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Weight-based motor vehicle tax
- neals 3y agoAs in most of europe?
- qmarchi 3y agoBut not nearly as common in the US.
- oangemangut 3y agoIt seems somewhat common, it's just that it's not weighted heavily enough in the the overall registration costs.
- ed_balls 3y agowhat is interesting in this page?
- candiddevmike 3y agoThe ideal tax would probably be weight + miles, but good luck implementing it...
- omgJustTest 3y agoAlready baked into the price of gas... its actually one of the better use-taxes but not all states have success keeping it.
- thfuran 3y agoSure, in the sense that O(n) is the same as O(n^4)
- omgJustTest 3y agoIDK what this means... and even if you explained the comment or directed it as part of a conversation, you would find that use-taxes are incredibly effective methods of placing the cost with usage of a shared resource. I would also argue that if you want to make a comparison that you just find the, I am sure, studies that have been conducted by every department of transportation in the country to estimate the fair cost-of-use to vehicle type. The comment here should either find some references or be removed as snark-bait. "Sure, in the sense that O(n) is the same as O(n^4)"...
- thfuran 3y ago>use-taxes are incredibly effective methods of placing the cost with usage of a shared resource. But road wear simply is not proportional to gas use. If you double a vehicle's weight, its gas usage will almost certainly less than double (this depends somewhat on driving patterns, but air resistance is generally a significant factor in mileage), while the road wear it causes will increase by roughly a factor of 8. A flat tax on gas can't possibly internalize the costs of road wear, though it could internalize the costs of CO2 emissions, which are actually proportional to use.
- candiddevmike 3y agoEVs weigh more on average than ICs and don't use gas...
- cinntaile 3y agoThey use electricity though, which you usually also pay tax on so it's quite similar in that regard. The more you use the more tax you pay.
- tfehring 3y agoHeavier vehicles still significantly underpay if road maintenance is funded by gas taxes alone, since wear and tear increases in proportion to the fourth power of weight [0] while gas usage only increases linearly or so. Of course, higher taxes on the heaviest vehicles would just mean higher prices on consumer goods, so this mostly ends up as a subsidy to consumption. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- SoftTalker 3y agoHeavier vehicles use more fuel. A semi truck gets single-digit MPG.
- thfuran 3y agoAnd they can have an axle weight of 20,000 pounds vs about 3,000 for an SUV, meaning they do nearly 2,000 times as much damage to the road. Unless your car gets about 10,000 mpg, the gas tax isn't cutting it.
- SoftTalker 3y agoBig trucks also pay a lot of other road taxes that passenger cars don't. All those stickers and tags that they all have to display, all come with a fee. I'm not claiming that they pay a "fair share" proportionate to the wear on the roads but they already do pay a lot more than other vehicles.
- thfuran 3y agoThey may pay enough extra taxes and fees to cover the road wear, but the gas tax absolutely doesn't cover it.
- for1nner 3y agoseveral states (HI, CA, OR off the top of my head) have trialed mileage-based fees. The problem becomes convincing anyone there's political credit to be gained by implementing/overhauling those systems. I suspect it will take as-long-as-it-possibly-can for those and bureaucratic reasons (contracts/pilots/implementation of those systems).
- kelseyfrog 3y agoI think you're close, but shouldn't it be weight * miles? A really naive scheme[1] would be scales at the pump that affect gas price. Weight-class based pricing would also work. It's possible to enforce with the surveillance state apparatus and microparticle-tagged fuel products. 1. Without taking into account the incentives nor human nature
- candiddevmike 3y agoMultiply it, exponentiate (?) it based on axels too, doesn't matter, I was more saying combine weight and miles driven in some way (not a literal plus/addition).
- kelseyfrog 3y agoMakes sense. Apologies for taking your suggestion so literally. Your intuition is correct. It's one of the few times we get to use the fourth power so it is aptly named The Fourth Power Law[1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- mattw2121 3y agoExists in Florida: https://www.flhsmv.gov/fees/ https://www.flhsmv.gov/fees/
- imbusy111 3y agoJust needs at a minimum 10x scale factor.
