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If You Want a Car This Heavy, You Should Pay Through the Nose
- hersko 3y ago"On Sunday, President Joe Biden directed his megawatt grin toward a worthwhile cause," that's really laying it on thick. Geez.
- Dalewyn 3y agoSlate is as left/progressive leaning as it gets, so that's not surprising and anyone reading them should keep it in mind.
- paulpauper 3y agothis is America. any attempt at this sort of taxation is doa, even as far backs as the 70s. It's like " it worked in Norway (or other small, liberal, or collectivist or highly authoritarian country), it can work America too" um un no.
- ke88y 3y agoThe problem is that the alternative isn’t working either. Americas infrastructure trajectory is highly unsustainable even without decimating the gas tax. Eventually something gives. Lately it’s been bridges.
- blamazon 3y agoSo, under this political hypothesis, how do you explain the many (popular) toll roads currently in the USA that charge higher prices for heavier vehicles? Does that not constitute acceptance of a similar type of taxation?
- sokoloff 3y agoThe tolls that I’ve seen have usually been by size/vehicle categories, not by weight. In particular, an empty flatbed 18-wheeler (~25k lbs) is usually tolled the same as an 80K lbs 18-wheeler.
- blamazon 3y agoFair enough - by the same token a Miata and a Hummer EV almost always pay same price due to having same number of axles. But I think this is a technological limitation rather than a social one, it's a lot less expensive to count axles than to weigh in motion.
- crazygringo 3y agoAmerica has income taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, property taxes, corporate taxes, I could go on. And clearly taxes that fund roads are soon going to need to be completely revised, since they can't all come from gas anymore. Whatever the gas tax is replaced/supplemented with, I would be surprised if it doesn't take into account vehicle weight, since the whole point is to fund road maintenance. And remember that road tolls roads already take weight/wheels into account, so there's plenty of precedent. Heck, NYC is implementing congestion taxes now, if we want to talk about the possibility of new taxes. Nothing "DOA" about it.
- Dalewyn 3y agoI would just like to mention for the non-Americans here that "America has <X> tax" is a gross and possibly useless oversimplification. There are federal taxes, which generally will be levied uniformly across the country. There are state, county, and municipal taxes, of which the rates will all vary as well as whether any specific tax is levied at all (eg: Oregon has no sales tax). Certain taxes will be levied by multiple levels of government, such as gasoline tax which is levied by both federal and state taxes. Most countries' taxes are far simpler because their structures of governance are simpler, so it's worth keeping in mind that mindset shouldn't be applied to the US.
- landemva 3y agoIn USA, income taxes are not apportioned uniformly. Sales tax, property tax, and most everything else is applied uniformly based on price. I still can't believe there was a civil war about slavery, yet the government takes my work product as if I am their slave.
- PM_me_your_math 3y agoYes, the USA has far too many taxes feeding a bloated, corrupt, and wasteful government apparatus that is ever-expanding and insatiable.
- paulpauper 3y agoI think that is a record for the fastest I have seen a comment get to -4, which means it cannot be salvaged. I think the prior record was about Elon Musk.
- vba616 3y agoWhat does "work" mean? Any time someone suggests a tax that kind of, sort of, might be, correlated with energy efficiency, it is violating what should be the prime directive of climate change - every gram of CO2 emitted should be treated equally. Doing studies on the environmental impact of Hummer EVs is missing the forest for the trees. The minute you establish any category of energy usage that is more pure, more sanctified per unit mass of CO2 output, the invisible hand of the market will shift as much as possible into that loophole, until it is so obscene it can't be ignored. Hummer EVs are just one example. Focusing on weight is just starting a new cycle of missing the point. My motorcycle is really light, so does that mean it's the most efficient method of transport? Are semi-trailers used because truckers like wasting money? The counter argument remains: "we must do something...and this is something". I don't need to see that again, but if you have the urge - do you really believe it? Can we achieve any goal through lying about the fundamental criterion of success, by micromanaging out of ignorance? Everything done to fight climate change is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to avoid thinking about the insurmountable political task of raising fuel taxes enough to make a difference. If you have given up, then there is nothing left but social justice and mitigation for poor countries affected by climate change. So own it. Be clear about it.
- _ea1k 3y agoAgreed, all road taxes should be based on weight and miles driven. Make sure that it is non-linear, since road damage and weight aren't linear. And make sure that it affects fuel delivery trucks in the same way that it affects other heavy vehicles. Anything else would be plainly unfair.
