A $20k American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, no screen

For anyone curious, if you made a similarly sized gas-powered pickup with an i4 engine, it would be penalized more than a full-sized pickup for being too fuel inefficient, despite likely getting much better mileage than an F-150 because, since 2011, bigger cars are held to a lesser standard by CAFE[1].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...

Example #5621 that a simple carbon tax would be miles better than the complex morass of regulations we currently have.

This is largely why all the vehicles around us have become supersized. It's completely idiotic.

My favorite thing to come out of CAFE regulations was the Aston Martin Cygnet. It was just a re-badged Toyota iQ whose sole purpose was to raise the average fuel economy within their fleet.

Later they made a one off version for Goodwood that has a V8 stuffed under the hood.

That's overly reductive.

1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive.

2. You can work around #1 by applying incentives for manufacturers to make more efficient cars should lead any carbon tax

3. If you just reward companies based on fleet-average fuel economy without regard to vehicle size, then it would be rather bad for US car companies (who employ unionized workers) that historically make larger cars than Asian and European companies.

4. So the first thing done was to have a separate standard for passenger vehicles and light-trucks, but this resulted in minivans and SUVs being made in such a way as to get the light-truck rating

5. We then ended up with the size-based calculation we have today, but the formula is (IMO) overly punitive on small vehicles. Given that the formula was forward looking, it was almost certain to be wrong in one direction or the other, but it hasn't been updated.

Meanwhile jet fuel for private jets is (and remains) not taxed at all, even in the EU.

Carbon taxes become progressive with the simple step of returning the revenue to taxpayers as a dividend payment using the existing social security payment infrastructure. Richer people have such outsized carbon footprints that most people would get back more in dividends than they lost in higher costs.

All carbon tax is inherently regressive but that's also trivially fixable. Make it revenue neutral and give every citizen a flat portion of the total collected revenue. Bam, it is now progressive, since on average richer people will spend more on fuel (and therefore the tax) even though it is likely a much smaller percentage of their spending.

Every single one of your ideas has problems that are solved by a carbon tax. Taxes are simple, they accomplish what you want, and they don't have loopholes. A carbon tax will _never_ have the unintended consequence of making emissions worse. Many of our current regulations, including the one I was responding to do exactly that because they actually cause people to buy larger trucks than they otherwise would with worse fuel efficiency.

A carbon tax might not on it's own be enough to solve the problem (especially if you set it to low), but no matter what level you set it, it will help. Thanks to unintended consequences, many of our current regulations are actively counter productive, while _also_ having negative economic and other costs.

> 1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive.

You give it back to poor as a income-phased out refundable tax credit. Crucially, base it not on how much they drive or consume, but on their income.

Name it something like the "Worker's Energy Credit". In the worst case, it cancels out the carbon tax spent by them commensurate with their lower income.

In the best case poor people who don't drive much actually come out ahead, and it's just a very progressive sales tax.

The rich might hate it, and call it "redistribution", which is fine because that's exactly what it is, and what taxes have always been, but this one would redistribute downwards instead of upwards, and incentivize lower carbon emissions by those who can afford it.

Which is bonkers. If ever there was a thing that should be taxed it's jet fuel for private jets. 300% tax on private jet fuel would be reasonable.

The emissions just to shuttle rich people from one side of the country to the next (For some, multiple times per day) is insane. You should need to be a billionaire just to afford flying private jets and it should still eat a significant portion of your income if that's what you choose to do.

And for what? Like, we live in the modern era, why does anyone need to travel from NY to Florida to Texas to California in a day?

It's also who sedans and compact cars have largely ceased to exist. The vast majority of new vehicles are crossovers or _light trucks_, which aren't held to the same emission/efficiency standards.

Ffs

All costs are regressive to people with less ability to bear them. By making them not regressive we don't change behavior! It doesn't matter if they're regressive if the objective is to get people to not drive or to burn less gas. Shifting the cost to the rich doesn't change behavior and it doesn't reduce actual carbon. There's a lot more low-income emitters than high income ones.

It's hard to see any of this as "trivially fixable." Taxes are inherently political, politics are complicated, changing incentives on this scale are pretty much impossible in our political system.

"Taxes are simple... and they don't have loopholes" is not at all how taxes work in the US. Perhaps your imagined perfect carbon tax is simple, but a simple tax with no loopholes is not likely to happen. Everyone wants a break or exception, and many of the interested parties are powerful.

> My favorite thing to come out of CAFE regulations was the Aston Martin Cygnet. It was just a re-badged Toyota iQ whose sole purpose was to raise the average fuel economy within their fleet.

Maybe that's a good thing. It compelled Aston Martin to provide their customers with a fuel-efficient option.

> Shifting the cost to the rich doesn't change behavior and it doesn't reduce actual carbon.

Shifting cost to the emitters is a better way to put it. If a factory can make 10m in upgrades over time to reduce their carbon tax burden by 15m over time, they are definitely going to do it. So I disagree: I say it does change behavior and it does reduce actual carbon.

> There's a lot more low-income emitters than high income ones

Whether that's true or not it does not mean a carbon tax would not 'reduce actual carbon'.

A revenue-neutral tax (like GP proposed) could, in theory, change behavior. I don't know enough about human behavior to say how it would work in practice.

Let's say that instead of taxing carbon, we pay people a bonus for emitting a below-average amount of carbon (proportional to the amount that they are below average by). If the amount is in a certain range, it will be too small an amount for wealthy people to care about, but large enough for poorer people to do things within their means (e.g. carpooling) to try to get it.

The results would hit certain geographic areas much worse than others, and (if priced enough to change behavior) would also probably depress car sales, which are two reasons why the federal fuel tax has been flat for over 30 years.

I have a suspicion the reason why super wealthy people like say Musk but he isn't the only one hate subways and high speed rail is because they fly everywhere. You might like if you could get on the subway in Glen Park and be at lands end in half an hour. You might like getting on a high speed rail and being in LA in 4 hours.

These guy will never ride a subway or take a train anywhere.

> The rich might hate it, and call it "redistribution", which is fine because that's exactly what it is, and what taxes have always been, but this one would redistribute downwards instead of upwards, and incentivize lower carbon emissions by those who can afford it.

Larry Page would be pumped. His annual salary is $1.

I feel pretty strongly that adding exceptions and loopholes to taxes only benefit wealthy people, which is the opposite of the intent.

I would be interested in reading a study where all the tax laws in the country were burned down and rebuilt, with no loopholes or exceptions. Also, eliminate borrowing against a stock portfolio. That is downright evil.

It would change behaviour more, not less.