- verisimi 3y agoHow does one 'opt out' of whatever nonsense government dreams up next?! And if I can't opt out, how is this not tyranny?
- dghlsakjg 3y agoDon’t buy a car? In all seriousness, do you really think that any government system on earth could work if people got to opt out of laws they don’t like?
- lotsofpulp 3y agoAssuming you do not have a tribe willing and able to fight for you, move to the middle of Siberia, or Somalia, or the Sahara, etc where you will not have to compete for resources like land.
- kbos87 3y agoIn this case it’s pretty simple - stop using the government built and maintained road system
- systemvoltage 3y ago“Maintained road system” is a joke in California, yet we pay some of the highest taxes in the world.
- drunner 3y agoIn the world? LOL edit: sorry, to be more constructive let me add https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020 https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt... as a small explanation for what is all wrong with 'roads' in america. Car infrastructure is insanely expensive and we have a ton of terrible status quos in the US that add to it.
- carlosjobim 3y agoRegarding this particular tax, you opt out by de-registering your vehicle so you don't have to pay taxes on it. In general, that's how you opt out of most government nonsense, you fly under the radar and keep your money protected where whatever government can't touch it.
- s_tec 3y agoThis seems like a good idea. We have used gas taxes for a long time, but electric cars don't pay this tax. If we want to pay for roads based on how much people use them, we will need to switch to something other than gas taxes. Odometer readings could work, but it's not clear how to get honest readings. Weight isn't perfect, but it seems like a less-bad options than the others.
- londons_explore 3y agoGet honest readings by having them read at the annual vehicle test in states that do it, and self reported in other states. Then have police report it whenever they pull you over for any reason. You don't need to get perfect readings from everyone. If you tax 99% of people, that's fine.
- ARandomerDude 3y ago> Then have police report it whenever they pull you over for any reason. Ah yes, the old have the police collect more information on you idea. What could go wrong?
- vsareto 3y agoWe need a volume and weight tax. Something needs to reduce these massive vehicles in the US.
- stetrain 3y agoMany states are now adding fixed registration taxes for EVs, usually in the ballpark of $200/year. I pay this, and it costs significantly more than if I had paid gas tax on an ICE car of a similar weight for the miles I drive. Also fun was that this remained full price during the year that my state suspended its gas tax for economic relief due to high gas prices. Weight and mileage based taxation absolutely makes sense, since road damage increases with the 4th power of axle load. But matching those taxes to damage caused means heavy trucks will pay the vast majority of tax, since they do the vast majority of damage. This may be unpopular with Amazon.
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- Svip 3y agoDenmark used to have that until 1997, when it was replaced by a tax based on km/l (not 100 l/km). Not sure how it works for electric cars, come to think of it.
- stevenpetryk 3y agoWhat's interesting is that road wear is proportional to the FOURTH POWER (!!) of axle weight[1]. If it were taxed accordingly the taxes would be extremely different for personal cars versus 18-wheelers. 1: https://pavementinteractive.org/reference-desk/design/design-parameters/equivalent-single-axle-load/ https://pavementinteractive.org/reference-desk/design/design...
- stefan_ 3y agoBut then we would actually transfer goods via rail instead of tiny amounts via trucks, and then what would happen to the cultural icon of the american trucker and his incredibly loud, unsafe at all conditions vehicle.
- SoftTalker 3y agoIn the USA we transfer a lot of freight by rail. Trucks are used when rail isn't practical or doesn't exist.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agout yoir rail is not electric, even thoigh its the first mode of transport we electrofied over 100 years ago
- ghaff 3y agoYeah. There are already strong economic incentives to use rail for long-haul land transportation of lower value/less time-critical goods in the US. I don't know the numbers but I suspect you see relatively few goods transported coast to coast by truck in the US.