- kelseyfrog 3y agoNon-linear is an understatement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- magicalhippo 3y agoHere in Norway we do have a weight tax. It's linear for normal cars[1] and paid once, for heavier vehicles it's yearly and quite non-linear[2]. edit: doing a quick fit, it seems to just be quadratic with weight though, while damage goes more like the fourth power as noted in sibling comment. As for miles driven, AFAIK there's nothing direct non-linear there, just some duty and taxes on the fuel. [1]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/avgifter/bil/importere/hvilke-avgifter-ma-du-betale/engangsavgift/hva-er-engangsavgiften/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/person/avgifter/bil/importere/hv... [2]: https://www.skatteetaten.no/satser/vektarsavgift/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/satser/vektarsavgift/
- devoutsalsa 3y agoIs weight tax the same of different for electric and internal combustion cars?
- magicalhippo 3y agoYes. ICE's have an additional CO2/NOx tax though.
- ghostpepper 3y agoNot sure how far you got in the article but Norway is specifically called out as the country with the best policy the US should mimic to address the problem.
- metadat 3y agoAt a hefty 3.5T / 7,000 lbs, the Rivians* aren't much lighter than an E-Hummer (4.5T / 9,000 lbs). Isn't road wear non-linear, with heavy vehicles doing disproportionate damage compared to lighter ones? Ever noticed how the trucker lanes on the highway are the first to get potholes? The taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize luxury toys. Let the owners pay a fair amount relative to the strain they're adding to the system (and FWIW, I'm saying this as someone who's immediate family members [plural] own Rivians). * I was surprised to learn the gross weight of a Rivian the other night at dinner while peeking at a relative's car registration documents on the kitchen counter :p
- whartung 3y agoHow much damage does a 7,000 lb vehicle do to a road designed for 80,000 lb? Or is the real measure ground pressure? Apparently semi trucks run 6000lb up front per wheel and 4300lb in the rear. The Rivian runs 1400lb. With asphalt, which is softer, I imagine the road damage more readily accumulates over time. Whereas the concrete on freeways I guess has an actual sheer strength and either breaks or it doesn’t. I am neither a mechanical nor civil engineer, so just curious how the wear manifests.
- psunavy03 3y agoI don't think this thread is as much about actual tire wear as it is a bunch of people preening about how Trucks Bad because You Don't Need That.
- hanszarkov 3y agoThis.
- margalabargala 3y ago> Isn't road wear non-linear, with heavy vehicles doing disproportionate damage compared to lighter ones? This is correct, and it's why your conclusion is nonsensical. No one is subsidizing luxury toys. The amount of damage done to roads by an e-Hummer or Rivian is mildly above that of, say, a Camry. Both do hundreds of times less damage than an 18-wheeler. The amount of damage done to a road by a passenger sedan is functionally zero, and for a Rivian or Hummer, it remains essentially zero. The weight of large electric vehicles is an important issue! It makes a huge difference in cases of, for example, striking a pedestrian. But road damage is not a major issue for electric vehicles. One caveat would be that a lot of road repair is funded via gas taxes, so road damage per dollar paid towards road repair may be lower for electric vehicles. But if we make heavy vehicles pair "their fair share", the Rivians will pay pennies, and the truckers will all go bankrupt.
- epivosism 3y agoStrange they skipped the step of 1) taxing cars which cause more injuries per mile, 2) taxing resources (including externality cost) so that if you use more, you pay more. Instead they are taxing a pretty bad proxy for those actual policy goals. i.e. this incentivizes companies to reduce weight rather than add safety measures, and to use light materials regardless of if they cause more environmental damage. Hypothetical example: carmakers might use more aluminum & titanium, which may cause lots of harm to produce, rather than iron. Just tax the thing you don't like: pollution & using resources you want to control distribution of. Wired has really fallen. It's like they don't understand markets or incentives at all. Also - isn't tesla one of the safest cars on the road per mile? So it's really inane to write a hit piece on their alleged safety without say actually looking at their safety results
- chii 3y ago> Just tax the thing you don't like and in a democracy, this can't happen because those being taxed have political power to prevent it, or dilute it. Therefore, a proxy gets taxed indirectly, which also dilutes the said tax to more constituents, thus spreading it out thinly enough to not "cause" the ruckus in said group of constituents.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xethos 3y ago> Wired has really fallen I mean maybe, but TFA is from Slate. Moreover, the article argues in favour of taxing the thing we want less of: weight. Weight means more power required to start, more mass to change direction and stop, more materials required for the larger batteries, and more of a literal impact on pedestrians.
- ForestCritter 3y agoIt also often equates to safer vehicles. Crash safety matters.
