[munk-a]

It would be great if we could switch over to using punitive taxes instead of incentivizing subsidies for behavior modeling.

The correct sustainable choice is to use public transit - offering a subsidy for EVs will be a generally inaccessible benefit to the working poor and will further encourage congestion.

[mmcdermott]

Any sort of mass transit system requires a certain density of locations and passengers to make sense. While there are certainly urban centers in the United States that answer to that description, a good chunk of the country doesn't. There was a recent HN article that talked about this a little bit (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34475508). Whether your goal is to cut emissions or cost, it seems like there would be a good chunk of the States (in both space and population) where more net harm would be done than good.

On a less strictly policy level, the idea of "punish everyone until they do what I want" makes me at least a bit uncomfortable. On top of the authoritarian undertones to it, there is the more basic idea that clearly a large amount of the population doesn't believe that switching to an EV is in their best interests. People can certainly be wrong, but disregarding the signal out of hand seems a bit short-sighted.

[mulmen]

Or we could do both? Personal transportation is never going away completely. Personal transportation should absolutely subsidize public transportation such as through car tabs. But we can still incentivize the types of personal transportation we want to see on the road through subsidy, especially when those markets are still emerging.

[munk-a]

I think it'd be extremely reasonable to incentivize preferable forms of personal transportation by simply levying additional gasoline taxes or introducing an annual ICE ownership tax. Those would both have the potential to provide a similar level of comparative incentive to move away from ICEs without excluding lower earners.

[mulmen]

I don't follow. California is subsidizing low(er)-cost EVs, doesn't that put EVs into reach of people who couldn't otherwise afford them?

Basic economics says that as we increase the supply of something the price goes down, so even if this doesn't get EVs to a price where everyone can afford them it gets them to a point where more people can afford them.

Gas tax is a consumption tax, which is inherently regressive. This means that it costs more for lower earners as a proportion of their income. If a low wage earner wants an EV they can't currently afford one. A gas tax punishes them for this financially and makes it less likely they will be able to save for an EV. Meanwhile higher earners that can afford EVs don't pay the gas tax because they don't buy EVs.

[anonuser123456]

>The correct sustainable choice is to use public transit

How do you know this?

[munk-a]

Studies have repeatedly born out just how much more efficient at people moving mass transit is. Even ICE buses have a far smaller environmental footprint than EV cars while being more effective at moving people per square foot of infrastructure consumed.

[anonuser123456]

Individuals are not optimizing for any of the metrics you’re proposed.

[munk-a]

That's a overly broad and false statement - I am optimizing for the environment. Additionally unbridled greed isn't really the best way to run a society, government regulations are supposed to account for this by promoting a societal goal when it is misaligned with personal goals.

It's everyone's personal goal to not get murdered, and it's society's goal to minimize murders... but, from a personal perspective, being the murderer would probably be beneficial in a number of metrics. Viewing everything through an individualistic lens is pretty weird when we live as a society.