5 ms·

By the same logic, all gas cars should be taxed on a sliding scale, where the more fuel-efficient cars are taxed at a higher rate. It's important to society tha

By the same logic, all gas cars should be taxed on a sliding scale, where the more fuel-efficient cars are taxed at a higher rate. It's important to society that we incentivise people to drive the most polluting and climate-destroying vehicles.

SteveNuts 2y ago
If the tax is intended to offset the wear and tear on roads, the fairest way is pay-per-mile. But now that EVs are a viable alternative the gas tax should still exist to offset the externalities involved.
- playingalong 2y ago
  Per mile or per mile times weight to the fourth.
snapplebobapple 2y ago
Actually, it is important that a tax for road care stays a tax for road care so it would be better to replace it with a charge per km adjusted by weight of the vehicle (the primary contributor to differential road damage per km, atleast that we can reasonably and unobtrusively measuee)and adjusted to net out fuel taxes already paid for road maintenance. Could be collected once a year at registration renewal.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- verdverm 2y ago
  The annual fee becomes hard for those living paycheck to paycheck, they would get a large bill. Maybe something akin to payroll, where you pay in regularly and then rebalance to zero once a year
  - snapplebobapple 2y ago
    that argument doesnt really hold any water in amy context it is used. If you are capable of paying as a gas tax eaxh trip to the pump, but not as a yearly lump sum you probably shouldnt have a car, let alone an electric car.
    - chung8123 2y ago
      There are a lot of people that are really bad with money. Also when you don't have a lot of money you pay what is in front of you. I think this the person above is correct, something like a prepayment with adjustment at the end is probably a better solution.
      - snapplebobapple 2y ago
        Facilitating people who are bad eith money feels like another way to let people be shitty, which should not be accomodated. There is an argument forprepayment if it in reases likelihood of collection but at least put a penalty additional fee on it to limit the fa ilitation of people beong shitty.
        verdverm 2y ago
        this attitude is how the haves keep most the have nots from ever escaping poverty could you try compassion for your fellow humans instead?
        snapplebobapple 2y ago
        I am showing compassion. Allowing people to be shitty is not compassion, it is future problems for everyone. Compassion is letting them know this is not ok
schiffern 2y ago
More fuel efficient gas cars tend to be lighter, and pavement damage scales as the fourth power (!) of axle weight.[1] It's likely that fuel-efficient cars—despite paying less in road taxes—are still overpaying for the road damage they cause. Of course fuel-efficient cars will still have similar impacts on road congestion and parking. So the real question is: what percentage of the fuel tax goes to paying for road damage, and what fraction goes to compensation for other externalized costs: urban congestion, parking, smog, noise, collision risk, pedestrian stress levels, etc? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- mckirk 2y ago
  I'd never heard of that fourth-power-law, fascinating. In fact I can't think of any other relationship in 'nature' scaling with the fourth power, and it seems that that is indeed rare, given the fact that the Wikipedia article is literally called 'fourth power law' and only refers to this effect. (Though I sure would have liked more background info on the actual physics involved; it seems they basically just observed cars and trucks driving on roads, measured the damage to the road, and called it a Law.)
  - QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
    Thermal radiation is the other classic
    - eesmith 2y ago
      I too immediately thought of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law . There's also radar reflection, "Observe that the received power drops with the fourth power of the range, so radar systems must cope with very large dynamic ranges in the receive signal processing." - https://www.eetimes.com/radar-basics-part-1/ https://www.eetimes.com/radar-basics-part-1/ I would also call it a classic as I learned it from this scene in Robert Heinlein's book "Rolling Stones": "The result was eight shiny right-angled corners facing among them in all possible directions —a radar reflector. ... The final result was to step up the effectiveness of radar from an inverse fourth-power law to an inverse square law — in theory, at least. In practice it would be somewhat less than perfectly efficient ...", https://archive.org/details/rollingstones0000robe_q7v9/page/128/mode/2up?q=%22fourth+power%22 https://archive.org/details/rollingstones0000robe_q7v9/page/... A quick search on Google Scholar finds there's a fourth-power law for shock waves: "A fourth-power law relating the stress jump through a steady structured shock wave and the maximum strain rate within the shock wave has received recognition as a unifying relation over a sensibly wide range of materials and shock compression amplitudes." - https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/107/1/013506/287070/Structured-shock-waves-and-the-fourth-power-law?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/107/1/013506/2... "Observations on the fourth-power scaling of high-pressure shock waves in solids" at https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/130/24/245901/1065688/Observations-on-the-fourth-power-scaling-of-high?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/130/24/245901/... and one with irradiance, though at the forth-power of the cosine: "The cosine-fourth-power law states that the irradiance at any point in the image formed by a photographic lens, in the absence of vignetting, is equal to E_0 cos^4 β" - https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/39/jresv39n3p213_A1b.pdf https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/39/jresv39n3p213_A1b.... I also found the following at https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/75/6/3075/400188/Gold-nanoparticles-ion-implanted-in-glass-with https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/75/6/3075/4001... : "The third‐order nonlinear optical susceptibility χ(3) of this glass was found to be proportional to the fourth power of the radius of the colloid particles or the fourth power of the absorption coefficient at the peak of a plasmon band when the total volume of the colloid particles was constant."
Diggsey 2y ago
> 65% of the public believe it is fair for electric car drivers to be taxed, but at a lower rate than petrol and diesel drivers Electric cars still use roads, which still need to be maintained. There's no "extrapolation of logic" required, because the tax on the most fuel efficient cars already dwarfs that which would be paid by electric cars.
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  Electric cars also weigh more and brake more than cars of equal weight. Petrol is already taxed ostensibly to pay for roads. So if anything, EVs just need to be taxed and everything else can be left alone.
xg15 2y ago
The point was addressed at the end of the article: The charge would be for all vehicles, with EVs and low-emission vehicles having the lowest rates. So the headline was clickbait. (That would be the theory at least. How well such a proposal would survive the lobbying onslaught from pro-combustion groups is another question...)
ollybee 2y ago
This already happens for cars in the UK with 13 different road tax rates based on g/km co2 emissions. https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables . My last petrol car paid £0 road tax.
hackcasual 2y ago
Petrol tax directly incentives fuel efficiency
verdverm 2y ago
ICE is taxed at the pump, and has these efficiencies built in. EVs are charged at home, so it is hard to tax per refill. Certainly within EVs there ought to be differences based on weight and wear on the roads. However, they are bypassing paying for their shared good of common roadways. With the migration away from fossil fuels, we will have to find a new way to pay for road repairs
wakawaka28 2y ago
They are already taxed by efficiency+use in a very obvious and direct way: through fuel taxes. Electric cars on the other hand are not subject to fuel taxes.