- 3y ago
- mtnops 3y agoVehicle mileage is taxed at the pump and at the charging station. The material is taxed at sale. Charging an excess tax is just. . . In excess. The pedestrian crash problem has more to do with our terrible alternative transportation traffic mixing. If the US took a more serious approach for bike lanes and pedestrian accessible infrastructure, the injury rate would decrease. Heavy vehicles is not a new problem. Look at gross vehicle weights of cars and light trucks before 1980.
- crazygringo 3y agoIf road damage grows exponentially rather than linearly with weight, then so should the taxes. Nothing excess about it, it's just proportional.
- marcosdumay 3y agoThe usual approximation is the 3rd or 4th power of weight, not exponential. But yeah, growing taxes on that proportion would make sense.
- jeffbee 3y agoThis I've heard several times recently but it's not really true. The current 4-door Bronco is larger in every direction and 900 pounds heavier than a 1976 Ramcharger, which we used to think of as a benchmark for way-too-big cars. The best-selling car from 1976 weighed 3700 pounds, only 3-5% more than the best-selling Toyota Camry of 2022. The 1976 Ford F-100 (the best-selling truck of that year) base weight is the same as a 2023 Ford F-150 base, at 4000 pounds.
- jbotdev 3y agoHaving recently shopped for an EV, I did find that there are a lot more options in the US if you’re looking for larger vehicles. It’s a shame because many smaller models exist abroad, they just don’t want to bring them here (e.g. the VW ID.3). What’s also funny is in many parts of Europe, their idea of a “small” car seems to be very different from ours. I’ve heard people there classify cars like the Honda CRV or the VW ID.4 as “big”.
- mjx0 3y agoI own an ID.4 and live in the US. In my opinion, the ID.4 is enormous and handles like a barge. For perspective, I used to drive a Corolla as my commuting car. In hindsight, I kinda wish I would’ve just waited for a current-year Nissan Leaf to be in stock. But, I had burned out on looking for Leafs between dealerships blatantly lying to me and trying to sell me 5+ year old Leafs for roughly the MSRP of a brand new one.
- neilv 3y agoTaxes and fees just let the wealthy do whatever they want, while putting the less-wealthy at even further disadvantage. Regulations that say a normal household passenger vehicle can't weigh over X can be made to apply to everyone.
- sokoloff 3y agoBeware of unintended consequences. Such a policy would tend to work against EVs and PHEVs, which have their own benefits to society.
- neilv 3y agoThe exact regulations can be crafted to reduce that risk.
- Gigachad 3y agoAgreed. I’m sure the family that has their kids killed by a brodoser feels better knowing the owner paid extra taxes on it.
- marcosdumay 3y agoI dunno if it makes sense to create a bizarre kind of carbon tax that applies to that one specific scenario. But vehicles that are too large or two heavy should have some stricter zoning constraints. They aren't safe everywhere, and they create some strong traffic degradation.
- judge2020 3y agoThis article is incorrect, at least based on times i've looked into wear and tear on the road in the past. 4.5 tons over two axles is approximately 25 times the damage of a sedan with 1 ton of weight on each axle. But that's not the same as a semi truck dealing 625 times as much damage as the sedan, or nearly 25 times as much damage as the Hummer EV. Given it costs over $100,000, I don't see 25x as many Hummer EVs hitting the road than big rigs in any given year. > Consider a standard sedan with two axles and a total weight of 2 tons. Assuming an even distribution, each of its axles would bear the weight of 1 ton. Now consider a semitruck with eight axles and a weight of 40 tons -- each of its axles would weigh 5 tons. The relative damage done by each axle of the truck can be calculated with the following equation, and comes out to 625 times the damage done by each axel of the sedan. > Considering that the truck has eight axles and the sedan has two, the relative damage caused by the entire semitruck would be 625 x (8/2) -- 2,500 times that of the sedan. > “The damage due to cars, for practical purposes, when we are designing pavements, is basically zero. It’s not actually zero, but it’s so much smaller -- orders of magnitude smaller -- that we don’t even bother with them,” said Karim Chatti, a civil engineer from Michigan State University in East Lansing. Not the same for bridges though: > In reality, the relationship is more complicated. For instance, adding extra axles increases the total weight of the vehicle, making it more damaging, especially to bridges, where the total weight instead of axle weight is the main concern. https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
- 10g1k 3y agoA left-inclined publication wants more government interference and more taxes? I'm shocked! How about just not taxing everything and everyone into oblivion? Reduce all the wasteful government spending, and remove most of the government.
- darkteflon 3y agoAnd what do you think would happen then?
