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Comment by josephcsible | Hacker News Reader

This seems reasonable to me. The overwhelming majority of cars are not supercars, and most supercars spend their lives sitting in garages, so this will curtail a lot of powerful resistance to the electrification movement despite only negligibly reducing the CO2 savings it will bring.

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Yes, and the ultra wealthy will keep flying private jets too while the brunt of the sacrifice will be done by the plebs. They should also be allowed to own mega yachts while we try to limit the effects of sea freight and cruise ships on the atmosphere.

Sorry, some things matter for what they symbolize more than their absolute effect. It's easy to say that the sum total of all carbon emissions by the wealthy are a drop in the bucket compared to the sum total of all the plebs, but if the plutocracy has no skin in the game then I won't reduce my consumption lifestyle for their benefit.

You're reducing it for the benefit of all - which is not even relevant here because it's only about new engines.

This crab bucket mentality needs to end. The atmosphere doesn't care about where the carbon comes from, only its presence. Refusing to do your part because someone else isn't doing theirs is not a sustainable, or moral, mindset.

If you’re an average American then you already pollute many times what an average global world person does. Perhaps it’s better to focus on the essence and not on the optics.

Am on the same page here, setting up lenient rules for the rich sends the wrong signal.

There should be no exception to the rule and Italian carmakers should get started on the transition away from combustion engine today.

We're all in this together, you don't get to opt out just because you are wealthy.

Fiat (also to a large extent an Exor (Agnelli) property will definitely make that move and is by far the largest Italian car maker. This won't move the needle from a pollution perspective but an exemption simply sends the wrong signal. What's good enough for the swine should be good enough for Jupiter as well in this case, to turn a nice proverb upside down.

But their mega yachts are subject to the same rules and regulations as regular yachts no? As long as they pay for their resource consumption just like the rest of us, I don't see why we need different rules for them.

Yachts, mega or not, are an insulting waste of resources. Here I am, paying near 2€ per litre of gas, subject to a Pigovian tax, which imposes real hardships on people who earn poor wages and rely on their car for commuting. Yet no such sacrifices are demanded of the super-rich, which consume as many resources as 100s of "plebs". Sorry, that doesn't sit well with me.

Everyone, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, in your country is paying €2 per litre though? Unless you have tanking cards as a tax benefit so that your gas can be free as some countries have but that's just pure madness imo :P Resource consumption is highly correlated to disposable income, so the only way to fix this as I see it would be to impose ever higher taxes on higher incomes to even out the differences? Do you have a different solution to this problem?

On the other hand tacking on a $10,000 carbon surcharge on a car that costs $1.5m doesn’t seem likely to hurt sales.

I agree with that, but isn't this article about an exemption from a ban, not from a surcharge?

It's always relevant to ask: what problem are we trying to solve?

The ban is meant to bring EU closer to the 2050 zero-CO2 emission goal. This will be achieved by shrinking current emissions while increasing CO2 removal ( see https://assets.weforum.org/editor/responsive_large_webp_XR_q... ).

If someone brings in the discussion the ability to have 10'000 extra for the co2-net-zero goal, let's think -- it is helping the goal? Can we remove with this money more CO2 than the super-car would be producing over its lifetime?

Bringing out the stick to keep the discussion on topic must be traded-off carefully against the danger of killing relevant novel ideas and different ways to look at the problem.

However, by that argument, we should just impose a high tax on all combustion engine cars, or perhaps simply introduce an appropriate carbon tax, instead of banning the combustion engine.

Some of the reasons we don't want to do that are:

1. A carbon tax is regressive and might result in the middle class still being just about able to afford cars, but the lower class completely unable to, which would be unfair.

2. By forcing the shift away from the combustion engine with a ban, rather than just nudging away from it with a tax, we're providing a stronger spur to innovation.

Both of these reasons apply to supercars to a large extent:

1. Elites being able to buy combustion engine (super)cars, while the rest of society cannot, would be unfair.

2. Forcing companies to innovate in the case of supercars, which provide a greater engineering challenge, increases the chance that the all the relevant engineering obstacles are solved for "normal" cars.