If you set the carbon tax at about $1/gallon of gasoline, the corresponding carbon rebate would be about $1000 per family per year.

That wouldn't affect rich people much; neither the $1/gallon nor the $1000 extra income is significant. But many rich people get rich by being penny-wise, so many would change behaviour, by buying an EV or similar.

But for poor people both $1/gallon and $1000 per year is significant. If gas was $1/gallon more expensive, poor people definitely would drive less.

The fuel/carbon tax would still be behavior-shifting for low-income emitters because it would still apply to low-income emitters per marginal unit, and that part is likely overall regressive because fuel is a larger expenditures for low-incomes.

However, the part where the resulting revenue is pooled and payed out in an equal amount back per capita is progressive, since that payment is a greater fraction of a low income. Desirably, it also means that low-income people emitting less than the average would make money overall: consider a household consisting of a single mom and two kids that take public transit to work/school.

> I feel pretty strongly that adding exceptions and loopholes to taxes only benefit wealthy people, which is the opposite of the intent.

It depends what the exception is.

If the exceptions are "we treat a form of income received disproportionately by the rich a 'not income' and tax it at a lower rate, and on top of that we add an extra tax on top of income tax on labor income, and cap the larger part of that extra tax, too, to avoid burdening high earners", that helps the rich, sure. But there are plenty of exceptions possible that don't do that.

Fuel is already taxed. What would a "carbon tax" add here?

The purpose of the CAFE regulations is very explicitly to favor American automakers who make big trucks.

This is mixing two questions: whether a system can be elegantly designed and do the job without major market distortion, versus the question of whether various actors will stand in the way to prevent it.

You could say the same thing about zoning. Higher density is better for affordability, but faces opposition from landowning existing residents. Does that make it wrong, or not worth pursuing? No, and that particular movement seems to be getting traction despite the political opposition.

I read "trivially fixable" as "there is an elegant solution to this," not that "it is easy to get it politically passed."

> Larry Page would be pumped. His annual salary is $1.

The tax would be on consumption, the credit would be based on income, so Larry still pays when he buys gas (if not for his cars, then for his planes).

> I would be interested in reading a study where all the tax laws in the country were burned down and rebuilt

That would burn down the country. Tax policy and the economy are a ship that has to be gradually turned in the optimal direction, just like how for the last 40 years tax policy has been gradually redistributing growth/wealth upwards. Sudden changes (like we are seeing now with indiscriminate tariff policy) are what results in the most harm to the poor.

> Also, eliminate borrowing against a stock portfolio. That is downright evil.

Agreed, or just heavily tax borrowing against a portfolio above, say, $2M/year. That way you don't penalize working people borrowing against 401ks or taking home equity loans for home improvements.

We already have a carbon tax, you pay it when you buy the carbon. 3 cents per liter federally and an additional 18 cents per liter in California specifically.

Anybody know how it got to this point? It can't be because of regulatory capture, right? I don't think small cars are getting made for the US because of SUV mania and something like a 67 MPG requirement for the Honda Fit based on it's build.

I see the carbon tax as a 'stick' (to penalize undesired behaviour, in this case emitting carbon), but it needs to be coupled with a 'carrot' to encourage the desired behaviours.

I'd like to see a carbon tax coupled with massive investments to make public transit legitimately good. There are too many places where there is no viable alternative to driving, a carbon tax will unnecessarily punish those people without giving them a reasonable alternative.

Are you saying used car sales would have a carbon tax? I've never heard anyone suggest anything like that. It's just a tax on new items.

> It's also who sedans and compact cars have largely ceased to exist.

Consumer demand is still an important factor.

Sedans and compact cars are still out there, sitting on dealer lots with reasonable prices.

Some European countries have total taxes to the tune of 90+ cents per liter (50-60% tax) with current gas prices, for reference. (~65ct/l for the energy/carbon tax, specifically)

I don’t think that level is sufficient to cover the externalities.

You are correct that most consumption taxes are intrinsically regressive, but you can turn pretty much any consumption tax into a progressive one by simply taking the money and redistributing it at a flat amount per person.

I believe this would be more fair to children who are the ones who will be most impacted by climate change in the end.

I believe there are even some governments that use this approach, but many of them don't make it feel as significant as it should. You should get a big fat cheque in the mail every month as if you won the lottery.

Think about how much easier that is to game though.

The original suggestion could be collected at point-of-sale for carbon emitting products. Gasoline, airplane tickets (based on average for the flights), even electricity are easy to measure and charge at the point of sale.

In your example, the person has to prove how much they didn’t emit, which is way harder in practice, to get the credit.

Fine print: The truck in the link is only $20K after government subsidies/rebates. So if the government gives my tax dollars to buyers of this truck, then it will cost $20K.

> since on average richer people will spend more on fuel

Why would you think so? People driving older cars, not being able to afford to fly - will certainly spend more money on fuel for their car.

> I don't think small cars are getting made for the US because of SUV mania and something like a 67 MPG requirement for the Honda Fit based on it's build.

The famous 67MPG requirement was for a hypothetical 2026 model year car

But Honda discontinued the Fit in the United States in 2020, long before the hypothetical 2026 target.

The reason is consumer demand. People weren't buying them. There are thousands of lightly used Honda Fits on the used market for reasonable prices, but they're not moving.

Yes, the regulations are flawed, but that doesn't change the lack of consumer demand.

What makes a jet private? Should Trump's Boegin 757 count as one? What if an airline is flying a jet with no passengers? Cargo jets?

Looks like as long as only positive change is allowed to touch the poor, there will be little change.

I'm no Musk fanboy, but it is funny you mention him not liking subways or high speed rail because didn't he try to build a subterranean high speed rail?

> Meanwhile jet fuel for private jets is (and remains) not taxed at all, even in the EU.

Not correct. Fuel for private aviation is taxed, including jet fuel and avgas. However, there are very few "private" jets, most are operated by some company, and therefore not private. Jet-A1 for a truely privately operated C172 with a diesel engine is taxed.

As opposed to other prices that are not the product of a political economy?

Yes, and you will benefit, because the role of the state is to advance the collective and common good.

That's why we have TeH gOvErNmEnT.

The carrot is doing the things you want to do like getting from A to B or building a home.

Government ‘carrots’ are almost universally a terrible idea because they codify specific solutions. Instead you can get the same effect more efficiently with a carbon tax large enough for people to notice.

The hyperloop was a shit idea from day one and thus far no one has been able to make it work. It's also entirely possible that Elon Musk floated this as a distraction to stop the development of "regular" high speed rain in California[1].

The Las Vegas "loop"[2], on the other hand, is basically a parody of a subway - with a fraction of the capacity.