- unnamed76ri 3y agoFreedom.
- darkteflon 3y agoUh huh, nice word. And could you put some details around that, some specifics? What would our society look like, in your estimation, without regulation?
- landemva 3y agoIt could look like reciprocal easements throughout the entire town and the roads. The people own the infrastructure and use legal structures to cooperate with their neighbors.
- darkteflon 3y agoThat’s a great starting point. But how would you handle it if you were on a main thoroughfare with 4.5 tonne EVs rolling through from, and to, parts unknown?
- landemva 3y agoThe easements allow other property owners to get to their houses. Everyone understands work trucks going to work at a house. A big advertising billboard truck going in circles would be trespass on my part of the "road". EV going to a residence seems to comply with easement to travel, within bridge weight limits.
- exabrial 3y agoThis problem will take care of itself once EVs are no longer a Luxury Good. I'd rather not do a bunch of damage to a fledgling market when all I want is more choices and innovation in charging times.
- linsomniac 3y agoAmerica is not a nation of light vehicles, and that is largely due to the MPG standards that have been legislated for decades. An "out" was given based on vehicle weight, with heavier vehicles not having to meet as high a standard as lighter ones. Which is part of why trucks have gotten so huge over the past few decades.
- bitbang 3y agoThis. Ignorant dweebs like the type who write for Slate fail to understand that the growing size of vehicles is not driven by demand, it's driven by EPA policy.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoAnecdotally, this is false for anyone I have talked to. They want bigger vehicles, they want to sit up high. There exists demand for bigger vehicle, whether or be to feel safer or superior.
- Gigachad 3y agoYou can tell with the aggressive aesthetic of these new trucks that there is clearly some appeal to fragile egos as well.
- msandford 3y agoThey may want big, but big doesn't have to be heavy. We could have big and relatively light vehicles. Most of a cars volume is air. But big is higher drag and higher drag is less mpg and the only way to be allowed less mpg is heavy as per EPA rules.
- bitbang 3y agoPeople you are talking to only care about image, they just buy into the macho image projected by marketing. There are many tradesmen, farmers, etc who would love to buy one of the small trucks that used to be available. They are great for tossing tools into and going to fields, work sites, etc. But trucks with that wheel base now require an efficiency level that isn't feasible. Many have resorted to using UTVs in their place where it makes sense, but those can't completely fill the gap since they aren't street legal. Regulations always have intended consequences.
- therealdrag0 3y agoDarn the 7.5k rebate has income limits only up to 300k
- slaw 3y ago$150k for single.
- mmmeff 3y agoF=mv^2 The problem is moreso speed, not mass, when discussing pedestrian fatalities. Better yet, protect pedestrians from getting hit in the first place with better street design for more walkable cities. There are tons of examples of protected bike lanes, pedestrian islands, and more frequent crosswalks with stiffer penalties for blowing through them, regardless of what the vehicle is.
- FabHK 3y ago1/2 mv^2 is energy (not force).
- mesarvagya 3y agoF = m * a Keeping constant acceleration, compare hummer against corolla. Hummer is going to squash pedestrians.
- cgriswald 3y agoLet's scale licensing requirements with weight instead. Require regular re-testing for all but the most basic class license. Regular re-testing means those driving heavier (read: more dangerous) vehicles would have to maintain competency rather than be punished in proportion to the consequences of their incompetency. The usual moral qualms about revoking licensing would be somewhat side-stepped as well since you could at least knock a bad driver down to the basic class and reduce the damage they're likely to do.
- coding123 3y agoIt makes total sense to me, for everyone that got screwed out of home ownership because of prices skyrocketing, some of them didn't go homeless. The ones that bought a large truck and an RV (to live in full time) need to pay. That should make them go fully homeless.
- whalesalad 3y agoI think that its foolish to over-legislate at this stage in the game. 1. The Hummer EV is not going to do a ton of volume. Compared to other vehicles on the road, esp commercial, it's a drop in the bucket. "in 2022, GMC delivered 854 Hummer EV Pickups. Currently, the cumulative number is 857." 2. People do not consider the weight of the vehicle when purchasing. No one cares. And it's not something we should need to consider. The Rivian (a 'quarter ton' truck) weighs 7,000 lbs, a good 2,000 lbs more than my RAM 1500 (a 'half ton' truck). This is counter intuitive and not obvious to most buyers. 3. Batteries are the problem, but battery tech is truly in its infancy. They will continue to get lighter and more efficient. Why would we want to penalize the transition to EV with more taxes and fees on owners? Ignore the fact that Hummer owners "can afford it" - what about other EVs? We want more adoption of EVs. We need to figure out another strategy. Manufacturers should carry the burden here because they are the ones producing these heavy vehicles. That is a slippery slope though because again it will stifle innovation. This will be a messy transition but progress is progress.
