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Comment by growlist | Hacker News Reader

Call me cynical but - I'm guessing it's a lot easier to punish market sectors in which your own manufacturers are weak.

We could refer to the actual text: http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/15/amendements/2493/AN...

Which amends http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/15/textes/2493.asp#D_Artic...

This adds a set of "bands" to the bottom of the table of tax based on "Puissance administrative", see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_horsepower or https://www.french-property.com/guides/france/driving-in-fra...

Looks like a Toyota Land Cruiser is about 11-12: https://www.neowebcar.com/puissance-fiscale/toyota/land-crui...

On the other hand, for the sporty versions of some midrange popular cars (Renault Mégane RS, Peugeot 308 GTi...) the pollution tax will amount to almost 50% of the MSRP. I guess car enthusiasts on a budget will be more inclined to buy lighter cars, a segment where French manufacturers are basically non-existent (even if a Twin'Cup is really fun to drive).

Indeed. I’m clinging to my ‘08 Civic Type-R (MSRP was 30000, 25000 in stripped down version. The tax would be 80-95% of MSRP!) but will have to let it go within five years as level 2 Crit’Air will be entirely forbidden to operate in my city by 2025.

Peugeot 308 GTi has a "puissance administrative" of 16, right in the high end of the tax table. Presumably because it's a 250hp car. I'm sure that's fun but it's also a really excessive amount of power (and CO2)

"really excessive" is quite going overboard. Of course you don't need 250hp to go forward. Yet those cars are less that 1% of the sales, blaming CO2 pollution on those is downright ridiculous, especially since they're not driven at wide open throttle all the time, which makes them much less than the stated output overall.

For example my 200HP car redlines at 8k rpm, thus the legal pollution (incl. CO2) emission check is evaluated by revving it constantly at ~6k for several minutes, which is absolutely not what daily operation looks like (more like 2.5k~4k, and not even WOT).

Case in point my car usually gulps 6~9 L/100km (open road ~ city) but when I picked up the car last week after the mandatory two year legal check, the ECU was reporting over 20L/100km means consumption, which I never ever managed to reach, even when doing some spirited driving for extended sessions.

On the other end of the spectrum, this pushes towards heavily downsized engines that operate at the limit most of the time in regular use, putting excessive strain on the hardware, resulting in terrible reliability, constant excessive pollution, and premature wear of the engine. No wonder people have to change cars at 150000~200000km. Comparatively, at 12yo, my car is nearing that threshold and still performs as good as new. I expect it to pass 500000km with flying colours.

This is why the world is acting so sluggishly to climate change.

Totally - but comments here claim make claims like the below. If accurate this is a straight win for France:

isoprophlex: “Yeah considering what you say there must clearly be political motivation. But contrast a 5008's 120 g/km with the average American gas guzzler doing 350+ g/km. All in all this is a good development imo.

And for a cash strapped government to find pretexts to increase taxes.

That's pretty much how protectionism works in the EU: tax sectors where local manufacturers are weak, by means of "environment" protection taxes, "quality" standards and so on. Meanwhile, east Europe is full of used German cars which pollute heavily and are a danger to public safety. Governments in some countries tried limiting imports from that country, and they have been punished by the EU. But the EU has "high standards" when it comes to non EU vehicles.

> Governments in some countries tried limiting imports from that country, and they have been punished by the EU.

Do you have any references to the above two affirmations?

Few years ago Romania has introduced a pollution tax for used vehicles imported into the country. The situation is extremely worrying as old cars are imported mainly from Germany, and pollution levels are beyond critical. The EU has chosen to ignore the environmental impact and the context of Romania's economy (people will naturally want to buy whatever they can get their hands on, due to economic hardship). There are so many "Made in Germany" high polluters in the country that I personally can not and will not buy German made cars again. This is an example of where the EU has applied regulation, without proper consideration for the context of a country, and in favor, as usual, of Germany.

Details can be found here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/CJE_11...

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