5 ms·

https://www.myevreview.com/electric-cars-weight-comparison-chart https://www.myevreview.com/electric-cars-weight-comparison-c... The worst offenders are Hummer

by cs702 4y ago

https://www.myevreview.com/electric-cars-weight-comparison-chart https://www.myevreview.com/electric-cars-weight-comparison-c... The worst offenders are Hummer, Rolls Royce, Mercedes, Audi, Polestar/Volvo, BMW, Cadillac, and Rivian, which dominate the top-50 spots. Interestingly, the world's two best-selling EV models, Tesla's models 3 and Y, are near the bottom of the list, with weights comparable to those of much smaller cars that have modest range and a lot less space for passengers and storage. Some Hyundai, Kia, and BYD models also come out looking quite good in terms of weight.

sundvor 4y ago
Yeah, the headline felt pretty click-baity indeed. I just made a similar point in a sibling comment.
judge2020 4y ago
Slightly related is road wear. According to "Pedal Fort Collins", a 8,600 pound vehicle does over 20x the damage of a 4,000 pound one[0]. More pieces throughout the past few decades have also covered this [1-2] 0: https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/#post-59788 https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh... (source is dead, so a blog reference is all I have) 1: https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-... 2: https://www.gao.gov/products/109954 https://www.gao.gov/products/109954
- Laaas 4y ago
  I wonder why you don't pay more if you use a heavier vehicle.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    Some states do charge you for registering heavier vehicles, and there's the HVUT for the heaviest road users like trucks[0]. 0: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/091116/pdfs/fhwatri-fold.pdf https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/091116/pdfs/fhwatri-fold.pdf
  - thomasjb 4y ago
    One of the cantons of Switzerland does this, making it much more economical (in tax terms) to have a very lightweight sportscar than an SUV
  - TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
    In Australia we do pay more for vehicle registration, but only a little, and number of engine cylinders is used as a proxy. Also, taxes make up about half our fuel price, so heavy vehicles tend to pay more tax.
    - WirelessGigabit 4y ago
      Belgium does (did?) the same. Engine size was the number one driver of tax. Then turbos came along and engines started to shrink, so tax went down. As an answer to that CO2 taxes were introduced. Then companies started to aim for <= 99 gram CO2 / km, with super-small diesels. But then the report of VW's number fudging came along which caused a shift towards gas again. I don't know now how it works today, with EVs and small gas ICEs with big turbos etc. I do know that they mandate DEF on diesel cars, and OPF on gas cars.
  - Bootvis 4y ago
    Maybe not in the USA but you would in the Netherlands and I bet elsewhere as well. For example, monthly tax for a gasoline car that weighs between 1051 and 1150 kilograms is EUR 125, for cars weighing between 2151 and 2250 you would pay EUR 378.
  - syzarian 4y ago
    In the U.S. the reason is the Republican party. If we pay an amount to register a vehicle based on weight due to the increased damage it does to the roads then it will be portrayed as a radical environmentalist plot to get rid of SUVs and trucks. Republicans as love the idea of pay-as-you-use government services except when it comes to infrastructure. For example, it’s OK for a $25 traffic fine to include $100 in court costs but don’t under any circumstance expect one to pay more for gasoline to pay for road maintenance.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      Your average techie/doctor/lawyer/manager who thinks he needs a 4Runner for his 2-kid household is not going to be dissuaded by hundreds of dollars here or their when their mortgage is thousands a month. You need a huge tax. That huge tax would be punitive on all sorts of "legitimate" activity. If it was a politics thing and not a "everybody who looks into it with any depth decides it's dumb" thing then some state like MD, RI, CT, or MA would have taxed it already. Furthermore, we're talking about "damage" (in sarcasm quotes because expected and normal wear isn't damage in any normal sense of the word) power equation here[1]. So basically everything that isn't a class 6/7/8 truck is inconsequential for a road that has any portion of its traffic made up by those vehicles. Since those trucks basically run the economy someone has to pay for it. There's really little political will to engage in an obvious exercise of "picking who to screw" like that vs an imperfect but fairly fair fuel tax. [1] https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