SteveNuts 2y ago

If the tax is intended to offset the wear and tear on roads, the fairest way is pay-per-mile. But now that EVs are a viable alternative the gas tax should still exist to offset the externalities involved.

playingalong 2y ago
Per mile or per mile times weight to the fourth.

snapplebobapple 2y ago

Actually, it is important that a tax for road care stays a tax for road care so it would be better to replace it with a charge per km adjusted by weight of the vehicle (the primary contributor to differential road damage per km, atleast that we can reasonably and unobtrusively measuee)and adjusted to net out fuel taxes already paid for road maintenance. Could be collected once a year at registration renewal.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
verdverm 2y ago
The annual fee becomes hard for those living paycheck to paycheck, they would get a large bill. Maybe something akin to payroll, where you pay in regularly and then rebalance to zero once a year
- snapplebobapple 2y ago
  that argument doesnt really hold any water in amy context it is used. If you are capable of paying as a gas tax eaxh trip to the pump, but not as a yearly lump sum you probably shouldnt have a car, let alone an electric car.
  - chung8123 2y ago
    There are a lot of people that are really bad with money. Also when you don't have a lot of money you pay what is in front of you. I think this the person above is correct, something like a prepayment with adjustment at the end is probably a better solution.
    - snapplebobapple 2y ago
      Facilitating people who are bad eith money feels like another way to let people be shitty, which should not be accomodated. There is an argument forprepayment if it in reases likelihood of collection but at least put a penalty additional fee on it to limit the fa ilitation of people beong shitty.
      - verdverm 2y ago
        this attitude is how the haves keep most the have nots from ever escaping poverty could you try compassion for your fellow humans instead?
        snapplebobapple 2y ago
        I am showing compassion. Allowing people to be shitty is not compassion, it is future problems for everyone. Compassion is letting them know this is not ok

schiffern 2y ago

More fuel efficient gas cars tend to be lighter, and pavement damage scales as the fourth power (!) of axle weight.[1] It's likely that fuel-efficient cars—despite paying less in road taxes—are still overpaying for the road damage they cause. Of course fuel-efficient cars will still have similar impacts on road congestion and parking. So the real question is: what percentage of the fuel tax goes to paying for road damage, and what fraction goes to compensation for other externalized costs: urban congestion, parking, smog, noise, collision risk, pedestrian stress levels, etc? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

