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Electric cars face ‘punitive’ fees, new restrictions in many states
(www.politico.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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In my ideal world, we'd have a full carbon tax as well as a vehicle weight tax, and we'd use part of that to fund more electrified public transit (e.g., trains, trams, trolleybuses) and bike infrastructure. Plus we need to actually legalize dense, walkable urbanism. The zoning codes and parking minimums in North America make it literally illegal to build anything dense, walkable, and transit-oriented across almost all the urban land, resulting in miles and miles of government-mandated sprawl.
The future of sustainable urban is truly in public transit and micromobility -- car dependency just doesn't make any sense in cities, as no amount of electric cars can make up for the harm caused by sprawling, car-dependent land use. Electric cars are obviously less bad than ICE cars, but just swapping out ICE cars for electric is not actually financially, socially, or environmentally sustainable.
We should still have electric cars for the use cases (e.g., rural areas) for which you truly do need them, but the vehicle weight arms race (especially for trucks and SUVs) is getting out of control and we need the electric cars we would still have to be much smaller and lighter like this. Fewer electric hummers, more electric kei trucks, more electric trains, more electric bikes.
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Could you look at other stances too? It's not just this.
Did you, self-declared "very moderate" Republican, vote for Trump either time?
Because, historically, Hillary and Biden would be considered very moderate Republicans.
I'll take that as a yes. You voted for the Nazi. Some moderate.
The only reason so many people are “obsessed” with him is because all 350M or so of us saw exactly the sort of person he is, and exactly the sort of damage he could do as president. Some people liked that. Most of us were horrified, and were additionally horrified by the fraction of people who did actually genuinely like him because of the things he did and continues to do. It’s a litmus test.
But yes - you’re nominally right, so let’s put the man aside for a moment. Personally, I’m still curious which current, national-level GOP policies you continue to find compelling.
Please present evidence that I have an "obsession" with Trump. Unless that was a lie. Was it a lie?
Two posts is not an obsession.
That is not evidence that I am "obsessed with Trump." So you lied. Why should I discuss anything with a liar?
You brought up being a Republican in a discussion about electric cars. I guess you're obsessed with Republicans.
Please quote my insult.
And this is a short list
Anyone who's a republican in 2023 is either an idiot, an asshole, or both.
The alternative currently being no restrictions whatsoever, which, statistically speaking, is more relevant than a small % worth of exceptions. Make me Supreme overlord of the universe and you bet you'll have a few exceptions.
Burn the fucking government to the ground for all I care.
OK and? I'm not playing some strategy game here. Optimizing existence isn't the goal. "the economy" isn't some God we must appease.
Pretty fucking bottom of the barrel shit to be deciding a vote based on. Decide polling locations by throwing a dart at a map for all I care.
only double would be a welcome change in the state of Ohio.
Gotcha, I thought you were talking about vehicle registrations.
If the argument is about paying for roads, then big 18 wheelers should be paying multiple orders of magnitude more for the road wear and tear even over EVs.
Yeah, it's tricky though because road damage from weight isn't a linear thing, but also, trucks aren't just out there for fun, they're out there to put products on shelves for consumption.
So if you tax truck registration in Ohio, but then big trucking companies will just register in Mississippi like rental car companies do.
Tax diesel and that will impact a bunch of non semi vehicles.
Hard to make a one size fits all cost.
AFAIK even the heaviest tesla car has basically nothing on what a semi does to a road.
I mean yeah, obviously, but it isn't a particularly useful comparison since the two aren't really alternatives to each other.
The damage to the road based on vehicle weight is exponential, though. A very heavy electric car causes very little additional wear to the roads when compared to a traditional car.
A thousand Tesla's don't do as much damage as the daily 3 axle loaded up dump trucks with no registration driving back and forth all day long.
Charge road use taxes by vehicle weight. Yes, electric cars are heavy, but so is the average American vehicle, because people seem to love their enormous trucks. If you have a Model 3 or a roadster, it’s actually lighter than the average.