- romafirst3 3y agoI’m pretty sure this isn’t true. Lots travels by rail, but a hell of a lot travels by truck. I ship a lot ltl (pallets) If you want to do a quick test yourself , next time you are on a highway look at the places the trucks are from (obviously they can be registered elsewhere but it gives you an idea). If you import to a port it usually travels by rail after (cause ports have great rail links) but if you are going business to business in the US it’s often by truck
- stetrain 3y agohttps://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-trucks-do-our-roads https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-... > The fourth power law (also known as the fourth power rule) states that the greater the axle load of a vehicle, the stress on the road caused by the motor vehicle increases in proportion to the fourth power of the axle load. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law tl;dr vehicles with higher axle loading do significantly more damage to roads, scaling with the 4th power. Meaning the vast majority of standard wear and tear on our roads is going to be from heavy trucks, not passenger cars. It makes sense to scale usage taxes in a similar way.
- Zigurd 3y agoHeavy commercial trucks account for nearly all road wear. Until they transition away from diesel, almost all particulates and other pollutants, too. They should pay the most tax that goes to road maintenance.
- ejb999 3y ago"They should pay the most tax" ...and by 'they', what you really are saying is the end consumer will pay 100% of the tax, which has been passed on to them from the trucking company.
- Zigurd 3y agoThat's what the trucking industry says. But that just has the effect of keeping freight logistics inefficient. Pricing-in externalities, especially for commercial activity, increases efficiency. Just about any argument that goes "Let me keep benefitting from the commons without paying full price because poor people" is sus.
- Symbiote 3y agoThat's OK. The farmer, supermarket or whatever who can more efficiently transport their goods will have a small advantage.
- NeoTar 3y agoBut it also influences behaviours. This could be switching to smaller vehicles (which may not be a net-reduction in carbon dioxide emissions), or alternate means of transportation; perhaps in some areas rail freight becomes viable, or encouraging local production of goods.
- standardUser 3y agoTrucks are not the only way to move goods.
- stefan_ 3y agoBut most spending on road maintenance goes to roads that make no sense other than as a massive subsidy to rural communities and the people in them.
- nextaccountic 3y agoThis makes sense if the tax is used to cover the costs of road maintenance, since heavier vehicles cause more road damage. It's also a somewhat progressive tax since heavier cars may be more expensive. A regressive aspect is that this also means that public transportation pay more taxes, and poor people rely more on public transportation. Also, trucks pay more taxes and trucks are used to transport food, so this has an impact on food prices, affecting the poor disproportionately. Likewise diesel vehicles pay more tax, and public transportation & commercial transport usually runs on diesel (and will thus make this stuff more expensive) So I think that it makes sense for taxes to separate personal vehicles from the rest.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago> A regressive aspect is that this also means that public transportation pay more taxes, and poor people rely more on public transportation. Also, trucks pay more taxes and trucks are used to transport food, so this has an impact on food prices, affecting the poor disproportionately. Likewise diesel vehicles pay more tax, and public transportation & commercial transport usually runs on diesel (and will thus make this stuff more expensive) In all these cases, the operating costs of the vehicles are distributed across a number of payers, quite unlike personal vehicles.
- nextaccountic 3y ago> In all these cases, the operating costs of the vehicles are distributed across a number of payers, quite unlike personal vehicles. Yeah but it affects more the poor, collectively.
- Zigurd 3y agoIt is also regressive in that personal vehicles, even 3 ton SUVs, account for a small amount of road wear and pollution per vehicle compared with heavy trucks. Public transport in Europe is seldom all diesel busses.
- SoftTalker 3y agoPublic transportation consumes taxes, it does not pay them.
- coding123 3y agoI guess get ready to pay $10 for milk instead of $5
- drunner 3y agoWith your comment what is your though on the Dairy Price Support Program then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_Price_Support_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_Price_Support_Program
- coding123 3y agoThere is not enough information on that link to have a position. My comment is more about the price of goods transportation causing price increases than whatever that link is about. I have never heard about that program. So if I wrote get ready to pay $30 for the price of eggs instead of $12 would I get someone discussing the Egg Price Displacement Program?
- _2z1p 3y agoNot sure why you’re downvoted for pointing this out. Like most recent tax proposals this would disproportionately impact the rural middle class. Farmers and truck drivers would be directly impacted and then these costs would be passed on to consumers. Those poor enough to receive WIC and EBT payments would have this tax largely subsidized, so it won’t impact them, and the wealthy would barely notice.
