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Cars should be taxed based on their weight and there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. There is no reason why most of us should subsidise

Cars should be taxed based on their weight and there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. There is no reason why most of us should subsidise a few people’s status symbol and their entirely unnecessary use of public resources. Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost to others. We are not talking about pickup trucks and light trucks used in the countryside: these monstrosities are designed for motorways and paved roads and will never see as much as a dirt road.

r3pl4y 3y ago
> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Not against that, but there should be an exception for electric vehicles, because these batteries are heavy.
- lukas099 3y ago
  Maybe an offset, not an exception imo.
- tjoff 3y ago
  Pollution must be taxed as well, and electric vehicles will have an advantage there. No need to unnecessarily dictate technology. We want light cars and we don't want pollution.
- agilob 3y ago
  Hell no, new Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 electric lorry has battery that weights 4500 kg. Add that tyres will wear out much sooner and produce more microplastics pollution killing rivers. 4500 kg is MORE THAN TWO Ford F-150 https://nimbnet.com/news/mercedes-benz-eactros-600-a-long-range-electric-truck/ https://nimbnet.com/news/mercedes-benz-eactros-600-a-long-ra...
- Tade0 3y ago
  I think that if at all, this exemption should last until 2030 at maximum. The reason is that batteries with densities sufficient to make EVs no heavier than ICEs exist (like https://amprius.com/products/ https://amprius.com/products/ ) but they need investment for production to be scaled up - the 5GWh plant Amprius is planning will go entirely to niche applications, so it's not enough. Meanwhile the Chinese are introducing cars with 700kg+ batteries: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeekr_009 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeekr_009 This is counterproductive.
- kergonath 3y ago
  And yet they suffer from the exact same issues (energy consumption, particles, road wear, etc). What we need to incentivise is small EVs for daily trips, not huge wasteful things like Teslas because their owners have range anxiety for the 2 times a year they do more than 100 km in one trip. The scale does not need to be the same, but in the end heavy EVs are much worse than lighter ones.
throwaway69875 3y ago
SUVs are typically shorter and lighter than mid to high class sedans. They just look big, but you can't fit a fridge inside, unlike many station wagons.
- porker 3y ago
  You're not from the UK are you?
- nottheengineer 3y ago
  Those aren't SUVs, they are crossovers. Mostly based on hatchbacks, but worse in every objective way. SUV means "Sport utility vehicle". The Sport part is straight up BS, but the utility part differentiates them from crossovers. An SUV is built on a truck frame or at least needs a strengthened chassis to give it some utility like towing or offroading.
michpoch 3y ago
> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Why weight in particular? Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. In some places in the world (e.g. some parts of Switzerland) there's already a tax on car weight. I do not see it being particularly effective. > there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.
- maxwellburson 3y ago
  > Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law > SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. He may be referring to other vehicles visibility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_SUVs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_SUVs
  - jimnotgym 3y ago
    Or like my other note at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38150286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38150286 Visibility needs depend on your environment.
  - michpoch 3y ago
    > Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases. Road wear depends on the weight and the surface area. SUVs have much wider tyres.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Weight is an important metric as it has a big influence on two very important external affects. Road wear/damage is proportional to roughly the fourth power of weight. However, this won't have much impact on SUVs directly, but on large lorries and buses. (It's easy to see the damage at bus stops where the slowing to a stop and starting from a stop, both noticeable deform the road after a time. This is also visible at traffic lights. Tyre and brake pollution are very closely tied to the vehicle's weight, which leads to the issue of EVs producing almost as much total pollution as a lighter ICE vehicle even though they don't produce exhaust pollution. Tyre pollution is one of the most insidious types of pollution due to the size of the particulates and the chemicals used in tyres.
globular-toast 3y ago
The trouble with that is most of these people would just pay the tax anyway. So you'd only be increasing inequality on the road. In addition, lorries and vans that actually need to be heavy but are nevertheless a public good will be taxed more for no good reason. Taxing everyone based on their exact use of a utility is against the basic point of a public utility. Instead I think the easiest and best option is just to ban SUVs from the public highway. It is essentially car obesity. Just bigger and heavier for no reason. They even look like obese versions of regular cars. Heavier vehicles have more responsibility and require stricter testing and licensing. Heavy vehicles should always be box shaped because that is the most efficient shape for carrying goods.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  > lorries and vans that actually need to be heavy but are nevertheless a public good will be taxed more for no good reason Almost all large vehicles that I see on the roads are privately owned and cause significant road damage (which is roughly proportional to the fourth power of weight). That means that tax payers are subsidising the profits of logistics companies and artificially reducing the cost to them of using public roads which could possibly change the economics of rail use instead.
baloki 3y ago
In the UK you’re taxed more on vehicle excise duty if a car costs more than £45,000 as it’s a luxury.
- cheradenine_uk 3y ago
  Only lasts 5 years, and doesn't affect cars with emissions < 150gCO2/km (which a lot of hybrids will fall into).
greesil 3y ago
I'm not in the UK. But, you can pry my minivan from my cold dead hands.
- mnd999 3y ago
  I’m guessing you live somewhere with wider roads and more private vehicle-centric urban planning. That is not the UK.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    Or anywhere else in Europe, really.
    - greesil 3y ago
      Mostly it's the sliding doors. My idiot children love to fling car doors open. I'm sure there's a European minivan equivalent that's teensy weensy but is considered too posh
samwillis 3y ago
Even better tax based on weight to number of permanent seats ratio. 7 seaters for larger families shouldn't be penalised, but structure it so manufactures can't just throw a couple of fold down seats in the back of a large SUV as a work around. But everything about road tax needs to change with the reduction of fuel duty due to electric cars. The public haven't seen this coming yet, but it's going to be a difficult transition.
- Mountain_Skies 3y ago
  Sounds like a good way to end up with unintended consequences like happened with the chicken tax and the Subaru Brat.
- mike_hock 3y ago
  No, why should I subsidize somebody else's children any more than I should subsidize somebody else's ego booster? Ignoring the fact that this wouldn't even work because SUVs would just get extra seats to work around the tax structure. 7-seat private buses wear down the road just as much as private tanks, so tax them equally.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Because somebody else's ego booster mobile won't grow up to be a delinquent that commits crimes that directly or indirectly affect you (unless it's evil K.I.T.T.). Whether societal family planning should, at all, play into road taxes is quite the question, but it's widely accepted that society should bother to educate its children.
- fragmede 3y ago
  As long as we're inventing new taxes, we should tax friction-based braking systems and components, to the point that regenerative braking becomes the norm on all new cars. We're wasting so much energy using friction to stop, rather than electromagnetic fields to induce stopping and regenerating batteries.
  - kergonath 3y ago
Bostonian 3y ago
"Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost to others." I am wary of this statement, because it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services. On another note, if SUVs are much more dangerous to others than other cars, insurance claims against SUV drivers and insurance premiums that they pay should reflect this. Why hasn't this happened?
- praptak 3y ago
  > it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services GP qualified their statement pretty precisely: no purpose other than ego, significant cost to others. What's the harm in banning anything that ticks both of these boxes?
  - sethammons 3y ago
    On the surface, it seems to make sense. I'm wondering if it falls apart quickly. "I like it" and "because ego" is a hard line to carve. I usually hear ego-purchase and translate it to "you like it and I don't." Lots of things are provided at a cost to others. Some argue the modern economy can't exist without exploiting someone. And there is all the things that ticks tragedies of the commons. What could be made illegal using such a lens? Fashionable clothing seems fit (hell, the US killed off an entire species of pigeon because their feathers looked good on a hat; a hell of a cost to everyone). Mountain climbing or hiking to summit could be viewed as an ego thing and the trails have to be maintained and emergency personnel available -- all at significant costs. Depending on how sensitive "cost to others is" and depending on how willfully something can only be attributed to ego makes this more slippery.