> In July 2021, the peak passenger flow was recorded at 1,355 passengers per hour.

As a comparison Toronto's subway can handle 28,000 passengers per hour[3] per direction or more.

[1] https://www.jalopnik.com/did-musk-propose-hyperloop-to-stop-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Convention_Center_Lo...

[3] https://dailyhive.com/toronto/ttc-toronto-subway-station-rid...

Electric vehicle tax credits are non-refundable tax credits meaning you can't get a credit for more than you owe. [1][2]

Which means no one is getting your tax dollars to buy vehicles (though there may be some infrastructure or manufacturing grants for companies).

[1] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12600

[2] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-credits-for-individuals-wha...

Even finer print: the $7,500 federal incentive is a tax rebate. If you don't have a $7,500 tax liability, you won't get the full amount. (this also applies if you transfer the credit to the dealer at point of sale). I mean, money is fungible and all, but your particular tax dollars aren't going to people who buy EVs, they are just paying less in taxes.

Do you think flying evades the carbon tax?

Are you sure? Gas consumption is notoriously inelastic. West coast gasoline is already a dollar or more than it costs on the east coast. Do poor people drive less in California than in Florida?

why can't we just tax the gas at the pump? this is, at least, what I'm used to in Europe.

We do. But it’s a super regressive tax. Lots of very poor people depend on a bad MPG car to get to work and live.

> The reason is consumer demand. People weren't buying them.

I think this over-simplifies things. Strict milage standards force a set of compromises on ICE car design that make them both shittier and more expensive[1]. Why would anyone buy such a product when they can get an SUV instead?

[1] Some examples: turbochargers, CVTs, start/stop systems. All of these increase both the cost and complexity of building as well as repairing the car. And with higher complexity comes higher chances for something to fail as well so reliability suffers.

Rich people use more energy. That’s been shown by loads of studies.

Maybe they drive a more efficient car, but they own much larger houses which are heated or cooled consistently, they travel a lot more, and they buy things with embodied carbon emissions.

^ In addition, I find it notable that the political party that is in favor of more regressive taxes is also against a carbon tax.

In an ideal world, I'd like the tax to be made more progressive, but I'll take anything!

Nobody looking for a fuel efficient car would look at Aston, and nobody looking at Aston would go for a fuel efficient car.

Which was borne by its sales: sold for nearly 3 times the price you'd have paid Toyota for an iQ, it sold all of 600 units in two years before being cancelled, Aston's second shortest production run. The shortest was the Virage which sold more than 1000 units in a year.

So, should I wish to purchase a vehicle this tax year, I tell my HR to adjust my income withholding such that I owe 7,500$ come tax time and then reap the rewards?

Or is there more to the incentive structure?

> Larry Page would be pumped. His annual salary is $1.

Salary might be $1 but what is his effective income when he files his taxes? That is what he is taxed on, which includes things like dividends and selling of stocks.

There’s nothing wrong with borrowing against stock, the evil part is the step-up in cost basis when the billionaire dies that prevents them from paying any tax at all.

It would be a good deal for the country to let the billionaire use their skills to grow wealth without interrupting it and tax them all at death.

Gas consumption is inelastic in the short term, but everything is elastic in the long term.

If you want proof of this, just look at what happens to sales of large vs small cars when the price of gas changes.

The real hardship for the poor here is they cannot float that $1/gallon for a year before getting the $1000

Did I say it was a good idea? I was merely pointing out that there's evidence that he is not the best example for people that hate high-speed rails and subways.

>Stop the development of high speed rail in California

I thought that got funded, what happened?

You'll note to two things that ties the hyper loop and the Las Vegas Loop together is private cars.

Don't discount that these guys find ordinary people to be scary and disgusting.

Withholding isn't relevant here. Non refundable means it can't cause the government to net pay you money: that is to say, it can't make your refund larger than your withholding.

The rebate can be paid out more frequently than annually.

This tax is only assessed on road transportation. It ignores aviation, industry, or any one of the other sources of carbon.

The government still gives you back your money in a refund if you overpay them.

Though, of course, you don't earn interest on it while the government is holding it.

> both shittier and more expensive

> Some examples: turbochargers

I disagree that turbochargers are shittier. For most people, hell even for a large subset of people that only want to race their cars on a track, turbochargers provide huge benefits. Yes, they add complexity and cost; they also vastly improve fuel efficiency, create the best torque curve possible on an ICE vehicle, and substantially improve power output. Sometimes you actually need more complexity to build a better system. I think turbochargers are a marvel of modern engineering.

And while it's subjective and admittedly more enthusiasts prefer naturally aspirated to turbocharged, I personally prefer the character of a turbocharged engine. I'd rather hear turbo whistles than a whining V10.

As we learned in the 90s with email, an elegant solution that doesn't take human nature into account isn't worth pursuing. There used to be a joke checklist we'd send to each other about this.

> I read "trivially fixable" as "there is an elegant solution to this," not that "it is easy to get it politically passed."

The huge problem with this line of thinking is that it's easy to identify a half-dozen key players standing in the way of your elegant solution and it would be easier to remove them from the situation than change their minds. It's an attractive idea that can become a fixed idea.

The same thing that differentiate a private car from public transportation or freight, I would think. This distinction isn't a particularly novel problem.

What you have withheld is not part of the equation. It is your tax liability that matters.

I think the best way is to tax fuel itself. This way worse mpg result in more tax.

Tax diesel more than gasoline, LNG less.

I don’t think it would be possible to produce a carbon tax that’s simple

We don't differentiate these in any significant way. Do buses in your country pay different rate for fuel?

There are vans carrying 6 people on international routes in Europe, is this public transport? Private? Anyone can book it.

Right, but now you're talking about adding the tax to the whole economy, not just car fuel?

That's close to impossible to implement. You'd need to track production and usage of everything in an extreme detail. Plus tracking all purchases (items + services) to a given person. So complete state surveillance of citizens. Globally.

Yes, if you apply the carbon tax only for the fuel at petrol stations. I am talking about realistic-to-implement solutions.

This is already done, in Europe most of the fuel costs are taxes.

Yeah but the only way to protect myself if hit by a freight train is to also drive a freight train.

Tax the fuel. Gasoline now has a $X/gallon tax, as does propane, as does coal, whatever.

What is the difficulty with that?

Many politicians campaigning for green energy (aka AOC) also fly on private jets everywhere so that they can fight the oligarchy - this behavior isn't restricted to wealthy businessmen alone.

It’s extremely regressive. You’d need to also give a rebate based on income level.

Depressingly, I think that's why a law to stop this behavior won't pass in the US. Wealthy and powerful people love their private flights.