- Macha 3y agoSome other structures that exist: - Vehicle Value based - Vehicle class based (I believe this is what the US uses?) - Engine size based (this was the old one in my home country, basically being used as a proxy for emissions) - Emissions based (this is the current one in my country. Full electric cars are taxed at the lowest rate) I guess vehicle weight accounts for a compartmentalized externality, that of wear on the roads, but I think most of Europe has or is moving to emissions based to focus on larger externalities, at least until petrol cars are a novelty, then they might look at wear on the rounds as a factor to consider again.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago> Vehicle class based (I believe this is what the US uses?) The US allows each of the states/ territories to tax and regulate vehicles separately. In other words, what I might pay in Colorado has nothing to do with what I might pay in New York for the same vehicle.
- amadeuspagel 3y agoAren't emissions already covered by the gas tax?
- VHRanger 3y agoThere's a list of obvious tax code changes that would immensely improve the current housing, transportation and climate situation: - Land Value Tax - Carbon Tax - Space and weight tax on personal vehicles Of course any of those mean challenging entrenched interests so are deeply unpopular. Hell, even environmentalists hate the carbon tax even though it's THE most effective climate policy. As well as removing the obviously terrible carveouts (light duty truck carveouts to start). An electric F-150 is about the worst personal vehicle imaginable for road wear. We need to encourage people to only use a vehicle of a size they actually need.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jcarrano 3y agoCarbon tax will make it more expensive to do anything that consumes energy, which is every human activity. Land value tax: you move to a cheap place, some time later its value increases and now you have to pay more tax, why? Tax on personal vehicles: it was EPA mandates that led to the current huge truck situation in the US, so maybe remove those instead of forcing people to pay even more for worse vehicles.
- TremendousJudge 3y agoOn the land value tax, you have to pay more tax specifically because its value increases. If you want to cash out, then sell the property for it's now much higher value. The value didn't increase because something you did personally, rather because the whole area became more popular due to you and your neighbours (or more usually, your tenants) moving in and being productive. It seems fair that this value that everybody added to your property would get distributed to everybody instead of just you, the owner.
- Sebb767 3y agoAnd once you cash out, you'll have to pay taxes on the profit you make. A land value tax would make live harder for the people living in their homes, as their CoL increased without them having any new income, while landlords would just increase rent accordingly (and could easily do so, as everyone would increase rent).
- jacquesm 3y agoWe have this in NL. There are some modifiers though: LNG users pay much more, as do diesel users. Electric cars pay nothing even though the vehicles as a rule are much, much heavier than the equivalent cars in their petrol version.
- ambicapter 3y agoSo you have it, but actually you don't?
- jacquesm 3y agoWe have it, but weight is a concern within a class of fuels. This causes a heavy petrol car to be more expensive than a light petrol car but may well cause it to be cheaper than a lightweight diesel based vehicle.
- dontlaugh 3y agoWhy would LNG pay more? If anything the emissions are better than petrol only. Diesel is a bit dubious too. CO2 emissions are far lower for them.
- jacquesm 3y agoYes, this has been a puzzlement for many of us here. It makes no sense.
- dharmab 3y agoLNG is highly polluting in practice because leaks are very common in LNG infrastructure. https://www.npr.org/2022/02/03/1077392791/a-satellite-finds-massive-methane-leaks-from-gas-pipelines https://www.npr.org/2022/02/03/1077392791/a-satellite-finds-... Disclosure: I work for a company working on detecting these leaks. https://carbonmapper.org https://carbonmapper.org
- extraduder_ire 3y agoTo make up for the lower amount of tax collected on fuel sales, maybe. Where I live (ireland), taxes on diesel are lower to the extent that it's cheaper than petrol. (done some time in the 80's, I think. To reduce fuel imports) Since 2006 car tax is entirely based on CO2 output, previously it was engine displacement. Meaning EVs have €0 car tax. (you can tell, because you're required to display the tax-disc in the window and it says how much it cost on it.)
