I wonder if we could replace both taxes with a general carbon tax and just take infrastructure out of income and carbon tax combined. Decouple transport tax income from KMs driven entirely.
Both the EV tax and the ICE fine for parking in EV slots were mentioned in the original article. They are separate policies that seem to be conflated in these comments.
The reason why they are implementing an EV tax partially based on miles driven is because EVs cause wear and tear on roads, but contribute little to none to those maintenance costs through petrol taxes. This is why plug in hybrids pay a lower tax rate in their policy (as presumably they'd pay at least some via the petrol tax).
I'm not going to argue about whether it would be better to push that all onto legacy ICE users, but something or other will need to be sorted out soonish as they plan to phase out sales of new ICE vehicles by 2030. It will take a while to flush out the existing fleet, but it will increasingly be a problem of who pays for the roads?
Will it just be everyone who is too poor to upgrade? It feels decoupled from the carbon usage to propel the vehicles so you can't just jack the carbon tax without goofing everything else & subsidizing drivers as the electricity is fungible.
Eventually it seems like it will need to just be a road tax & be like registration + some miles & weight & whatever else driven calculation. + then also carbon tax the ICE fuel and the EV juice at whatever it is.
> Both the EV tax and the ICE fine for parking in EV slots were mentioned in the original article
I think the discussion just moved on that's all. I wasn't commenting about the fine,the fine makes sense.
My suggestion was to inflate general tax revenue with a carbon emissions tax on all carbon heavy activities (driving or other). Then forget the per-mile/per-litre stuff all together. I wouldn't even be against an infrastructure tax levy in my income tax.
Part of my enthusiasm for that is so that the absurd spend on car infrastructure is actually pitted against other options such as public transport projects and my hope is thst more public infrastructure would be built because of that.
But I am spitballing policy here, I haven't thought particularly deeply about a restructuring like that and it depends on where you live too.
> Won't 100% carbon-neutral electric 18-wheelers need to pay a share for the maintenance?
No, they don't have to. While a usage fee model is one possible model, there's no reason it couldn't be paid out of general taxes, like the income taxes mentioned upthread.
Which you pay for from a general carbon tax, which is a tax on all carbon generating activities. I probably didn't make that clear sorry. Essentially I am saying infrastructure should come out of the general budget and we shouldn't fuss with counting KMs at all. A carbon tax on all CO2 polluting activities would just inflate the general tax revenue and hopefully enough to pay for the infrastructure upkeep.
This policy is fine, easy to implement, and discourages the sociopathic behavior of ICEing charging stops.
That said, it's not going to fix the problem. The root cause is cars -- both electric and petrol. Yes, EVs are an improvement over petrol cars. They decouple energy generation and transportation, so they will get cleaner with time.
But fundamentally we should be looking at ways to reduce the number of cars. Parking is a blight in urban areas, trains and public transport are massively better people movers, and even EVs produce significant pollution from their production and tire wear.
I think this illustrates a problem with just about all areas of environmentalism. You start off with a premise that's widely agreeable like "ICE cars are bad for the environment" and slowly edge towards stuff like "private vehicle ownership is a blight on society", which is far less agreeable and completely ignores what most people in society actually want. 20 years ago I used to vote for local green candidates in various elections, but their main platform now is radical socialist economic reform. I'm not sure they're even bothered about the environment any more.
> private vehicle ownership is a blight on society
I didn't say this, I said that in urban areas, parking is a blight. Parking uses valuable real estate to create surface lots at worst, or space that could be used for housing at best.
"consumerist capitalism is an environmental disaster" isn't a hard argument to make and people eventually realize most environmentalism is just stacking the deck chairs on the titanic.
I can’t see how consumerist socialism is going to somehow solve all those problems. In any election these days it’s almost impossible to cast a vote for environmentalist policies without also voting for radical socialist economic policies. I’d suggest this is actually quite a problem for anybody who cares about environmentalism, because the number of people who want full socialism is way lower than the number of people who care about the environment.
Are there any candidates running on a platform of 'full socialism' or even 'radical policies'? Candidates in America, even those considered to the left of their party (e.g. Sanders) aren't really radical socialists.
Sanders wasn't getting on the stage demanding we nationalize all our businesses. I never heard him mention a 'vanguard party'. I don't think I heard him say, "Businesses need to be run by worker councils, exclusively".
It's one thing to say, "I don't like the idea of democratic socialism/social democracies", but those ideas are hardly 'radical socialism' or 'full socialism'.
> But fundamentally we should be looking at ways to reduce the number of cars.
Why?