mckirk 2y ago
I'd never heard of that fourth-power-law, fascinating. In fact I can't think of any other relationship in 'nature' scaling with the fourth power, and it seems that that is indeed rare, given the fact that the Wikipedia article is literally called 'fourth power law' and only refers to this effect. (Though I sure would have liked more background info on the actual physics involved; it seems they basically just observed cars and trucks driving on roads, measured the damage to the road, and called it a Law.)
- QuadmasterXLII 2y ago
  Thermal radiation is the other classic
  - eesmith 2y ago
    I too immediately thought of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law . There's also radar reflection, "Observe that the received power drops with the fourth power of the range, so radar systems must cope with very large dynamic ranges in the receive signal processing." - https://www.eetimes.com/radar-basics-part-1/ https://www.eetimes.com/radar-basics-part-1/ I would also call it a classic as I learned it from this scene in Robert Heinlein's book "Rolling Stones": "The result was eight shiny right-angled corners facing among them in all possible directions —a radar reflector. ... The final result was to step up the effectiveness of radar from an inverse fourth-power law to an inverse square law — in theory, at least. In practice it would be somewhat less than perfectly efficient ...", https://archive.org/details/rollingstones0000robe_q7v9/page/128/mode/2up?q=%22fourth+power%22 https://archive.org/details/rollingstones0000robe_q7v9/page/... A quick search on Google Scholar finds there's a fourth-power law for shock waves: "A fourth-power law relating the stress jump through a steady structured shock wave and the maximum strain rate within the shock wave has received recognition as a unifying relation over a sensibly wide range of materials and shock compression amplitudes." - https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/107/1/013506/287070/Structured-shock-waves-and-the-fourth-power-law?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/107/1/013506/2... "Observations on the fourth-power scaling of high-pressure shock waves in solids" at https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/130/24/245901/1065688/Observations-on-the-fourth-power-scaling-of-high?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/130/24/245901/... and one with irradiance, though at the forth-power of the cosine: "The cosine-fourth-power law states that the irradiance at any point in the image formed by a photographic lens, in the absence of vignetting, is equal to E_0 cos^4 β" - https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/39/jresv39n3p213_A1b.pdf https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/39/jresv39n3p213_A1b.... I also found the following at https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/75/6/3075/400188/Gold-nanoparticles-ion-implanted-in-glass-with https://pubs.aip.org/aip/jap/article-abstract/75/6/3075/4001... : "The third‐order nonlinear optical susceptibility χ(3) of this glass was found to be proportional to the fourth power of the radius of the colloid particles or the fourth power of the absorption coefficient at the peak of a plasmon band when the total volume of the colloid particles was constant."

Diggsey 2y ago

> 65% of the public believe it is fair for electric car drivers to be taxed, but at a lower rate than petrol and diesel drivers Electric cars still use roads, which still need to be maintained. There's no "extrapolation of logic" required, because the tax on the most fuel efficient cars already dwarfs that which would be paid by electric cars.

wakawaka28 2y ago
Electric cars also weigh more and brake more than cars of equal weight. Petrol is already taxed ostensibly to pay for roads. So if anything, EVs just need to be taxed and everything else can be left alone.

xg15 2y ago

The point was addressed at the end of the article: The charge would be for all vehicles, with EVs and low-emission vehicles having the lowest rates. So the headline was clickbait. (That would be the theory at least. How well such a proposal would survive the lobbying onslaught from pro-combustion groups is another question...)

ollybee 2y ago

This already happens for cars in the UK with 13 different road tax rates based on g/km co2 emissions. https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables . My last petrol car paid £0 road tax.

hackcasual 2y ago

Petrol tax directly incentives fuel efficiency

verdverm 2y ago

ICE is taxed at the pump, and has these efficiencies built in. EVs are charged at home, so it is hard to tax per refill. Certainly within EVs there ought to be differences based on weight and wear on the roads. However, they are bypassing paying for their shared good of common roadways. With the migration away from fossil fuels, we will have to find a new way to pay for road repairs

wakawaka28 2y ago

They are already taxed by efficiency+use in a very obvious and direct way: through fuel taxes. Electric cars on the other hand are not subject to fuel taxes.