Doesn't mean that anyone engaging in this behavior should get a pass nor that we shouldn't keep advocating for such a tax.

That makes sense, but there would be no incentive to switch to an engine that emits less carbon for the same fuel consumption (if such a thing exists)

That’s the excuse that is used for agriculture. They sell a vision of a Fisher Price toy farm, but make policy for giant Midwest farms.

The proverbial blue collar truck owner is already screwed. Random surburban dude should be paying through the nose for his F-250. Create demand for fuel efficiency, and you’ll have cars like my dad’s 1993 Escort Wagon, that got 45mpg.

>Which means no one is getting your tax dollars to buy vehicles

Then who is making up the difference between the tax that would have been paid, and the credit reduction?

You don't create carbon out of thin air, it's from the fuel, so burning the same quantity of fuel will result in the same quantity of carbon, no matter how the engine works. Therefore a tax on fuel is a tax on carbon.

Tax all fuel. So those energy consumption of wealthy cost more?

If you want to reduce carbon emissions, if the tax is regressive or not does not matter as long as you tax emissions. If you want to mix too many things, you will not get a good solution for any.

This.

By definition, more carbon is less efficiency. Efficiency is about how much of the hydrocarbon you turn into heat. Diesels often burn a little dirty. That's partly because diesel engines don't burn all the fuel

>this also applies if you transfer the credit to the dealer at point of sale

No, it does not. See Q4 at the following link:

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/topic-h-frequently-asked-questi...

Incomplete combustion is a big component of emissions, and it's exactly what you're saying doesn't exist

I think everyone drives less in California than in Florida. (Google says ~14,500 miles annually per licensed driver in Florida, versus ~12,500 miles in California.) Gas prices are a factor in this.

That's not really true.

If the taxes someone would otherwise pay are going to their electric vehicle instead, somebody else has to make up the difference.

So yes, other people are getting my tax dollars to buy electric vehicles. It just takes two steps rather than one, if you want to look at it that way.

Those eventually degrade to CO2 so the increased warming from them compared to co2 by mass is temporary, like with methane.

> since 2011, bigger cars are held to a lesser standard by CAFE[1].

... and this is why American cars got so huge, if anyone was curious.

It wasn't the intended purpose. It turned out that way because the Detroit lobbyists were smarter and more motivated than the government policy people, and they bamboozled them.

Having a carbon tax seems to be the most fair way to combat climate change; unfortunately in practice it is political suicide. Australia had a carbon tax in 2011 and was quickly repealed in 2014. Likewise Canada also implemented such a tax in 2019 and was repealed this year prior to their election. People like to say that they want to help the environment, but when it comes time to vote they vote against such policies.

You can give the rebate based on prior year or estimated usage at the start of the year, and then repay at the end of the year if it was too much, like with healthcare subsidies.

Yes but since incomplete combustion is inverse correlated with fuel efficiency (unburned fuel is wasted fuel), it's not really a trade off. What is a trade off is NO emissions vs fuel efficiency. Burning your fuel oxygen rich will burn of more fuel, but also makes more NO (due to higher temperatures if I remember correctly).

The congress critters knew what they were doing and didn't do it for free.

This has been a known problem and could be changed if the political will to make common sense policy changes and corrections when needed was anywhere near existing. Unfortunately, we live in a [political] dystopia

Congress doesn't retroactively raise tax rates to make up the difference. If the government budget ends up in a deficit, which obviously it does, not just because of this but for many reasons, that is financed via debt. This isn't passed to the population as higher taxes, but as inflation, which affects everyone equally, including whoever got the tax credits in the first place.

> Let's say that instead of taxing carbon, we pay people a bonus for emitting a below-average amount of carbon (proportional to the amount that they are below average by). If the amount is in a certain range, it will be too small an amount for wealthy people to care about, but large enough for poorer people to do things within their means (e.g. carpooling) to try to get it.

So you're saying that the government should incentivize poorer people to sell one of the last bits of their functional autonomy for what would be trivial amounts? "We'll just hang onto to this for a bit until you decide to stop going anywhere or make friends at work".

> Why would anyone buy such a product when they can get an SUV instead?

Isn't this just a circular way of admitting that people actually wanted SUVs?

This doesn't explain why the used car market is full of very cheap cars like the Honda Fit for much less than a new SUV.

> [1] Some examples: turbochargers,

Have to disagree. These are a great way to downsize the engine and maintain the same torque output. Yes it's more parts, but modern OEM turbochargers are very reliable. If you can reduce the number of cylinders from 6 to 4 or 3, that's a net win in moving parts, consumables, and repair costs.

We already do in the US (but the money mostly goes to road maintenance)

Rebadging doesn't add any meaningful consumer choice.

Consumer demand is driven by marketing.

I’m confused here, wouldn’t me underpaying on my income generate a liability that I can then claim this rebate on?

Adjust my withholding to generate a debt to Th enticement that I claim the rebate on? I think you’re thinking the other direction.

I have a small(*) twenty year old i4 pickup and I regularly get cash offers for it while out and about. There is a lot of demand for the small inexpensive and relatively fuel efficient utility vehicles that the government currently prohibits manufacturing.

(*Ironically, though small it has a considerably longer bed than many currently produced larger and less fuel efficient trucks... I'm mystified by trucks that can't even contain a bike without removing a wheel or hanging one over a gate. Looks like the bed on this EV is a bit short too, but a short bed on a small truck is more excusable than a short bed on a huge truck)

Goverment debt is reduced by increased taxes and/or reduction in services just as much as it is by "inflation". Further, inflation doesn't affect the person who got a $7,500 individual tax reduction as much as someone who didn't.

If what you want is a reliable commuter, because knowing you can get yourself to work is more important than even fuel efficiency, then turbochargers are a clear net negative. I think most people view their car as a tool first and foremost, and don't have the luxury to view it as a toy.

> V10

Lmao what

that's a different problem. US cities used to have good publhc transport, but the urvanization policies since 50s is car-centric. plus, because of the American cars having huge engines they have bad MPG. The current situation US is in is nothing to do with the tax regime.

> 1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive.

The idea that policy makers care about this in any meaningful sense is absurd given the EV mandates, as EV's radically change the lifecycle costs of cars in a way that is absolutely destructive to people who aren't wealthy.

EV's lower the 'fueling' cost but shift part of it into large cashflow crushing battery replacement costs.

Automobiles have been a significant engine in elevating less wealthy americans because you can buy a old junky car for very little and keep it limping along with use-proportional fuel costs and minor maintenance. Even if it's an inefficient car, you use it to go to work, so you're making money to pay for the fuel. Less work, less work fuel required.

