have a speed limit. Since we have a speed limit (nation wide) of 100 km/h people sometimes even go to Germany just to hear they engines roar. All of them do not realise that going over the Dutch speed limit in a different country means you Dutch insurance will not pay out when you have an accident. Very nice to encounter that after you wrecked your car...
- fwr 5y agoThis is new to me and I've been doing this very thing for a while (though not yet with an accident) - do you have a source for this?
- remus 5y agoIt sounds like it's probably an insurer specific thing so I'd check the small print. I'd be very surprised if it was a legislative thing.
- pjmlp 5y agoAlso there is actually a limit, the amount of roads where there isn't one gets smaller every year. Ongoing construction works, local municipalities that want to reduce noise, others want to reduce traffic jams, end up with enough places limited between 80 and 100 km/h.
- mads_ravn 5y agoOn the positive side I’m pretty sure that if you have a crash at 100+ km/h, then vehicle insurance is going to be the least of your worries.
- onion2k 5y agoSpeed in a crash isn't a particularly big problem. The dangerous bit is how quickly you decelerate. Going from 100kmh to 0 over a few hundred meters and a few seconds by bouncing around the road and the barriers won't be much fun but you'll walk away. Going from 100kmh to 0 by driving in to something stationary will kill you pretty much instantly unless your car's safety tech saves you by giving you a cushion of air to decelerate in to. Speeding isn't dangerous. Stopping is.
- gyulai 5y agoThere's a similar thing in Germany with the Landrover Defender: Apparently there are plans of bringing it back, in collaboration between Landrover and Fendt, a company that produces and markets land machines. In order to get the Defender to comply with environmental standards, it will have to be classed as a land machine and therefore won't be allowed to go faster than 40 kph [1]. -- This is not even just a lonely wacko importer, but this is about marketing a mass-produced vehicle. [1] https://explorer-magazin.com/fahrzeuge/landrover-kooperation-fendt/ https://explorer-magazin.com/fahrzeuge/landrover-kooperation...
- yason 5y agoThe model is reported to do a combined 21.0 liters per 100 km (or ~11-ish mpg) and more in the city. Driving this monster means you'll be paying roughly 50€ per 100km just for gas even if you didn't have to pay any of those import taxes. You really, really have to love this truck to drive it in Finland.
- thelibrarian 5y ago
- lainsoykaf 5y agoWhat would they compensate for?
- thelibrarian 5y agoA lack of fulfilment in their lives, which leads them to compensating with displays of conspicuous consumption.
- speedgoose 5y agoAlso, a popular saying in Europe is that big truck owners compensate for their small penis.
- tempestn 5y agoOr you're wealthy enough that 50€ (or 500€) is nothing to you, which seems likely in this case. (Tax avoidance notwithstanding.)
- wil421 5y agoMy friend bought a TRX. Not sure why, he has to drive a lot for work. He was paying over $250 a week in gas and even with mileage reimbursement from his work it didn’t make sense. I laughed when he sold it within 2 months. He did end of selling it for much more than he bought it for.
- bencollier49 5y agoThis reminds me of the case of the Amstrad CPC 472. Amstrad exported the 64K CPC 464 to loads of countries, and it did quite well. But Spain wanted to promote home-grown micros, and in an act of protectionism, applied a special tax to any computer with 64K or less of RAM. Amstrad MD Alan Sugar directed his engineers to solder a completely non-functional 8K RAM chip to the mainboard, changed the name of the Spanish version to the 472, and skipped the tax.
- leokennis 5y agoIs it just me or is this an extremely ugly and shoddy welding job? https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F1646776707416-hennessey-trx2.jpg?quality=60 https://www.thedrive.com/content-b/message-editor%2F16467767...
- gameswithgo 5y agoAlso remember that Hennesey is a convicted criminal, horrible person and not to be trusted with your money.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoWhy do you need to go faster? Finland is small, everything is close :)
- awiesenhofer 5y agoFunny, this is already the second article about RAMs I've stumbled upon today: These Are The Cars Most Commonly Owned By People With DUIs https://jalopnik.com/these-are-the-cars-most-commonly-owned-by-people-with-d-1848622617 https://jalopnik.com/these-are-the-cars-most-commonly-owned-...
- bichiliad 5y agoI’ve been reading a really interesting book on accidents [0]. One of the things mentioned off the bat was that when cars were first introduced to cities, there was a strong push for them to have speed governors because they killed so many people. The auto industry responded by aggressively pushing for jaywalking laws instead, which ended up winning out. I always wonder what American cities would look like were the auto industry less successful. [0]: https://bookshop.org/books/there-are-no-accidents-the-deadly-rise-of-injury-and-disaster-who-profits-and-who-pays-the-price-9781982129668/9781982129668 https://bookshop.org/books/there-are-no-accidents-the-deadly...