• Kualdir@feddit.nl
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    1 month ago

    I really don’t get why people like to buy such huge gas guzzlers and somehow those are the people I hear complain about gas prices the most

    We should really just have EU law that over a certain size requires a new license that isn’t automatically given to people that have one now.

    • egonallanon@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      I reckon doing what Norway does and just tax them by the weight of the vehicle to to discourage people buying them while alps making those that do pay for the extra wear and tear in the roads they cause.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        Road damage goes up proportionally to the 4th power of vehicle weight: double the weight, 16 times the damage. Vehicle tax should include that as a component. That also indicates that we massively subsidise the use of huge lorries to transport goods.

      • Kualdir@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        Sadly this does discourage EV growth which I do think still should continue instead of having fuel cars. I’d love if air quality would go up again.

        • paultimate14@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          The roads don’t care about whether the car is ICE or EV. There are plenty of gigantic SUV’s that are hybrids or even electric. Eventually we will see electric 18 wheelers.

          There should be an additional tax on ICE’s for their emissions as well to capture that higher externality. But remember EV’s are not emission-free. Anything with tires is a source of pollution.

          Personal vehicles cause a lot of problems for humanity, and only some of those are exclusive to ICE’s.

        • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Just stagger the classes not just by size and/or weight but also by motor type. For instance, a tax class for ultracompact cars could look like this:

          • Length ≤ 3400 mm
          • Width ≤ 1480 mm
          • Height ≤ 2000 mm
          • Curb weight ≤ 1000 kg (ICE), 1200 kg (hybrid, BEV)

          (I basically went with Japan’s current definition of kei cars and replaced the displacement restriction with a weight restriction.)

        • ReluctantZen@feddit.nl
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          1 month ago

          If you tax them the same as gasoline, sure. In the Netherlands, there are so many huge EVs, and I think that’s partially because all EVs, large or small, weren’t taxed. We made a distinction between gasoline and diesel for tax, no reason we can’t do that with EVs.

    • YungOnions@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      It’s not just ICE cars that are huge. Even new EVs tend to be unnecessarily large SUVs or Sedans.

      • Kualdir@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        Very much, I drove an ID.4 as a company car for 6 months and it was such a horrible experience. Huge and just to move 1 55kg person c’mon man.

        Also drove a Tesla M3 after that and was already much better, low on the floor and felt much safer and good to drive. Would love to have an electric version of my Toyota Yaris (hybrid), its a great size for me.

        Oh even better? Cheaper public transport so I don’t have to take the car to save money!!

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          You can get all kinds of small EVs in the UK at least: Mini, Renault 5, Fiat Panda, among others, as well as the relatively shitty Vauxhall Corsa. Toyota made a bet on hydrogen engines instead of EVs, so that electric Yaris might take a while to materialize.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I really don’t get why people like to buy such huge gas guzzlers

      As a dumbass American who’s been considering that for forty years, let me try to help: The short answer is, very tiny pee-pees.

      I wish I had a better answer, but that’s honestly the majority reason. They do bang on about “safety” a lot, but when that’s scientifically proven to be false they still say it so - back to item number 1.

      Over here, the enormous gas-guzzlers eventually weren’t enough so they had to super-size even them. Now we have these gargantuan death behemoths everywhere for absolutely no reason (well, for one reason).

      • Kualdir@feddit.nl
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        1 month ago

        Its so sad, here in the Netherlands if public transport was just cheaper it’d already be able to replace almost all my commuting. But I pay less for my car driving somewhere AND back than a 1 way train ticket.