EV's significantly break the model and will push many more less wealthy people onto predatory financing which they'll never escape. Yet policy makers refuse to even discuss the life-cycle cashflow difference of EVs, and continue to more forward with policies to eventually mandate their use.

> it was almost certain to be wrong in one direction or the other, but it hasn't been updated.

It's been broken all along. We've had decades to fix it.

Going to let us burn because not doing so would be regressive.

Ethanol blends get worse MPG, and entail additional carbon emissions in creation. They do not reduce carbon emissions.

Let's make up an example. Let's say you earn $75,000/year and the tax rate is 10%. So you owe $7,500 in taxes. That is your tax liability. It doesn't matter if you have your employer deducting $144 from your weekly paycheck or $0 from your weekly paycheck.

https://apps.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/student/hows.jsp

>didn't he try to build a subterranean high speed rail?

_for cars_

It's ~28k without them, particularly when considering recent inflation it's an attractive price... inflation corrected it's in the vague ballpark of other small IC trucks when they were still available.

E.g. a early 2000's Nissan frontier base model was $23k in today's money. It was a somewhat better speced (e.g. more hauling capacity) and much better range, but this new car likely has significantly lower operating costs that would easily justify a 5k uplift.

So I think it ought to be perfectly viable without the subsidy, especially so long as the absurd CAFE standards continue to exist giving EV's a monopoly on this truck size.

Canada ultimately repealed the carbon tax because it was used as a political cudgel against the Liberal party that enacted it by the Conservative opposition in a sustained fashion for several years.

Which is dismaying because carbon taxes are a conservative solution to this problem and IIRC the first political entities to suggest the implementation of them in Canada were Conservative.

At the end of the day you have a nontrivial amount of the population, and many in positions of power who just outright deny environmental concerns and climate change as an existential threat.

They aren't going to approach this problem in good faith and it isn't obvious what the solution to their nefarious influence on policy should be.

Automotive industry is one of the biggest scams on planet earth. One of my favorite cases recently is how Suzuki Jimny is banned in Europe and US because of emission standards allegedly, so the little Jimny is emitting 146g/km but somehow there is no problem to buy a G-Class that is emitting 358g/km oh and surprise surprise Mercedes are going to release a smaller more affordable G-Class [1].

[1] - https://www.motortrend.com/news/2026-mercedes-benz-baby-g-wa...

My understanding is that the dealer has to have the tax liability. IANATL, YMMV.

You can still get a refund with this tax credit, but it has to be a refund of taxes you paid through things like your payroll tax.

Non-refundable means that if the rebate drives your owed taxes below zero you don't get the negative tax debt back.

If you don't earn much money most of your paid taxes go to SS and medicare rather than income tax, so the rebate may not do anything for you. But if you make at least median income you should be able to fully use this rebate.

If you're retired and buy one of these trucks you'd be wise to realize $100k in investment gains in that year in order to fully exploit the tax credit.

First of all, you're wrong about how debt is financed. It's not via inflation, it's by taxes. Interest payments accounted for 13% of the federal budget last year. That's enormous. (Yes inflation reduces the value of debt over time, but debt carries interest which generally outweighs expected inflation.)

Second, Congress absolutely adjusts tax rates as well. Not precisely one-to-one to match spending each year, but over the long term it's all got to add up. Every dollar the government spends today is paid with people's taxes either today or their taxes tomorrow.

Third, the person who received the tax credits isn't being affected "equally". If 1% of people get the credit, but 100% of people pay for it, then the people who receive the credit end up hugely ahead in the end, while the other 99% lose out. So yes, for the 1% of people getting an electric vehicle tax credit, it is almost entirely paid for by the other 99% of people.

The Honda Fit had none of these. It was just a tiny car with a tiny engine.

It's just that Americans do not buy tiny cars or tiny engines.

Turbocharged cars have been reliable for a while now. There was a time when people said the same thing about fuel injection - because it is objectively more complicated than carbureted engines. But as time went on and they became more reliable and cheaper the only people that care about carburetors now are enthusiasts because they have so many drawbacks. It's the same thing with turbo engines today, except they're already reliable and better to drive (assuming you ever want to merge onto a highway). If you consider the higher RPM typical for NA vehicles they're arguably less reliable over time. If you include rising fuel costs turbocharged is arguably cheaper over the lifespan of the vehicle.

Buy whatever you want. But most people's perceptions of 'reliable' for cars is based entirely on rumors and hearsay and has nothing to do with data. Most awards for reliability are marketing gimmicks and aren't based on useful data.

What is the point of the link?

Unless you play in the nuclear physics, Carbon in is Carbon out. Carbon in fuel is Carbon out of the engine.

Aviation fuel is dispensed at a limited number of places; it would be easier (or just as easy) to implement a higher aviation fuel tax than a higher auto fuel tax.

Isn't that what a carbon tax is? Adding a tax to the fossil fuel based on carbon content.

Giving it back based on being alive on Dec 31 seems the best solution to me. (It’s very difficult to game and if you give 900 billionaires under a million bucks in total, it’s just not that big a deal…)

The same thing happened with electric car purchase incentives in New Zealand. The poor cannot afford to buy a new car - so only the well off received the efficient car discount incentives.

The trickle down as those cars depreciated in value was years away.

Thereby penalising existing vehicle owners who can’t switch to a more efficient vehicle overnight.

We have to come up with a rigorous alternative that doesn’t disproportionately affect lower income folk, because people tend not to be overly concerned about nebulous concepts like the climate impacts on unborn future generations, especially when my carbon impact at the margin is negligible when taken in context of global population.

This is a common trope, but is incorrect, at least for the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...

Ok, let's assume you do. Let's tax all fuels 300% in the US. Now all manufacturing stops as your production costs are all over the roof. Everything is imported from countries that do not have these taxes.

What problem was solved here? None.

It's trivial to implement auto fuel tax - it's already in place in most of developed countries.

I was making an analogy to a revenue-neutral carbon tax. That is tax all of those things, but cut every taxpayer a refund for an equal share of the revenue. This is ultimately identical to paying people for having below-average use.

We manage to phase out ACA subsidies at 400% of the federal poverty level, so I don't see why we couldn't use a similar mechanism for an energy tax credit.

That was one of several purposes.

That doesn’t really sound like the worst thing?

Someone has to buy them for full price before they show up on the used market 5-10 years later.

> That's close to impossible to implement.

For a carbon tax, I think you only need to track imports, and domestic extraction of coal, petroleum, and natural gas.

I am happy with my 1.6L EcoBoost Ford Mondeo. It gets good fuel efficiency and has plenty of power to climb hills.