r3pl4y 3y ago

> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Not against that, but there should be an exception for electric vehicles, because these batteries are heavy.

lukas099 3y ago
Maybe an offset, not an exception imo.
tjoff 3y ago
Pollution must be taxed as well, and electric vehicles will have an advantage there. No need to unnecessarily dictate technology. We want light cars and we don't want pollution.
agilob 3y ago
Hell no, new Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 electric lorry has battery that weights 4500 kg. Add that tyres will wear out much sooner and produce more microplastics pollution killing rivers. 4500 kg is MORE THAN TWO Ford F-150 https://nimbnet.com/news/mercedes-benz-eactros-600-a-long-range-electric-truck/ https://nimbnet.com/news/mercedes-benz-eactros-600-a-long-ra...
Tade0 3y ago
I think that if at all, this exemption should last until 2030 at maximum. The reason is that batteries with densities sufficient to make EVs no heavier than ICEs exist (like https://amprius.com/products/ https://amprius.com/products/ ) but they need investment for production to be scaled up - the 5GWh plant Amprius is planning will go entirely to niche applications, so it's not enough. Meanwhile the Chinese are introducing cars with 700kg+ batteries: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeekr_009 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeekr_009 This is counterproductive.
kergonath 3y ago
And yet they suffer from the exact same issues (energy consumption, particles, road wear, etc). What we need to incentivise is small EVs for daily trips, not huge wasteful things like Teslas because their owners have range anxiety for the 2 times a year they do more than 100 km in one trip. The scale does not need to be the same, but in the end heavy EVs are much worse than lighter ones.

throwaway69875 3y ago

SUVs are typically shorter and lighter than mid to high class sedans. They just look big, but you can't fit a fridge inside, unlike many station wagons.

porker 3y ago
You're not from the UK are you?
nottheengineer 3y ago
Those aren't SUVs, they are crossovers. Mostly based on hatchbacks, but worse in every objective way. SUV means "Sport utility vehicle". The Sport part is straight up BS, but the utility part differentiates them from crossovers. An SUV is built on a truck frame or at least needs a strengthened chassis to give it some utility like towing or offroading.

