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> 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 f

> 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.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  > However, this won't have much impact on SUVs directly Why not? Even an increase from 1.5 tons to 2 tons results in 3.16x the damage on the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    If that weight difference results in a noticeable tax difference, then lorries will be virtually priced off the road due to the tax. Realistically, the tax would have to be affordable for heaviest vehicles which would make the tax difference between 1.5 to 2 tons negligible. Maybe one way round it is to have tax bands for heavy commercial vehicles and weight-based tax for cars and SUVs. Edit: thought I'd try to work out an example of pricing. If a fourth power tax rate on weight works out to a £100 difference between 2 tons and 1.5 tons, then an 8 ton vehicle would be paying over £37,000
    - kergonath 3y ago
      > If that weight difference results in a noticeable tax difference, then lorries will be virtually priced off the road due to the tax. That’s a red herring. Lorries don’t have to be taxed the same way as cars, and actually most of the time are not.
      - michpoch 3y ago
        They absolutely are taxed much heavier than most cars. Truck are charged on most highways in European Union, I expect UK has similar system. They pay per-km driven.
        kergonath 3y ago
        I am addressing the “but higher taxes will put companies out of business because lorries” straw man that appears a couple of times in the discussion. Taxes for family cars and for professional vehicles are effectively decoupled and can be adjusted independently.
mrmanner 3y ago
> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. SUVs provide drivers great overview of traffic, visibility of other cars, and long-range visibility. This is good. However their height severely limits the visibility of people and items near the car, which is very bad in cities where drivers often share space with cyclists, children and potted plants: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-are-getting-bigger-are-front-blind-zones-children-rcna52109 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...
- maxerickson 3y ago
  People watch about 20 feet ahead of their vehicles, we don't need to build tall cars that let you see a bit further.
kergonath 3y ago
> Why weight in particular? Kinetic energy (thus fuel consumption and particles from brakes) and road wear scale with weight. It's not perfect but it's most of the way there. > Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). This does not solve the issue with externalities: fuel cost absolutely does not offset the cost to society caused by car use, same for accidents and road wear. > 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. They are not taxed higher, they have exactly the same VAT as any other car (give or take specific government schemes to incentivise things like hybrids and TVs). > SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. SUVs have terrible visibility and situation awareness because of huge blind spots and higher sitting positions for the driver (which is better on motorways, but terrible in cities). They are also much worse for pedestrians and cyclists in case of a collision.
- dan-robertson 3y ago
  Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle. Most fuel consumption is about overcoming drag rather than accelerating so you should expect it to scale with something like cross-sectional area, say weight^2/3, though making cars longer adds weight without much drag and making them boxier can add drag without much weight. I don’t think fuel taxes are particularly good as indirect taxes on the externalities one might care about – road wear, vehicle deaths/life-changing injuries, noise, pollution, parking space in streets, passing room on narrow roads, etc.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    > Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle. Cars are not getting more axles, even SUVs, so this is a constant multiplicative factor. I would be happy with a tax that scales as the fourth power of the mass, no problem. That would be actually quite dissuasive very quickly. Though even a linear scaling would be an improvement over the current situation. > Most fuel consumption is about overcoming drag rather than accelerating so you should expect it to scale with something like cross-sectional area, say weight^2/3, though making cars longer adds weight without much drag and making them boxier can add drag without much weight. Right. We should ideally account for aerodynamics and drag factors, which also keep getting worse year after year. One does not preclude the other. > I don’t think fuel taxes are particularly good as indirect taxes on the externalities one might care about I entirely agree.
stuaxo 3y ago
Because damage to the road increases by something like the weight increase ^ 4.
- yodelshady 3y ago
  Which means, as pointed out by e.g. zemvpferreira, proportionate-to-damage then either makes HGVs completely unviable or the wear component of tax for any passenger car negligible. And HGVs really are the limiting factor on road design. We could ban SUVs maybe, we could ban cars and scooters and bicycles if various factions get their way, but if we ban HGVs - cities starve, in weeks if not days.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    > if we ban HGVs - cities starve, in weeks if not days Which is why nobody wants this. Though we ought to be chasing efficiency there as well because as you wrote lorries are a significant contributing factor.
citrin_ru 3y ago
> 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe) In UK all electric cars are tax free be it a smart or a huge SUV and difference in electricity consumption AFIK less than in fuel consumption (thanks to recuperation) for ICE cars. Where I live in the UK I see little SUV in general but cars with green plates (electric) are disproportionately SUV.
stuaxo 3y ago
SUVs bonnets are the height of my 6 year old, she can easily be out of visibility, as there are plenty of non SUVs around I can see it's not the case for the them. The exhaust is not at just the right height for kids in buggies when you cross the road.
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  Yet in the countryside, the higher driving position gives better visibility, with grass verges etc blocking the view around corners. That is what I see from my 20 year old non status symbol 4x4. Should I be taxed because my car is inappropriate for London, where it will never go?
  - petre 3y ago
    If they tax rural registered vehicles less, people will register their SUVs in rural areas. If you live in the country you probably need a 4x4 or a pickup truck, depending also on the type of work that you do.
    - kergonath 3y ago
      > If you live in the country you probably need a 4x4 or a pickup truck, depending also on the type of work that you do. There already are exemptions and tax credits for professional equipment, right? It’s nothing that has not been solved already.
      - jimnotgym 3y ago
        There are no exemptions for road tax, it is just deductable against income tax, which means you get some fraction of it back depending on your tax rate. Unfortunately for me I am commuting to a job through the countryside, and therefore I can't deduct anything.
        kergonath 3y ago
        You’re right, people commuting with large cars would see the larger costs. The thing is, we need to provide less-polluting alternatives to commuting by cars and also disincentivise using large and heavy cars for daily trips. People commuting alone in a large car are an absurdity. These alternatives could be better public transport, tax credit for small vehicles or car sharing, incentives for remote work as much as possible, none of which are completely outlandish.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. I find they usually have crap visibility other than ahead and over other cars (and only cars) because of the huge pillars to avoid a rollover crushing the roof in with the heavy body and high sides. And that's when driving, when parking, they're a deathtrap until bristling with cameras and sensors because they have massive blindspots all around them. I don't find the ability to see over the other cars especially helpful because no matter how big an urban tank is, it can't see through a Transit van, let alone an HGV. The best visibility is a convertible with no B-pillar, but most car-shaped cars (i.e. not crossovers) have better visibility in my experience.