And what you’re describing is exactly the reason Kei trucks aren’t a thing despite most farmers actually liking them for their utility.

You can’t import them unless they are old because we want to protect the automotive industry. But we can’t build them new either because they don’t meet the safety standards (FMVSS) and are penalized more for being fuel efficient because the standards are stricter for smaller vehicles.

> a simple carbon tax would be miles better than the complex morass of regulations we currently have

Doesn't this just punt the morass into the magic variable of one's carbon footprint?

How about this: fleet efficiency standards are stupid, anachronistic and counterproductive. Scrap them. Then, separarately, create a consumer-side rebate based on a vehicle's mileage. (Because a gas tax breaks American brains.)

Manufacturers must hit a level of CO2 emissions on average across their whole fleet. As such, Suzuki is choosing to discontinue the Jimny because of the tougher fleet average targets starting in 2025. Overall you’re right that it’s a bit of a fix; Mercedes ‘pools’ its emissions with other manufacturers/brands. It currently pools with Smart, but may also pool with Volvo/Polestar? [0] It’s such an obvious approach to ‘game’ the targets, it’s a wonder the EU didn’t see it coming when they introduced the scheme. [0] https://www.schmidtmatthias.de/post/mercedes-benz-intends-to...

To be fair, kei trucks are horrible in crashes too. That’s a big part of states starting to ban them.

Give everybody $1000 (or whatever) to offset that. Ends up being neutral for some folks, a net benefit to the poor, and a net cost to the rich. This is already how lots of jurisdictions handle regressive taxes.

The Jimny or similar Suzuki models would not be offered for sale in the U.S. because it’s basically the latest iteration of the Samuri, which died there after Consumer Reports falsely claimed that it was dangerously prone to rollover.

Canada's implementation had two problems:

1. The textbook implementation involves 3 parts: tax, rebate and tariff. Canada only did the first 2. They were in talks with Germany/EU to create a carbon tariff zone, but that never happens. Without the tariff the carbon tax is massively unfair to local producers.

2. The rebates were almost invisible. If they would have been cheques in the mail it would have had much more impact psychologically.

But I agree, the main problem was denialism and its use as a political cudgel. It should be hard to argue that carbon tax is stealing money when all of it is given back, but they successfully did that.

The rebate is a fixed amount, no need for estimation.

> How about this: fleet efficiency standards are stupid, anachronistic and counterproductive. Scrap them. Then, separarately, create a consumer-side rebate based on a vehicle's mileage. (Because a gas tax breaks American brains.)

It's a good concept that is also ripe for abuse with anyone who has some amount of "fuck your rules" money. Same reason why fines that don't scale with income/earnings in some form often do nothing to deter "the rich".

I certainly like carrots more than sticks, but we need a couple of sticks as well.

Maybe you shouldn't base your assumptions of the world on politically charged clickbait headlines... Did her and Bernie use a private jet? Quite possibly. Does that mean they fly "everywhere" on private jets? Certifiably false.

That doesn't make sense because the second hand car is not cheaper by the amount of the subsidy. Say subsidy is $20k, second-hand car might eventually be $6k cheaper (and the discount time value of money means that the $6k is actually less than $4k). Giving the wealthy person $20k, and the poor person less than $4k is strange.

New Zealand used car market is likely very different from the market where you are. The cheapest Model 3 I could find was a USD18000 for a 2020.

Subsidies make sense if the environmental gains outweigh the costs of the subsidies.

Subsidies: there was a purchase subsidy, charging stations were subsidised, and I think electric cars are not paying their fair share of road maintenance (much of our road costs are paid for by an excise tax on usage via petrol-tax or heavy-vehicle-milage).

But they only wanted SUVs because government nerfed sedans.

> By making them not regressive we don't change behavior!

I'm poor. I could get just the $X back as my carbon tax dividend and continue with my current lifestyle. Or I could make choices that emit less carbon, which will cost less since they don't have a carbon tax cost to them, and save an additional $Y on top of the $X I'm already getting.

What do I do?

> Everything is imported from countries that do not have these taxes.

Finally a good use for tariffs!

I had rented a barebones Jimny last month when I was in Auckland for the week. Not saying it was prone to roll. But holy hell was it feeling like I could roll that bad boy on some curvy gravel roads. I also loved it.

> This doesn't explain why the used car market is full of very cheap cars like the Honda Fit for much less than a new SUV.

Is it really? Just to check I looked at carmax and found this kind of price:

2016 Honda Fit LX $16,998* 26K mi

You can get cheaper ones in the $11k range with like 110k+ miles on them, is this really a meaningul price difference?

Is the standard deduction giving people your tax dollars? Anyone who itemizes?

What if someone declines a promotion and thus doesn't increase their income and pay more taxes? Is that also taking your tax dollars?

Sure, yes, if the government doesn't follow PAYGO[1] (which they almost never do) and offset tax expenditures (tax incentives) with reduced direct spending and government debt increases then maybe, some day, some portion of your tax dollars may get indirectly spent on this.

But how do we really know? Do we know what other secondary effects will come from these tax incentives?

If electric cars catch on maybe the government will get more revenue somewhere else (there are North American manufacturing requirements to qualify after all) or have to spend less revenue on something else (surely burning oil must have some effect).

Or maybe the person getting the electric vehicle then uses it to make more money and pay more taxes than they would have before (unlikely but possible).

But, directly, they're getting back their own money. The real issue with the credit is that it disproportionately favors people who already make a lot of money (but taxes also disproportionately tax people who make more money so maybe that's fair).

[1] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL31943

I wonder if that's why Ford, Ram, and Nissan all at the same time decide to discontinue their mini cargo vans a year ago.

Is that weighted for individual car popularity? Because couldn’t you put three push cars in your lineup that you don’t realistically expect to sell and be fine?

The Australian implementation had a lot of problems. Instead of being (something reasonably loophole free like) a tax levied on fossil fuel consumption it was a scheme that applied to the 500 largest emitters. These emitters then (crucially) estimated their own emissions minus offsets and paid tax on that.

The issue with this is that it creates a whole parallel (and largely fake) carbon accounting world. Fake estimates, fake offsets, a complex web of compensating subsidies - but real public money.

The field of carbon taxes is tricky because we can imagine simple schemes which handle a few scenarios in a fair way (ok, fuel! we know how to tax that) but once you start thinking about agriculture or construction you quickly get into complex estimation. You then end up with armies of carbon accountants who spend all day looking for loopholes and rorts.

If interested in a case study, have a look at Canada's experiment with it.

„Only” track imports?

You can. It will cost political capital and erode the clarity of the messaging about the purpose of the tax. It also gives politicians one more thing to dick around with later.

