I'd like to see vehicle tax based on some combination of weight and emissions. Say £1 or €1 for every kilo over the weight of a, hmm, Smart Car? :) Now add an emissions component, enough to make a 1 litre engine and lightweight EVs really appealing.
Edit: the tax of the article is based on engine power and CO2 emissions. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21862516 for calculations.
Doesn't mean they shouldn't pay for the damage they do to the road. Why should the state subsidise them?
If you want subsidize certain kinds of mass transport then target the specific type. If the price of food (which is at a historical low in the western world) goes up as a result then that will simply show people where their money is being spent. If you want to subsidize it then subsidize the people who need it (low income customers).
Other public utilities, such as electricity, do not give a free ride to freeloaders who cause extra expense to the rest of use they charge for the damage done. For instance a user of electricity that has a very bad power factor will be charged a very high rate and will therefore be encouraged to improve.
* A CO2 tax (banded by emissions)
* An NOx tax (banded by emissions)
* A weight tax
* A scrappage fee (fixed, by vehicle type)
* Then the usual 25% VAT
I may be missing something here (in particular, annual taxes), so if there are any Norwegians willing to chime in, feel free.
This is one of the reasons why Tesla was able to jump start the electric car business in Norway with the Model S and model X because EVs are exempt from all of that except VAT (I think, not sure). It's also effectively a regressive income tax because the more expensive cars are effectively subsidized by a larger amount of money per car than cheap cars. In my opinion we would have been able to have even more EVs if the subsidy had been the same amount of money for each car regardless of the value of the car. Then the Leaf and the Zoe would be really cheap cars.
I love my Model S but I feel that I have been subsidized more than I should have been (no I'm not giving it back).
I had a citroen C1 once, because the government canceled road tax on such very efficient, small cars. Sadly his law lasted only a couple of years (and it messes a lot with the market value of these cars!). But is was nice that I only paid insurance as long as I didn't drive it. In Poland there is not even a tax on cars, so it is already only in the fuel. It can be pretty nice there to have multiple cars, a big one when you need it, a small one to use a lot. You could even circulate the big one among family, but as it is now in the Netherlands, nobody want to be the owner of the big car.