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.

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
> However, this won't have much impact on SUVs directly Why not? Even an increase from 1.5 tons to 2 tons results in 3.16x the damage on the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  If that weight difference results in a noticeable tax difference, then lorries will be virtually priced off the road due to the tax. Realistically, the tax would have to be affordable for heaviest vehicles which would make the tax difference between 1.5 to 2 tons negligible. Maybe one way round it is to have tax bands for heavy commercial vehicles and weight-based tax for cars and SUVs. Edit: thought I'd try to work out an example of pricing. If a fourth power tax rate on weight works out to a £100 difference between 2 tons and 1.5 tons, then an 8 ton vehicle would be paying over £37,000
  - kergonath 3y ago
    > If that weight difference results in a noticeable tax difference, then lorries will be virtually priced off the road due to the tax. That’s a red herring. Lorries don’t have to be taxed the same way as cars, and actually most of the time are not.
    - michpoch 3y ago
      They absolutely are taxed much heavier than most cars. Truck are charged on most highways in European Union, I expect UK has similar system. They pay per-km driven.
      - kergonath 3y ago
        I am addressing the “but higher taxes will put companies out of business because lorries” straw man that appears a couple of times in the discussion. Taxes for family cars and for professional vehicles are effectively decoupled and can be adjusted independently.

mrmanner 3y ago

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. SUVs provide drivers great overview of traffic, visibility of other cars, and long-range visibility. This is good. However their height severely limits the visibility of people and items near the car, which is very bad in cities where drivers often share space with cyclists, children and potted plants: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-are-getting-bigger-are-front-blind-zones-children-rcna52109 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...

maxerickson 3y ago
People watch about 20 feet ahead of their vehicles, we don't need to build tall cars that let you see a bit further.

kergonath 3y ago

> Why weight in particular? Kinetic energy (thus fuel consumption and particles from brakes) and road wear scale with weight. It's not perfect but it's most of the way there. > Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). This does not solve the issue with externalities: fuel cost absolutely does not offset the cost to society caused by car use, same for accidents and road wear. > 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive. They are not taxed higher, they have exactly the same VAT as any other car (give or take specific government schemes to incentivise things like hybrids and TVs). > SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. SUVs have terrible visibility and situation awareness because of huge blind spots and higher sitting positions for the driver (which is better on motorways, but terrible in cities). They are also much worse for pedestrians and cyclists in case of a collision.