- gruturo 3y agoAs others mentioned, the road wear scales with the per-axle weigth. With that in mind I checked out the website and I'm puzzled. Up to 3 axles, indeed the tax is LOWER if the same weight is over 3 axles rather than 2. Well done, makes sense. But then, at the 4 axles table, suddenly the prices for weights between 12000 and 20999 kg are all higher than their correspondents in the 2- and 3- axle tables. What are they try to accomplish here? "Don't put a 4+ axle vehicle on the road unless you will carry at least 21 tons with it?"
- Expez 3y agoOne of the four parties in the ruling coalition has rural voters as their main constituency. This weirdness might be the result of them negotiating to keep the cost of driving a tractor around low. I'm not sure what they are doing on the local roads, but I see them a lot when driving outside the city.
- tristor 3y agoIronically, as a car enthusiast, I'd love to see something like this. I hate our current timeline where everyone drives a shitty crossover, manufacturers have stopped making cars altogether in favor of shitty crossovers and trucks, and it's more dangerous to drive my fun small sports cars, which ironically produce less emissions despite being performance-oriented vehicles. It is not efficient to drive a massive brick on wheels. It is also dangerous to other road users, and it subtlety leads to the psychology which increases road rage, on top of all of that it increases road wear and tire wear both of which lead to other forms of pollution (including microplastics). Things are better in road environments where most drivers are in smaller vehicles. I love toodling around in a sports car in Europe. It's deeply painful in the US, especially in locales where the typical vehicle is a lifted truck that has a bumper height higher than the top of my head when in my car. There's way too many vehicles on American roadways that are literally /all/ negative from a societal perspective, and nearly all bad from a personal perspective, that people bought due to perverse incentives impacting manufacturing and pricing.
- IX-103 3y agoAnd the laws are such that you can't even import the nice small cars they have in Europe. My options for a small electric car in the US are the Chevy Volt (retiring at the end of this year) and the Nissan leaf (retiring at the end of next year?). I guess there's also the mini Cooper, but it's electric version only comes in a 2 door model that is impractical if you have children.
- tristor 3y agoAnd none of those small EVs are all-wheel drive, which I consider a basic requirement for any new car because I live in Colorado. Sure, I /can/ (and already do) drive a car without AWD, but if I'm buying a new car it's a hard requirement. There's no real technical reason why AWD can't be put into these smaller vehicles, it's a market-segmentation choice where anyone that wants AWD is forced to a crossover.
- hansvm 3y ago
- tb_technical 3y agoWouldn't this disproportionately affect electric semis? This would all but ensure that electric semis will never be adopted.
- paulmd 3y agoif heavier electric semis are busting up the roads more and requiring increased subsidy from the public, this externality needs to be priced in so that we can properly determine whether rail/etc is more efficient
- tb_technical 3y agoIt's not that they will bust up the roads more than other diesel semis. Electric semis already carry less cargo than their fossil fuel counterparts because there are weight limits to what trucks are allowed to legally transport (that is, total vehicle weight must not exceed certain figures). This is why truck scales exist - they audit that truck drivers are not breaking the law and destroying the roads more than they are allowed to. The battery in an electric semi increases the weight of the vehicle while empty, and if this tax merely taxes empty vehicle weight it will disproportionately hit electric semis - effectively making them infeasible to further develop.