michpoch 3y ago

> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Why weight in particular? Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. In some places in the world (e.g. some parts of Switzerland) there's already a tax on car weight. I do not see it being particularly effective. > there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

maxwellburson 3y ago
> Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law > SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. He may be referring to other vehicles visibility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_SUVs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_SUVs
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  Or like my other note at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38150286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38150286 Visibility needs depend on your environment.
- michpoch 3y ago
  > Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases. Road wear depends on the weight and the surface area. SUVs have much wider tyres.
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Weight is an important metric as it has a big influence on two very important external affects. Road wear/damage is proportional to roughly the fourth power of weight. However, this won't have much impact on SUVs directly, but on large lorries and buses. (It's easy to see the damage at bus stops where the slowing to a stop and starting from a stop, both noticeable deform the road after a time. This is also visible at traffic lights. Tyre and brake pollution are very closely tied to the vehicle's weight, which leads to the issue of EVs producing almost as much total pollution as a lighter ICE vehicle even though they don't produce exhaust pollution. Tyre pollution is one of the most insidious types of pollution due to the size of the particulates and the chemicals used in tyres.

globular-toast 3y ago

The trouble with that is most of these people would just pay the tax anyway. So you'd only be increasing inequality on the road. In addition, lorries and vans that actually need to be heavy but are nevertheless a public good will be taxed more for no good reason. Taxing everyone based on their exact use of a utility is against the basic point of a public utility. Instead I think the easiest and best option is just to ban SUVs from the public highway. It is essentially car obesity. Just bigger and heavier for no reason. They even look like obese versions of regular cars. Heavier vehicles have more responsibility and require stricter testing and licensing. Heavy vehicles should always be box shaped because that is the most efficient shape for carrying goods.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
> lorries and vans that actually need to be heavy but are nevertheless a public good will be taxed more for no good reason Almost all large vehicles that I see on the roads are privately owned and cause significant road damage (which is roughly proportional to the fourth power of weight). That means that tax payers are subsidising the profits of logistics companies and artificially reducing the cost to them of using public roads which could possibly change the economics of rail use instead.

baloki 3y ago

In the UK you’re taxed more on vehicle excise duty if a car costs more than £45,000 as it’s a luxury.

cheradenine_uk 3y ago
Only lasts 5 years, and doesn't affect cars with emissions < 150gCO2/km (which a lot of hybrids will fall into).

greesil 3y ago

I'm not in the UK. But, you can pry my minivan from my cold dead hands.

mnd999 3y ago
I’m guessing you live somewhere with wider roads and more private vehicle-centric urban planning. That is not the UK.
- kergonath 3y ago
  Or anywhere else in Europe, really.
  - greesil 3y ago
    Mostly it's the sliding doors. My idiot children love to fling car doors open. I'm sure there's a European minivan equivalent that's teensy weensy but is considered too posh

samwillis 3y ago

Even better tax based on weight to number of permanent seats ratio. 7 seaters for larger families shouldn't be penalised, but structure it so manufactures can't just throw a couple of fold down seats in the back of a large SUV as a work around. But everything about road tax needs to change with the reduction of fuel duty due to electric cars. The public haven't seen this coming yet, but it's going to be a difficult transition.

Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Sounds like a good way to end up with unintended consequences like happened with the chicken tax and the Subaru Brat.
mike_hock 3y ago
No, why should I subsidize somebody else's children any more than I should subsidize somebody else's ego booster? Ignoring the fact that this wouldn't even work because SUVs would just get extra seats to work around the tax structure. 7-seat private buses wear down the road just as much as private tanks, so tax them equally.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Because somebody else's ego booster mobile won't grow up to be a delinquent that commits crimes that directly or indirectly affect you (unless it's evil K.I.T.T.). Whether societal family planning should, at all, play into road taxes is quite the question, but it's widely accepted that society should bother to educate its children.
fragmede 3y ago
As long as we're inventing new taxes, we should tax friction-based braking systems and components, to the point that regenerative braking becomes the norm on all new cars. We're wasting so much energy using friction to stop, rather than electromagnetic fields to induce stopping and regenerating batteries.
- kergonath 3y ago

Bostonian 3y ago

"Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost to others." I am wary of this statement, because it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services. On another note, if SUVs are much more dangerous to others than other cars, insurance claims against SUV drivers and insurance premiums that they pay should reflect this. Why hasn't this happened?

praptak 3y ago
> it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services GP qualified their statement pretty precisely: no purpose other than ego, significant cost to others. What's the harm in banning anything that ticks both of these boxes?
- sethammons 3y ago
  On the surface, it seems to make sense. I'm wondering if it falls apart quickly. "I like it" and "because ego" is a hard line to carve. I usually hear ego-purchase and translate it to "you like it and I don't." Lots of things are provided at a cost to others. Some argue the modern economy can't exist without exploiting someone. And there is all the things that ticks tragedies of the commons. What could be made illegal using such a lens? Fashionable clothing seems fit (hell, the US killed off an entire species of pigeon because their feathers looked good on a hat; a hell of a cost to everyone). Mountain climbing or hiking to summit could be viewed as an ego thing and the trails have to be maintained and emergency personnel available -- all at significant costs. Depending on how sensitive "cost to others is" and depending on how willfully something can only be attributed to ego makes this more slippery.