IMO the two end-points:

1. We just introduce a sufficiently high carbon tax, together with appropriate redistribution to make up for its regressiveness, and let the free market decide whether combustion engines are still affordable after internalising the externality.

2. We ban the combustion engine on the basis that we're all in this together and we want to make sure that the transition definitely does occur.

are defensible. The middle-ground where we tax supercars, but ban all other combustion engine cars is far less so.

> 1. A carbon tax is regressive and might result in the middle class still being just about able to afford cars, but the lower class completely unable to, which would be unfair.

I hear similar things to this a lot. Doesn't every good have some level of money required to be able to afford it? Are you saying that it's unfair that some people have more money than others?

> Doesn't every good have some level of money required to be able to afford it?

Yes, of course. The point here is that a carbon tax further skews the situation in favour of the rich. We, as a society, accept the current situation as a compromise between fairness and "market efficiency", and hence are worried by shifts away from it.

To a large extent this is a "status quo bias", but it is natural — if people could afford something until now, but are suddenly being told that they won't be able to, they'll be, rightly or wrongly, unhappy.

Not even 25% tax. There’s an insanse number of super and hypercars in Norway.

Indeed, despite the poor fuel economy of many of them, most rarely hit mileage in their lifetimes that most cars would hit in their first year or two. The main inefficiency is really just the building of them in the first place- but they don’t have much impact in only driving 10k miles compared to most vehicles

“Terrorists are rare, and get mad, so we are exempting them from security screenings at the airport.”

Come on. If you can afford a super car you can afford the tax.

Afford the tax? Isn't this article about a ban, as in, you won't be allowed the cars at any price?

But when you violate a ban, you get fined...

Kinda the same thing..

I don't know about Italy, but in the US, driving an illegal car can end up with it getting sent to an impound lot and then a crusher, and you getting sent to prison.

You can't drive illegal cars in Italy.

Each model needs to be approved and the spec cannot be changed (you can't even mount tyres not approved by the authorities for that model) otherwise the owner would be heavily fined and the car would be confiscated

Yep, let's continue to shield the ultra-rich from the consequences of the laws they have their pet MPs write for them. As in, "climate czar" John Kerry for example, who seems to be physically unable to fly commercial or live in a reasonably sized house. I'm sure people like that exist in Italy as well.

So my ordinary sedan (a Honda Accord) would be banned but luxury cars get an exemption? The middle class will not tolerate that.

The ban is on new engines

Speciality cars are also extempt form some safety requirements, also older ‘classic’ cars as well, today.

The reason: They are not used for every day commuting, and preserving history is worth the exemptions

Luxury cars and supercars are not equivalent terms; the latter is about speed and power (and so, carbon). Example; a Rolls-Royce is a luxury car, where a Lamborghini Veneno is a supercar.

They are different terms, but I don't think the difference has much to do with power or CO2 emissions.

An entry level Rolls-Royce has emissions of about 343g/km, and the Veneno supposedly 499g/km.

They both have V-12 engines of broadly similar size and power.

For comparison one of the most efficient hybrids (I looked up my car) with a gas engine emits about 115 g/km.

It's not really about rich vs middle class, it really comes down to the cars and why you buy those cars. You buy a Honda Accord for what it "does", you buy a Ferrari for what it "is".

If the Honda Accord went electric, people would still buy it because it fundamentally "does" the same thing.

However if Ferrari switched out their V8 or V12 for an electric powertrain, people would likely not buy it because changing the powertrain changes what the car "is"

It would be asking too much require rich people to follow the same rules as everyone else.

From my perspective, "the same rules" would mean having the same legal/financial consequences for each gram of CO2 emitted.

In which case people who don't drive a car much wouldn't be punished as if they do, regardless of wealth or other factors.

It's like the classic question about which is heavier, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?

Is it impossible to agree that a kilo of CO2 is the same whether it's emitted by a Prius or an SUV or a Ferrari?

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