- paulmd 3y agodidn't realize that, interesting and mostly agree! I wonder how many miles the average semi (short vs long haul too) deadheads around as a % of their total miles between jobs etc, with an empty trailer or no trailer. those are still miles and if the tractor is just way heavy even while it's unloaded then it might still be doing more road damage. I'm totally in favor of doing something but tbh I'd rather do biodiesel for actual trucking trucking in the last mile, and just work on vastly increasing the throughput and latency of our train network for long-haul. Including both building more rail, and improving throughput on the current rail where possible. Our rail system has gone back to being embarrassing, they've effectively nullified the amtrak priority mandate, etc. like I applaud the concept of the words "precision scheduled railroad" but "lol big trains cheaper" ain't it. I know that's a pipedream but at least we can do biodiesel B99/B90 for current diesel trucks - it's generally a drop-in replacement (B90 for low-temp). Bonus, it neutralizes most of the soot from the older lower-compression diesels - there's no sulfur in it at all. long-haul semis just occupy an uncomfortable spot between bulk transport and last-mile service, and those tend towards big and small optimums, respectively. and I get the point of wanting to develop the technology but personally I see electric semis as being useful for having fuckloads of torque/power etc than ever being the optimum long-haul design. any technology they can deploy will be better off on a rail (free guidance!), potentially electrified rail/catenary, with like 16 of them stuck onto some railcar. which we could call a micro-engine. or even "distributed" per-wheel systems like electric cars, but on every single car/etc (would have to be split-grade the whole way) so effectively every car is a self-locomotive. like if you legitimately can get them away from grade and run them really fast, automatically, with reasonable following and self-deceleration profiles, such that they at least buffer up, catch/couple each other, and brake together etc why couldn't you run them at inhumanly close spacings? they'll bunch up and guide each other to contact IOT style (they have known keys to each other), or at least if they collide they'll hopefully auto-couple (physically) and brake together etc. This is going to be a nuclear-hot take but I don't think it really matters that (off-grade!) microtrains can absolutely 100% safely stop themselves. If 0.1% of loads of lumber or xboxes get smashed but you can move 4x the capacity per rail, oh well, that's a matter for insurance. You can make sure you don't end up with east palestine where the poison railcars get piled into by oil cars etc. And there's already absolutely nothing any train conductor beyond an airport tram can stop if you are on the rails. Light rail operator still needs far longer than you'd think to stop the train. When you see that subway/el train coming that operator needs you to exit that car pronto, because he absolutely cannot do anything to stop it other than nail the brakes (if at speed, there is a maximum rate they can apply without derailing the train), and they tend to have nightmares afterwards. Yup, disconcerting number of train engineers will have fatal accidents in their lives, almost entirely out of their control. if you can precision-schedule cars then you can at least make sure that hazmat is transported in a secure pattern. there is a ton more cement and wheat and sheet steel and i-beams moved around than the super-poison, and you can pad the superpoison shipments with inert stuff (or even neutralizing/absorbing agents for bad stuff). even oil spills, if they happen, are whatevs at 1-car scales really. if you limit the scale of the clamity to 1 or 2 microtrains/4-8 cars and guarantee everything else can safely brake to a halt, it's probably statistically safer in general and gets way more throughput per rail. self-driving semis needing giant batteries and big torquey engines is just such an insanely self-invented problem, there is a guidance rail built right into it right there, many times with power source too! Even if you want to go dual-mode and drive onto roads for last-mile, use the rail to go cross-country! etc but I also think we just probably need way more rail, having like one line for certain major routes may not be enough. the federal interstate system wasn't built by just modernizing highways, it was a whole bunch more capacity. I know there's not the political will for it and electric semis are probably what we can get, but they're not really a good technological solution. icebreakers are an interesting case of electrification (technically hybrid diesel-electric transmission) being used for their extreme power. for when you want a ship to just fling itself forward onto the ice, then vigorously pump water between its waddle tanks to roll and crunch the ice with the weight of the ship. electric go brrr. https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Assets/Water/All/Article/2500580/mackinaw-1944-wag-83/ https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Assets/Water/Al... http://www.mightymac.org/cgcmackinaw.htm http://www.mightymac.org/cgcmackinaw.htm (love the pic with the Speer, that is a Saultmax bulk cargo freighter, what a fucking fatass) (same reasons the russians did nuclear icebreakers too really!) bulldozers probably would be another good one, and conventional bulldozers are maintenance nightmares so if you can actually make a good, reliable bulldozer with low operating/maintenance costs they'd probably love that. Even if they had a runtime/chargetime cycle for generators/etc I bet (or run them direct-cord with big trailerbed generators).