> Parking is a blight in urban areas
Sounds like a poorly designed urban area. Need to make enough parking available for a building. This is a solved problem in private residential apartments and office buildings.
> trains and public transport are massively better people movers
Absolutely not, a car is much better for moving me and my family. We have flexibility of time, space, luggage, comfort, temperature, health, music, speed, privacy, basically everything.
> EVs produce significant pollution from their production and tire wear.
Irrelevant, pollution is always produced. Do you think trains and busses do not produce large amount of pollution?
The biggest problem with public transport is that it is usually paid by taxpayers, who have no say in the operation of said services and no option of voting with their dollars. I would prefer not to pay for shitty trains and busses, thanks. If you like, you can start your own bus service and operate it as you see fit. Don't force me to pay for your little communist ideas and then force me with my own money to pay more for the privilege to use my own car.
Trains and busses are fundamentally less convenient and useful than cars, which is why we have much more cars and why almost everyone (unless otherwise coerced by oppressive government, using taxes on cars, or lack of parking on city streets) prefers to use their own car.
Cars are expensive, inefficient, and use a huge amount of resources relative to their transportation capability.
> Need to make enough parking available for a building.
Disagree. And we can agree to disagree on this one, but I am a big fan of urban areas not having mandatory minimum parking. Space spent on cars means space not spent on housing, which most urban areas need much more.
> This is a solved problem in private residential apartments and office buildings.
It's not a solved problem - offices do not have enough parking for everyone to drive in, and most residential towers spend a huge amount of space housing cars rather than people.
> pollution is always produced. Do you think trains and busses do not produce large amount of pollution?
Per person/cargo transported? Much, much less pollution. Like an order of magnitude less.
> We have flexibility of time, space, luggage, comfort, temperature, health, music, speed, privacy, basically everything.
You've never lived in a place with good public transport? Speed, time, and comfort are pretty normal for well funded transport. Yes, you lose some privacy.
But also, I'm not advocating for you to get rid of all your cars. There are plenty of models where a family does well with zero or one cars, relying on transit for most trips, and borrowing/renting a car or taxi when they can't make transit work.
> Don't force me to pay for your little communist ideas and then force me with my own money to pay more for the privilege to use my own car.
Parking and roads are massively subsidized by government taxes/council rates and are built in to the cost of all city real estate. Everybody is paying for your 'free parking' don't pretend that we're not.
> Trains and busses are fundamentally less convenient and useful than cars
This is only true for very low density areas which means low prosperity and opportunity. In any major city it's physically impossible to transport the majority of people to their work places in cars and impossible to store those cars for the work day.
Studies have shown that people are happy to use what ever transport is available as long as it's fast, frequent and cheap. For a high density city with lots of economic opportunities the only way to do it is with trains.
> Need to make enough parking available for a building.
In an apartment building I used to live in 1/3 of the building was parking. That means that each apartment was 1/3 more expensive than it needed to be. Even though I didn't have a car I still had to pay for the cost of the construction and maintenance of the 7 level car park. Everybody pays the car tax.
> Everybody is paying for your 'free parking' don't pretend that we're not.
I never asked for free parking. Private residential and office buildings provide proper parking. Only excessive regulations inside the city prevent private owners from making adequate parking available.
> In any major city it's physically impossible to transport the majority of people to their work places in cars and impossible to store those cars for the work day.
Yes, because the cities are poorly designed, by designers starting with the dehumanizing mindset of "moving" people efficiently. Remove the regulations and watch as people solve the parking problem.
> Studies have shown that people are happy to use what ever transport is available as long as it's fast, frequent and cheap.
LOL! People will use whatever best is available to them! Cause rents to soar so they don't have money to buy a car. Put excessive taxes on cars so they don't have money to buy a car. Design cities in a way that excludes parking, has narrow streets, so people don't feel comfortable driving and owning a car. And you get the current outcome. I'd be willing to bet that a large proportion of the people taking the bus or train would drive or be driven in a car, if their city were properly designed for human living and transportation.
> Everybody pays the car tax.
It's not a tax if you can choose. The problem with public transport is that I can't choose. You can find another apartment building without car parks. Or if you feel there is enough of a market you can make one yourself and earn big bucks by offering apartments without car parking (I have a feeling this business would fail miserably). What's the option for me who prefers driving? Will you give me a tax break equivalent to the amount that would have gone to public transportation?
> Yes, because the cities are poorly designed, by designers starting with the dehumanizing mindset of "moving" people efficiently. Remove the regulations and watch as people solve the parking problem.
Because driving is such a joy in countries with less regulation in this area? Please visit Jakarta some time, and compare it to neighbouring Singapore. One of those countries have strict traffic regulation, and the other does not.