Personally, I think it’s letting the perfect be the enemy of the 99+% perfect.

This is way too complicated. You just give it to everyone unconditionally and tax it as income. We already have progressive graduated income taxes with a huge exempt class, we don't need to layer anything on top of that.

They likely saw it coming… and deliberately did it this way.

All local industry distorts their relevant politics. There’s lobbyists in the EU too.

The EU economy has a lot of car manufacturing, so cars are probably a big deal in Brussels.

I think customs already tracks this. Smuggling oil and coal into the US at any meaningful scale seems very unlikely.

Broadly agreed. IMO the Canadian carbon tax had a marketing problem. It should have been called a Carbon Dividend. First, it would have replaced the negative connotation of the word "tax" with the positive connotation of the word "dividend -- and it would have been more accurate to how the program actually worked.

Second, and probably more important: the rebates showed up in your bank account with a description that didn't make the source obvious enough for laypeople. Had people seen monthly "CARBON DIVIDEND" credits in their bank accounts, they would have noticed.

If you're talking about the ford transit (I'm just guessing) but maybe the tariff rules changed? IIUC The transit was shipped to the US from europe as a "bus" because it was configured with car seats on board and then they would strip the seats and ship them back to europe. Buses are exempt from tariffs otherwise municipal public transit would be even more in the drink.

AFAIK the average emissions are based on cars that were actually sold. So yeah, it's weighted for popularity in a way.

The Samuri, sold in India as the Gypsy and used extensively by Indian police, did rollover alarmingly often until the 1993 model when the track width was increased by 90mm.

Drivers of ICE vehicles are the emitters.

An ICE vehicle sitting in a driveway with its engine off emits no pollution (that is, after the initial impact of manufacturing and delivering it).

That math doesn’t add up. If I buy a $100,000 car for $80,000, and I sell it to someone for $60,000, the recipient still gets a $40,000 discount.

And if you pretend that there is no subsidy, and the original owner paid $80,000 just because it cost that much unsubsidized, the second buyer still gets the same discount off the original purchase price.

So the fact that the car was originally subsidized isn’t relevant.

Finally, some common sense!

I'll boil it down to:

    If you want less of something, tax it.

It's the most efficient mechanism for internalizing external costs.

I don’t see the issue in that though. If the target was to keep the average emission down across the entire country and if inefficient brand A decided to merge with efficient brand B to keep the average down that seems like it still adheres to the spirit of the law

Repealing these Obama era rules would go a long way to restoring automotive affordability. Can't undo cash for clunkers though

This is the Ford Transit Connect. They're known as mini cargo vans and popular with trades and for city driving because they're slightly smaller than a mini van. The equivalent to the Transit Connect was the Ram ProMaster City and Nissan NV200. They all were discontinued within two years of each other.

Yeah that’s the truth. The mass of poor people are the predominant polluters. They produce little of value and pollute a lot. So the question then is whether you care about the environment or about the poor and most people would rather the latter.

LOL on an e-bike I can beat BART to SFO from Glen Park unless you time both to start at just the moment BART arrives instead of at a random moment. If you want a Glen Park to Lands End to take under 30 minutes, the cost would rival the Iraq War.

This is why its so important to be super careful with how you write regulation - because even if the intent was good, it's so hard to both anticipate unintended second- and third-order effects, and it's so difficult to update after you've pushed to production.

Just like code, regulation isn't intrinsically valuable - it's a means to an end, and piling lots of poorly-written stuff on top of each other has disasterous consequences for society. We have to make sure that the code and law that we write is carefully thought out and crafted to achieve its desired effect with minimal complexity, and formally verify and test it when possible.

(an example of testing law may be to get a few clever people into a room and red-team possible exploits in the proposed bill or regulation)

In official communications it was called the Canada Carbon Rebate or previously the Climate Action Incentive

Link not working

TIL poor people can't pollute, so their market segment shouldn't be incentivized to cut pollution.

TIL that US car companies won't make smaller cars in the face of different regulations, even though they made larger cars in response to current regulations.

The only way to avoid perversions is to tax the problem directly. The market will adjust to all proxies in unintended and harmful ways.

Yeah it's not really "gaming" anything.

Scaling fines with income only works to hard stop behavior, at which point just make it illegal. Most fines are proportional to damages.

Criminalizing fossil fuels is insane. The fines should cover the externalities.

They’re horrible in crashes in the North American region. That’s because the average vehicle size in North America is much, much bigger than the vehicles in the Kei trucks’ region of origin. And streets in North America are, on average, much, much wider and permit higher speed traffic than those in Japan. The cars themselves aren’t inherently unsafe; if you keep them mostly on private property and only take them out on low-speed public roads with light duty vehicles, they’re still operating in an appropriate context. Also pretty appropriate in historic city centers where the roads aren’t too fast and the trucks and full size SUVs aren’t too numerous. But yeah, take one out on the interstate boxed between two semi trucks, an F-350, and a Suburban and you’re going to be in real danger.

If you subsidize polluting life-styles, you'll get pollution.

You think the rich suffer from pollution and car dependency? It's not at all clear that taxing gas will lead to worse outcomes for the poor. It's entirely clear that subsidizing pollution from the poor will lead to worse outcomes for the planet.

Motorbikes are much worse in crashes than kei trucks, we are more than happy to make, sell and operate them. I don’t actually buy the “unsafe” reasoning. It’s also perfectly street legal to buy and drive cars and trucks from the 60s with abysmal safety ratings.

Tax the poor for carbon emission. They'll adjust. People will walk, bike, take the bus, car pool, and buy used hybrids instead of mustangs.

PS, regressive use taxes are 100% moral, fine, upstanding, and ethical.

Especially in Germany, which has several major manufacturers (Daimler-Benz, VW, BMW) that are important to the economy. Additionally, VW is part owned by the government of one of the states, which is why they are frequently favored by the government. Despite various scandals at VW, there are rarely any serious consequences for the company, because the government always finds a way to make trouble go away.

And Germany is fairly influential in the EU so they probably extend the protection of these companies to the EU level.

>money is fungible

And then you contradicted yourself 2 phrases over.

> This is why its so important to be super careful with how you write regulation - because even if the intent was good, it's so hard to both anticipate unintended second- and third-order effects, and it's so difficult to update after you've pushed to production.

It seems that the goal is to pressure automakers to improve the efficiency across their entire line instead of simply banning low-efficiency models altogether.

If an automaker discontinues a low-efficient model in order to have access to a market, isn't this an example of regulation working well?

Why don't the poor just buy smaller cars? Less weight - less pollution. Nobody needs a to drive a pickup, unless they run a farm or construction firm. A car weighing less than a ton would be perfectly enough for 99.9 % of drivers.