- lispisok 3y agoWe definitely need to rethink some things with electric cars. One is taxes for roads. You're gonna have to replace gas tax and possibly even increase taxes overall since the extra weight of electric cars mean more road wear and tear (proportional to the power of 4 as another commenter mentioned). Safety is another one. We've already been seeing an increase in pedestrian deaths with one of the main reasons being increased in vehicle size and weight. Add in the fast acceleration of electric cars and their extra extra weight and the problem is going to continue to get worse. A Toyota 4runner weighs about 4500lbs and a Rivian R1S weights about 7000lbs with a 0-60 time that's 2.5x faster than the 4runner. Letting people drive a 7000lbs car with huge blind spots and the acceleration of a Corvette on a standard passenger car drivers license is pushing irresponsible in my opinion.
- MetaWhirledPeas 3y ago> possibly even increase taxes overall since the extra weight of electric cars mean more road wear and tear I've already commented elsewhere about this, but I find it odd that as soon as EVs gain popularity, suddenly people care about the weight of cars. A Ford F-250 peaks at 7,660 lbs. and those have been around forever. I'm not saying it's wrong to consider weight, but I am saying this all smacks of vague EV hate. > You're gonna have to replace gas tax Texas is doing this just by increasing the price to register an EV.
- 5555624 3y ago> I've already commented elsewhere about this, but I find it odd that as soon as EVs gain popularity, suddenly people care about the weight of cars Because it's the "best" option. EVs don't use gas; so, a gas tax won't apply. The other option, other than weight, that usually gets mentioned is mileage. In order to measure mileage, though, some sort of tamper-proof counter needs to be installed and periodically read, something most people find wold be too intrusive. The weight is easy to record when the car is registered.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago>EVs don't use gas; so, a gas tax won't apply. Why should we tax them, again? Because whatever the reason, we should have taxed gas cars to death yesterday. For a start, any mitigation effort against the impact of ICE's emissions on climate will make all countries bankrupt pretty quick.
- moomoo11 3y agoWish we had palm sized nuclear reactors that could go into cars. Get 10-15 years out of it before need more fuel.
- digitalsushi 3y agoi wish i could pop a bic lighter into the side of my laptop and power it for a month.
- Pxtl 3y agoWhile this is a good step, I'd also like to see more action taken about commuter vehicles that represent a greater threat to other people on the road for non-weight based reasons. Like, a Tesla X weighs more than an F-150 but based on the fact that one has a low bumper and hood and the other is a brick wall on jacked-up wheels I know I'd rather be hit by the Tesla X, regardless of whether I'm on foot or in my car. Like some kind of "higher-risk vehicle" thing, either in the form of a tax or different speed-limits or a different class of fines and penalties for traffic violations.
- 0x000C 3y agoI believe that risk is already accounted for, and is priced into vehicle liability insurance.
- Pxtl 3y agoHere in Canada, where the cost of medical treatment is absorbed by the government, it is not. And by that logic you're using we don't need fines for speeding, just let the insurance company know.
- brailsafe 3y agoThe cost of medical treatment is somewhat absorbed by the government, but in car accidents there are typically many more expenses like rehab and loss of income that aren't. Ya, you'll get your broken arm fixed up, but that's often just one step.
- matrix12 3y agoOr speed laws based on mass.
- extraduder_ire 3y agoShown in graded bands on the sign, or in Joules?
- trgn 3y agoI've seen tiered speeds limits for trucks and cars on highways in europe.
- trgn 3y agoAnd if there's a collision, the driver of the heavier vehicule is always liable.
- bluescrn 3y agoIt took 5mins between people starting switching to EVs in somewhat-significant numbers and the attacks on EVs beginning. "Zero engine emissions?... but muh brake dust! they're too heavy! battery fires! cobalt mines! fuck cars, even EVs!" Yeah, it'd be nice to see more smaller lighter EVs particularly in urban areas, including bikes+scooters, maybe mini-cars like a modernized Sinclair C5 even. But the reality is that we need large vans and trucks to deliver goods and services, and great big heavy vehicles will always be a major hazard to small light ones, and it's near-impossible to segregate them in existing towns+cities due to lack of space.