dan-robertson 3y ago
Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle. Most fuel consumption is about overcoming drag rather than accelerating so you should expect it to scale with something like cross-sectional area, say weight^2/3, though making cars longer adds weight without much drag and making them boxier can add drag without much weight. I don’t think fuel taxes are particularly good as indirect taxes on the externalities one might care about – road wear, vehicle deaths/life-changing injuries, noise, pollution, parking space in streets, passing room on narrow roads, etc.
- kergonath 3y ago
  > Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle. Cars are not getting more axles, even SUVs, so this is a constant multiplicative factor. I would be happy with a tax that scales as the fourth power of the mass, no problem. That would be actually quite dissuasive very quickly. Though even a linear scaling would be an improvement over the current situation. > Most fuel consumption is about overcoming drag rather than accelerating so you should expect it to scale with something like cross-sectional area, say weight^2/3, though making cars longer adds weight without much drag and making them boxier can add drag without much weight. Right. We should ideally account for aerodynamics and drag factors, which also keep getting worse year after year. One does not preclude the other. > I don’t think fuel taxes are particularly good as indirect taxes on the externalities one might care about I entirely agree.

stuaxo 3y ago

Because damage to the road increases by something like the weight increase ^ 4.

yodelshady 3y ago
Which means, as pointed out by e.g. zemvpferreira, proportionate-to-damage then either makes HGVs completely unviable or the wear component of tax for any passenger car negligible. And HGVs really are the limiting factor on road design. We could ban SUVs maybe, we could ban cars and scooters and bicycles if various factions get their way, but if we ban HGVs - cities starve, in weeks if not days.
- kergonath 3y ago
  > if we ban HGVs - cities starve, in weeks if not days Which is why nobody wants this. Though we ought to be chasing efficiency there as well because as you wrote lorries are a significant contributing factor.

citrin_ru 3y ago

> 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe) In UK all electric cars are tax free be it a smart or a huge SUV and difference in electricity consumption AFIK less than in fuel consumption (thanks to recuperation) for ICE cars. Where I live in the UK I see little SUV in general but cars with green plates (electric) are disproportionately SUV.

stuaxo 3y ago

SUVs bonnets are the height of my 6 year old, she can easily be out of visibility, as there are plenty of non SUVs around I can see it's not the case for the them. The exhaust is not at just the right height for kids in buggies when you cross the road.

jimnotgym 3y ago
Yet in the countryside, the higher driving position gives better visibility, with grass verges etc blocking the view around corners. That is what I see from my 20 year old non status symbol 4x4. Should I be taxed because my car is inappropriate for London, where it will never go?
- petre 3y ago
  If they tax rural registered vehicles less, people will register their SUVs in rural areas. If you live in the country you probably need a 4x4 or a pickup truck, depending also on the type of work that you do.
  - kergonath 3y ago
    > If you live in the country you probably need a 4x4 or a pickup truck, depending also on the type of work that you do. There already are exemptions and tax credits for professional equipment, right? It’s nothing that has not been solved already.
    - jimnotgym 3y ago
      There are no exemptions for road tax, it is just deductable against income tax, which means you get some fraction of it back depending on your tax rate. Unfortunately for me I am commuting to a job through the countryside, and therefore I can't deduct anything.
      - kergonath 3y ago
        You’re right, people commuting with large cars would see the larger costs. The thing is, we need to provide less-polluting alternatives to commuting by cars and also disincentivise using large and heavy cars for daily trips. People commuting alone in a large car are an absurdity. These alternatives could be better public transport, tax credit for small vehicles or car sharing, incentives for remote work as much as possible, none of which are completely outlandish.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows. I find they usually have crap visibility other than ahead and over other cars (and only cars) because of the huge pillars to avoid a rollover crushing the roof in with the heavy body and high sides. And that's when driving, when parking, they're a deathtrap until bristling with cameras and sensors because they have massive blindspots all around them. I don't find the ability to see over the other cars especially helpful because no matter how big an urban tank is, it can't see through a Transit van, let alone an HGV. The best visibility is a convertible with no B-pillar, but most car-shaped cars (i.e. not crossovers) have better visibility in my experience.