- Gigachad 3y ago> People do not consider the weight of the vehicle when purchasing. No one cares. And it's not something we should need to consider. Of course they don’t care. Because it’s only others being hurt. Which is why we need to push the problem back to the source. We shouldn’t allow deadly machines to be operated around urban spaces. If you need one out on the farm, that’s fine. But it’s not appropriate to take in to the city.
- whalesalad 3y agoWho is being hurt? Deadly machines? This is a very unpleasant curmudgeonly take. The context of this discussion is regarding road use and wear and tear.
- Gigachad 3y agoHave you taken a look at the road fatalities in the US recently. People are quite literally being killed at an increasing rate. And these oversized cars are directly more deadly. You might not care about putting lives over appearances. But others do.
- softgrow 3y agoIts about bringing externalaties to account, ie if you cost someone else money be it through particulate pollution, noise pollution, road maintenance, road provision you should pay that. So you can choose, but you must pay the full cost of your decision. If you get this right then everyone will choose optimally and the overall costs will diminish. Gas tax is roughly correlated but not great and a weight tax is better but still not exact.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- tw04 3y ago>Slapping new taxes on EVs might seem like a head-scratcher, especially since around 4 in 5 cars on Norwegian roads are still gas-powered. But the country’s new weight-based car fees are a sensible move to address two critical drawbacks of oversize EVs: These models exacerbate climate change, and they endanger everyone else on the street. Other countries—and U.S. states—should follow Norway’s lead. Just... no. That's a luxury we don't currently have. Get as many ICE cars off the road as quickly as you can, then worry about right-sizing by levying taxes based on weight. Why on earth would you give ANY disincentive to people from buying an EV? If someone wants to blow $150k on a hummer EV instead of buying another diesel pickup, great! Anyone claiming it's somehow more dangerous to a pedestrian is just being belligerent - if you get hit by the average 3/4 truck doing 60mph you'll be just as dead as the hummer despite the hummer weighing slightly more. I think people in the US fail to realize that even the heaviest passenger vehicle does almost nothing to a road in comparison to a single semi-tractor. You can find various studies but even the most conservative put the average OTR truck at 2500X the damage of a passenger vehicle: https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...
- PM_me_your_math 3y agoCan we add more taxes, I still get to keep some of my income?
- ForestCritter 3y agoSo the least safe your car is, the more you pay. I'll take my crash safety in my volvo station wagon 'little tank' over an 'efficient tin can' any day. I can also haul a trailer which you can't do in light weight cars.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago> But EVs still require energy to move, and generating it creates emissions. Only if you use coal/gas plants to generate your electricity. Mostly, there are better options. Many EV owners also have solar panels, for example. Or alternatively they'll use charging stations that are mostly powered by renewables (because that's cheaper for those who operate those commercially). The bottom line is that generating electricity indeed generates some emissions sometimes. And generally a lot less than burning petrol/diesel do. > Gigantic batteries consume larger amounts of critical minerals like graphite and lithium that are in short supply worldwide. Lithium shortages are mostly on the refining side; there's plenty of lithium on this planet. And for cheaper cars there's also sodium ion. Likewise, we're not exactly running out of carbon. Scaling up graphite and lithium production is a bit of a logistical challenge. We're much better at producing epic amounts of oil. The problem with that of course is that we need to stop doing that. Vastly less oil in exchange for a little bit extra graphite. Maybe we can even turn (some) oil into graphite. This reads to me like a puff piece that is designed to lazily (without much critical thinking or journalistic expertise) rehash some cliches and half truths about EVs. We can guess at motivation but probably some advertising money can be traced back to the usual suspects in the burning dead dinosaur juice sector. Are cars needlessly big and heavy in the US. Yes. No doubt about. That started years ago, long before there were EVs. And the trend continues. It's not because batteries are heavy but because people thing they need big heavy cars. It's perfectly doable to make a small, lightweight EV. There are some sports car conversions to electric that weigh less than the original without loss of range and with a lot better performance.
- timbit42 3y agoFTFA: “If we can redistribute these resources—instead of putting them in a Hummer, put them in smaller cars or e-bikes—that’s preferable,” said Jay Turner Or even PHEVs which typically have 1/10th the batteries and 1/10th the range of an EV, yet reduce fuel usage by 90% since most people's daily driving is under 50 kilometres or 30 miles.