According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average weight of a car is around 4094 pounds. A small car weighs around 2600 pounds, while a large car weighs around 4400 pounds.
You've got it right, but let me expand with the power of mathematical modelling. The average vehicle is, for the last 20 years or so, pegged at 4000 lbs when doing road damage calculations. A Chevy bolt EV is around 3800 lbs, or smaller than average, while Tesla vehicles are like you said. The fourth power law is what is used to estimate road damage, and the take away point from that is that all vehicles in and around that 4000 lb range and nothing, notta, moot, compared to large trucks and shipping rigs.
As an example. Take the bolt EV at 3800 lbs, the F150 at 4200 lbs, and the F350 at 6764 lbs.
The bolt and f150 would have 1900lbs and 2100lbs per axle respectively. Applying the fourth power rule the F150 does (2100/1900)^4= 1.49 times the damage of a Bolt EV. Meanwhile the F350 does , (3382/1900)^4 = 10 times the road damage.
So then, is it true that the F150 and F350 will be made to pay 1.5 and 10 times the registration and fuel taxes of an EV like the Bolt? I have not yet seen this to be true. Now imagine how much damage a delivery van, or large shipping vehicle does.
The other part of this is environmental damage, are these states going to find a way to charge for carbon emissions proportionally from the gas vehicles? Of course not.
In Canada anyway fuel taxes go into general revenue, not to roads, that's a whole different line of argument.
I'm curious and a nerd about this stuff. Why is road damage estimated using a fourth power law? What is the physical reasoning behind that?
Relevant wiki article : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
TLDR: we experimented in the 50s and this is the model that fit.
With safety regulations, I thought smaller cars are around 2800-3000lbs now. A 7 year old (2016) Mazda 3 (compact car) is showing as 2900lbs. When you say small are you talking like the sub compact cars? Just trying to get an idea of what small means in this instance.
https://www.edmunds.com/mazda/3/2016/sedan/features-specs/
Compact sedans, and sedans overall are a dying breed. Car manufactures have largely replaced with with compact crossovers, or even worse egg shaped subcompact crossovers.
A new Mazda 3 weights 100-300 pounds more than that 2016. The Buick “code” subcompact egg weighs about the same 3300 pounds. Your more typical Ford explorer weighs 4300-5000 pounds. The escape is surprisingly light at 3300-3900 pounds.
Mazda is also an example of manufactures that try to keep things as light as possible to maintain handling. They also make the 2300 pound Miata.
Oh I'm aware they're dying in America. I just wanted to see what small car was defined as because unless you get the Miata (which is one of the lightest cars out there) you're getting up in the weight. Hell, I have a GR86 and it's supposed to be a lightweight and great handling sports car and it's 2800lbs empty.
They could just take the money from fossil fuel subsidies. This way, you don’t give people a new reason to not get an EV and we reduce tax revenue used to support the fossil fuel industry.
Someone downvoted you and the person above you, but the only way to get renewables on par with fossil fuels is to get rid of fossil fuels' subsidies.
If people are forced to pay the real cost of gas, I imagine things will change rapidly.
That would have to be one huge payment, though. I can only think of a few cases in my entire life that I've bought a tire.
Seems better to me that they collect the taxes from everyone from the income tax and/or business taxes. Everyone uses the roads, even if they don't have a car.
Given an average gas tax of 31 cents per gallon, and an average distance driven of 13,489 miles, and an average mpg of 15.7 (for passenger cars), the average driver might pay $266.34/year in gas tax in a year. Let's say that the driver had to replace all of their tires every 45,000 miles. That means you'd have to recoup that annual gas tax amount 3.33 times in tire taxes. This would add $886.91 to the cost of the tire purchase, or $221.72 for each tire.
I haven't had to buy tires in a long time (small blessings from Covid), so I had to look up the average cost of a tire at Discount Tire. 16-20" all season tires cost $100-$250 each. Woof! That would take a total tire cost from $400-$1,000 to $1,286.91-$1,886.91.
Don't drive on any dirty roads, I guess. Those flats are going to be painful!