- tristor 3y agoThe problem is that nearly all of the EVs on the market are shitty crossovers. I am actively in the market for an EV, I refuse to buy a crossover, and I require all-wheel drive. Pray tell, /other than Tesla/ who is making anything that fits these requirements? Answer: Nobody. Tesla is the only EV company that seems to give a shit about making a normal-ass car you can drive outside of California where we have snow. Unfortunately, I don't want to buy a Tesla for other reasons, but in the end that may be what I end up getting because there are effectively no other real options. It's absurdly stupid to buy an EV that is a brick on wheels.
- gogusrl 3y agoThe Kia EV6 might be a reasonable replacement. All wheel drive electric sedan which gets pretty nice reviews.
- tristor 3y ago> The Kia EV6 might be a reasonable replacement. All wheel drive electric sedan which gets pretty nice reviews. The Kia EV6 is a crossover... Kia/Hyundai seem to be making some of the better "normal" EVs (not luxury vehicles), but have other issues. Unfortunately they're all crossovers.
- duped 3y ago
- leecarraher 3y agoUnfortunately independent trucking companies are already stretched pretty thin, while we all benefit from these transportation infrastructures. perhaps a flat tax is just a way to distribute the burden. Ff course this is not the case for large logistic companies with massive distribution networks who regularly commit gas tax fraud.
- LazyMans 3y agoIsn't road damage also dependent on the road design? To handle higher loads, I think the underlying materials are supposed to be thicker. Like the base sand and gravel under asphalt pavement. There is a road here in Atlanta that gets torn up by 18 wheelers, yet the highway can handle it just fine.
- kfarr 3y agoYes but the materials to handle higher loads are more expensive hence this proposal
- Racing0461 3y agoAfter paying this tax for road wear equity, the roads are going to be repaved and potholes refilled promptly, right? right? Just another general fund tax.
- robotburrito 3y agoThis might be good. I admit I look at videos from civilized countries that are not completely dependent on cars with a bit of jealousy. They built their surroundings around people, you can walk places, you can enjoy life, you get your workout just by mistake by going places. So nice. Seems we can only do that in about 3 cities in the US.
- exabrial 3y agoWhat I find interesting is that it's always the people you hate that are the problem. Reading through this thread's comments certainly confirms that. Yet here we are, on the internet (itself a huge energy consumer), debating climate change with a bunch of SV elites that likely all own overseas garments, participate in fast fashion, collect iphones, or bitcoin (all very energy intensive items).
- tristor 3y agoWith the exception of using the Internet, I don't do any of those things, and the fact you think they're still common shows how out of touch you are with the current zeitgeist. Most tech folks are into BIFL, tend to keep phones for longer (and iPhones in particular have the longest supported service life of any smartphone on the market), and have eschewed crypto due to the scams. That's not to say all those things weren't true at some point, but we've seen a shift. For many of these things, they're a form of status signalling. There's far more status in wearing organic, natural fiber fabrics, which are hand-made in an interesting but remote part of the world vs fast fashion from a mall made by child labor, similarly crypto scams have pretty much dirtied the look of bitcoin and others and most people have stopped involving themselves (or at least no longer talk about it).
- johnny99k 3y agoSo the country that makes it's money primarily on Fossil fuels is now trying to ban anything using fossil fuels. Makes sense.
- mrinterweb 3y agoBatteries are a decent portion of the weight of EVs. I would think an argument could be made that if the weight of an internal combustion vehicle is based on an empty tank, an EV should be able to exclude the battery from the total weight.
- kmczn 3y agoLol. How about the weight of the vehicle with empty batteries.
- aseerdbnarng 3y agoAm I being a moron or are the weights only applicable to trucks? The lowest rung is 7.5tons. But of course it's absurd how big cars have become. If you're a 50kg woman why do you need a 2.7ton SUV to go from stop light to stop light? Get a grip people
- hermannj314 3y agoThe upper middle class Tesla or EV owner insists on tax-subsidies for electric cars, not paying for roads because they don't pay fuel tax, and expecting free parking and free electricity for charging in municpal parking garages. Apparently, those policies are saving the planet. Can we just do that scheme for every car on the road? Will it scale?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- swader999 3y agoThis makes sense assuming no car pooling.