[mcv]

Yeah, I like the idea of taxing the tires at first, but then you start thinking about people postponing replacing their tires to avoid tax, and creating dangerous situations on the road.

It reminds me a bit of garbage collection in Amsterdam; lots of cities try to let people pay for the amount of trash they produce, but Amsterdam will let people thrown away their trash for free, and be happy they throw it away properly, because taxing that is going to create a mess.

Taxing gas is probably the easiest way to do it. Heavier cars probably use more gas than lighter ones, right? Except EVs don't use gas at all and still use the roads. There's just no easy solution.

[kevincox]

Replacing tires already costs money. How much would an extra tax change behaviour? It is definitely something to consider but doesn't seem like a definite issue.

[iggldiggl]

Quick back-of-the-napkin calculation: Let's assume a tyre life of 31,000 miles. At 31 mpg (supposedly the average consumption in California) that's 1000 gallons. Gas tax in California is currently 0.579 $ per gallon, which gives 579 $ in gas taxes over the lifetime of a set of tyres. So the tyre tax would have to be around the order of 145 $ per tyre.