      - syzarian 4y ago
        You are correct that the desire to subsidize commercial activity plays a role. Republicans may not have power in a state like CT but there is still a desire not to be beat up on an issue that will play well to the masses. For instance, Michelle Obama advocated for better nutrition for school lunch programs. No reasonable person could possibly have seen fault with this but after Fox News attacked her over this it became a dead issue. EDIT: It is definitely not a dumb idea as you suggest. Many counties have sensible policies on this issue and yet they manage to trudge along without much trouble. As I said it is OK to advocate for pay-as-you-use government so long as people like you don’t pay for your negative externalities too often.
  - deelowe 4y ago
    In the states, this is generally covered by fuel taxes. Older and heavier vehicles use more fuel, which generates more tax revenue. The model breaks down with EVs though, which is why some states have started to implement EV specific ad valorem taxes.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      Road wear is proportional to the 4th power of vehicle weight. Fuel economy is closer to linear to weight.
      - KMag 4y ago
        Is tire wear roughly proportional to road wear (in states where chains and studs are illegal)? Increasing tire tax would have negative effects (encouraging people to wear their tires dangerously thin, etc.) Encouraging tire manufacturers to use more durable formulations would likely increase road wear, but reduce amounts of tire dust pollution. In any case, it's not a perfect solution, but does a tire tax more closely approximate taxing road wear vs. a fuel tax or an annual flat tax based on vehicle weight?
      - deelowe 4y ago
        I oversimplified a bit. There are other taxes as well (e.g. trailer, number of axles, etc).
  - treis 4y ago
    In this context, 20 times the damage is effectively 20 times 0. The real damage to roads comes from the big trucks like Garbage trucks and 18 wheelers.
    - diggernet 4y ago
      Exactly. My contact in CalTrans tells me that because public roads are built to handle the big trucks, the wear caused by any vehicle under 10,000 lbs is effectively zero.
  - wfhBrian 4y ago
    Similarly, why don't we pay more to drive a vehicle that is more dangerous to both pedestrians and other drivers.
    - frumper 4y ago
      That cost gets wrapped up in your insurance rates. If your car actually does cost more then people with your type of car will pay higher rates. If you as a driver are more likely to hit other cars or people, then your personal rates will be higher.
      - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
        That only works if you (or your insurer) are actually held responsible to injuries done to people. In most of the US, you can pretty much kill people with impunity with a car as long as you aren't doing something grossly in violation of traffic laws. Drivers have almost completely externalized the cost of injuries caused their excessively large vehicles.
  - dansteen 4y ago
    All the parking garages in NYC do this. Source: I spend a lot of time in NYC driving a minivan which counts as “oversized”. :-)
- cs702 4y ago
  Huh, I didn't know that damage to roads is greater than linear on vehicle weight, reportedly to the 4th power.[a] Hadn't thought about it. In hindsight, it kind of makes sense, because all the force (weight) is applied at only four points, where the tires touch the ground. [a] See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35525557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35525557
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    The tax should be based on the weight divided by the tyre contact area. All hail my new 12-wheel, flat-tyred HumVee.
- rpmw 4y ago
  Very curious how governments will approach taxing these as gas tax revenues shrink. I know in some places your registration is higher but after talking with a coworker who pays more to register his EV, he admits it's negligible compared to the amount he'd pay in gas taxes with an ICE---just not an "invisible" tax like gas is. Doesn't seem as clean (ha) as Fed gas taxes, state, etc. Federal level car registration sounds a bit nightmarish, though I guess a registry is probably already being managed given the EV tax credits. Anyway, just thoughts.
- nradov 4y ago
  Road damage is roughly proportional to the fourth power of vehicle weight. So it's really the heavy trucks that have the most impact. https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
Quite a few of these are above the legal limit you are allowed to drive on a regular license in Europe.