> The EU economy has a lot of car manufacturing, so cars are probably a big deal in Brussels.

Car manufacturing is a strategic component of a nation's defense infrastructure. It goes way beyond trade protectionism.

> Make it revenue neutral and give every citizen a flat portion of the total collected revenue. Bam, it is now progressive,

Unfortunately, poor people don't have the cash on hand to hold them over until they get their Carbon Stipend on April 15th.

It's going to hurt poor people to charge them more at the counter, even if you give them more later. The stipend is just going to end up paying for less than the interest the tax created on a credit card.

However instead of taking the credit yourself you can transfer it to the dealer at time of purchase to use toward the purchase. You can transfer the full $7500 credit regardless of how much tax you eventually end up owing for the year.

It was never called carbon tax, but carbon pricing. It being knows as carbon tax was the result of of opposition efforts. The same efforts and results would have happened had it been called dividend or anything else.

Yeah but look at it. It's a tall vehicle. Of course it's more likely to roll over. It's tall so that it can go over things. It has a purpose. Don't drive it like a sports car and dont haul your family in it on the daily. People bought utility vehicles and used them as family haulers and then bitched when they rolled over. It's stupid. Drive a car.

It's like complaining that you bought a boat, but the water surrounding them is dangerous and you could drown in it. So we need to make it work on land so that you can take the kids to school in it without drowning.

A disincentive on a thing you don't want makes people choose another thing that you may or may not want.

The only way to avoid perversions is to incentivize the things you want.

Taxing cigarettes led to vaping. Maybe less bad but still a nuisance.

The Jimny is my favorite example of a cool little vehicle that would address a glaring hole in the U.S. market.

The situation here is pathetic. We can't have truly small trucks or sport-utes because of obviously incompetent or corrupt regulations.

I don't recognize it as being a Samurai descendent.

Related note: I just saw a Suzuki Sidekick on the road in L.A., in Geo Tracker trim... a rare sight nowadays. It sounded like shit, but with a robust platform a vehicle like that would be just what the U.S. market lacks: a burly SMALL sport-ute.

I think the idea may have been that these would help with bad Indian roads — even our potholes have potholes — but the police neglected to account for having to participate in the odd car chase now and then.

Why tax the gasoline but then the airplane ticket and not the kerosene?

And similarly i would extrapolate to do we tax the buyer of electricity (which could be green sourced) or the manufacturer - the gas burner. Or maybe even at the first point of contact with the carbon source, the oil company.

A last effort to extend the many favors granted to the dying german auto industry

Right, but how do you track carbon in imported goods?

Seems more like it meets the letter of the law.

The spirit was surely be too accelerate efficiency by ensuring all manufacturers improve. That has been negated; reducing the necessary efficiency for some manufacturers just because others are doing well.

It's like if you allowed multiple people to mix blood samples for a DUI check. Sure, there'd have to be less drinking over all, but some would still be drunk af and the effectiveness of the law would be greatly reduced.

Not clear what is meant here. Does ethanol from corn count? Methane from waste dumps? Gray hydrogen? Wood pellets? Ammonia?

Electricity from unclear source?

Human ingenuity is infinite. It is not enough to enact simple rules, people will just produce electricity with hydrogen and claim it green if it will make them profit. If it will help them evade carbon tax. Nevermind that hydrogen came from some extremely polluting process involving damaging our planet atmosphere and everyone's health.

>This is the Ford Transit Connect.

isnt that a VW made in Poland?

Looks like the trains are running every 30 minutes.

A super easy solution that doesn't cost the iraq war is adding new trains and running them every 15 minutes.

You'd have to deal with lower occupancy trains as a result, which means it's not as cost efficient.

You don't. We already outsource all kinds of things (pollution, human rights violations) now.

If it is an issue - then option is to have less driving. Take a bus once in a while. Or bike.

Or switch to another old vehicle. Take old Golf instead of RAM, etc.

Apparently not enough, as USA has quite cheap fuel. Add 100% carbon tax and people will start to pay attention to MPG ratings. With x2 price increase gasoline in USA is still cheaper than in Germany.

At some point they offered a free Cygnet if you bought one of their other models.

What isn’t clear about the fact that increasing commuting costs for those living paycheck to paycheck leads to a worse outcome?

Did you read the parent comment?

> so the little Jimny is emitting 146g/km but somehow there is no problem to buy a G-Class that is emitting 358g/km

This is an example of a manufacturer discontinuing a more efficient vehicle while continuing to sell a larger vehicle that is significantly less efficient.

That's the opposite of what you want. So, no, this is not an example of regulation working well.

The context is about when cars reach the poor - your example of someone spending $60k is irrelevant.

A poorer person in NZ spends at most a few thousand on their car. The original retail price is nearly irrelevant by the time it gets to someone poorish (however maintenance/parts costs do matter for old cars).

The financial benefit of a discount mostly goes to the people that own the car while it depreciates as it trickles down.

Context: In New Zealand, the vast majority of people drive second hand cars (mostly imported second hand from Japan). A 20 year old car is regarded as newish in New Zealand. I am well off, so I have two second hand cars, my daily driver is 2006 I think, and I have a 1996 4WD for other stuff. New cars are only bought by the well off.

> Scaling fines with income only works to hard stop behavior,

No, it makes it so that the outcome is more equally felt across all income levels.

What does someone affluent care if they have to pay a $100 speeding ticket or a $20 parking ticket? That's just the cost of business for them.

EU politics are basically French, German politics vs smaller countries now, I think. The triangle balance of France, Germany, UK has been replaced by a more centralised but also more diffuse model, although Poland seems to be becoming more important.

There's an auto fuel tax in the US. Increasing that from $0.184/gallon for gasoline and $0.244/gallon for diesel to say $1.50/gallon and $2.00/gallon would ensure massive losses for that party in the next two or three election cycles.

Increasing the tax on aviation fuel to $2/gallon wouldn't produce massive shifts in the next several elections, therefore it's easier to implement.

> regressive use taxes are 100% moral, fine, upstanding, and ethical

Turns out you are wrong.

Not a great analogy. CO2 emissions are a global phenomenon, so the average emission level is exactly what matters. Drunkenness is not.

> But, directly, they're getting back their own money.

It doesn't matter. Everyone else is now paying for all the federal government services they consume. Other people are paying for that. It's literally that simple.

I hear you. The numbers I provided were manufactured to illustrate the math and support my argument, not to be representative of a typical price.

After the mid 1980s, SUVs were consistently and explicitly marketed and sold to families as passengers vehicles.