by cs702 4y ago

sundvor 4y ago

Yeah, the headline felt pretty click-baity indeed. I just made a similar point in a sibling comment.

judge2020 4y ago

Slightly related is road wear. According to "Pedal Fort Collins", a 8,600 pound vehicle does over 20x the damage of a 4,000 pound one[0]. More pieces throughout the past few decades have also covered this [1-2] 0: https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weight-vs-road-damage-levels/#post-59788 https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh... (source is dead, so a blog reference is all I have) 1: https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-... 2: https://www.gao.gov/products/109954 https://www.gao.gov/products/109954

Laaas 4y ago
I wonder why you don't pay more if you use a heavier vehicle.
- judge2020 4y ago
  Some states do charge you for registering heavier vehicles, and there's the HVUT for the heaviest road users like trucks[0]. 0: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/091116/pdfs/fhwatri-fold.pdf https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/091116/pdfs/fhwatri-fold.pdf
- thomasjb 4y ago
  One of the cantons of Switzerland does this, making it much more economical (in tax terms) to have a very lightweight sportscar than an SUV
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  In Australia we do pay more for vehicle registration, but only a little, and number of engine cylinders is used as a proxy. Also, taxes make up about half our fuel price, so heavy vehicles tend to pay more tax.
  - WirelessGigabit 4y ago
    Belgium does (did?) the same. Engine size was the number one driver of tax. Then turbos came along and engines started to shrink, so tax went down. As an answer to that CO2 taxes were introduced. Then companies started to aim for <= 99 gram CO2 / km, with super-small diesels. But then the report of VW's number fudging came along which caused a shift towards gas again. I don't know now how it works today, with EVs and small gas ICEs with big turbos etc. I do know that they mandate DEF on diesel cars, and OPF on gas cars.
- Bootvis 4y ago
  Maybe not in the USA but you would in the Netherlands and I bet elsewhere as well. For example, monthly tax for a gasoline car that weighs between 1051 and 1150 kilograms is EUR 125, for cars weighing between 2151 and 2250 you would pay EUR 378.
- syzarian 4y ago
  In the U.S. the reason is the Republican party. If we pay an amount to register a vehicle based on weight due to the increased damage it does to the roads then it will be portrayed as a radical environmentalist plot to get rid of SUVs and trucks. Republicans as love the idea of pay-as-you-use government services except when it comes to infrastructure. For example, it’s OK for a $25 traffic fine to include $100 in court costs but don’t under any circumstance expect one to pay more for gasoline to pay for road maintenance.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Your average techie/doctor/lawyer/manager who thinks he needs a 4Runner for his 2-kid household is not going to be dissuaded by hundreds of dollars here or their when their mortgage is thousands a month. You need a huge tax. That huge tax would be punitive on all sorts of "legitimate" activity. If it was a politics thing and not a "everybody who looks into it with any depth decides it's dumb" thing then some state like MD, RI, CT, or MA would have taxed it already. Furthermore, we're talking about "damage" (in sarcasm quotes because expected and normal wear isn't damage in any normal sense of the word) power equation here[1]. So basically everything that isn't a class 6/7/8 truck is inconsequential for a road that has any portion of its traffic made up by those vehicles. Since those trucks basically run the economy someone has to pay for it. There's really little political will to engage in an obvious exercise of "picking who to screw" like that vs an imperfect but fairly fair fuel tax. [1] https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
    - syzarian 4y ago
      You are correct that the desire to subsidize commercial activity plays a role. Republicans may not have power in a state like CT but there is still a desire not to be beat up on an issue that will play well to the masses. For instance, Michelle Obama advocated for better nutrition for school lunch programs. No reasonable person could possibly have seen fault with this but after Fox News attacked her over this it became a dead issue. EDIT: It is definitely not a dumb idea as you suggest. Many counties have sensible policies on this issue and yet they manage to trudge along without much trouble. As I said it is OK to advocate for pay-as-you-use government so long as people like you don’t pay for your negative externalities too often.
- deelowe 4y ago
  In the states, this is generally covered by fuel taxes. Older and heavier vehicles use more fuel, which generates more tax revenue. The model breaks down with EVs though, which is why some states have started to implement EV specific ad valorem taxes.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Road wear is proportional to the 4th power of vehicle weight. Fuel economy is closer to linear to weight.
    - KMag 4y ago
      Is tire wear roughly proportional to road wear (in states where chains and studs are illegal)? Increasing tire tax would have negative effects (encouraging people to wear their tires dangerously thin, etc.) Encouraging tire manufacturers to use more durable formulations would likely increase road wear, but reduce amounts of tire dust pollution. In any case, it's not a perfect solution, but does a tire tax more closely approximate taxing road wear vs. a fuel tax or an annual flat tax based on vehicle weight?
    - deelowe 4y ago
      I oversimplified a bit. There are other taxes as well (e.g. trailer, number of axles, etc).
- treis 4y ago
  In this context, 20 times the damage is effectively 20 times 0. The real damage to roads comes from the big trucks like Garbage trucks and 18 wheelers.
  - diggernet 4y ago
    Exactly. My contact in CalTrans tells me that because public roads are built to handle the big trucks, the wear caused by any vehicle under 10,000 lbs is effectively zero.
- wfhBrian 4y ago
  Similarly, why don't we pay more to drive a vehicle that is more dangerous to both pedestrians and other drivers.
  - frumper 4y ago
    That cost gets wrapped up in your insurance rates. If your car actually does cost more then people with your type of car will pay higher rates. If you as a driver are more likely to hit other cars or people, then your personal rates will be higher.
    - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
      That only works if you (or your insurer) are actually held responsible to injuries done to people. In most of the US, you can pretty much kill people with impunity with a car as long as you aren't doing something grossly in violation of traffic laws. Drivers have almost completely externalized the cost of injuries caused their excessively large vehicles.
- dansteen 4y ago
  All the parking garages in NYC do this. Source: I spend a lot of time in NYC driving a minivan which counts as “oversized”. :-)
cs702 4y ago
Huh, I didn't know that damage to roads is greater than linear on vehicle weight, reportedly to the 4th power.[a] Hadn't thought about it. In hindsight, it kind of makes sense, because all the force (weight) is applied at only four points, where the tires touch the ground. [a] See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35525557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35525557
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  The tax should be based on the weight divided by the tyre contact area. All hail my new 12-wheel, flat-tyred HumVee.
rpmw 4y ago
Very curious how governments will approach taxing these as gas tax revenues shrink. I know in some places your registration is higher but after talking with a coworker who pays more to register his EV, he admits it's negligible compared to the amount he'd pay in gas taxes with an ICE---just not an "invisible" tax like gas is. Doesn't seem as clean (ha) as Fed gas taxes, state, etc. Federal level car registration sounds a bit nightmarish, though I guess a registry is probably already being managed given the EV tax credits. Anyway, just thoughts.
nradov 4y ago
Road damage is roughly proportional to the fourth power of vehicle weight. So it's really the heavy trucks that have the most impact. https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

the_mitsuhiko 4y ago

Quite a few of these are above the legal limit you are allowed to drive on a regular license in Europe.