A city fights back against heavyweight cars
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
as ev adoption continues we are going to observe more asymmetry between older cars which are lightweight and relatively lower to the ground, and massive EVs with giant battery packs and high hood lines [0][1]
a hummer EV's battery weighs 3000 lbs and the entire vehicle weighs 9,000 lbs. a 2005 Honda Civic coupe, which is generally very reliable and likely to still be in operation 17 years later, is 2,600 lbs. the civic doesn't stand a chance in a collision with the Hummer.
of course the hummer might be a relatively lower volume vehicle but the f-150 and silverado are #1 and #3 respectively in volume; their ev counterparts are going to be all over the roads in short time. and they have similar increases in weight over their ice counterparts, 6000-7000 lbs each.
i hope i'm wrong but i don't see how the number and severity of traffic fatalities go anywhere but up for the next 5-10 years.
[0] - https://twitter.com/ajlatrace/status/1495124630868213764 [1] - https://twitter.com/DrTCombs/status/1528853211582455814
models like the VW XL1 and BMW i3 were so exciting, as we shifted towards alternative drivetrains we could sort of "reset" what the auto market had evolved to in the last 25-30 years. they're certainly not mass market vehicles but other models could have followed their lead.
I'm thinking back to my time in high school, when I would see rich 16-year-olds drive up in massive SUVs or trucks. The justification parents had for buying them was that putting their kids in large cars would protect them should they ever get into an accident.
I wonder what will happen once parents like that start buying the kids of today those massive cars. Of course they will be electric.
By killing someone else instead?
Children need slow cars that take forever to accelerate to make them patient on the road and stop them from street racing.
This has nothing to do with EV adoption
The EV equivalent of "honda Civic" will still be lighter and lower to the ground then the f-250.I suspect that mass-market EVs will have a combination of a shorter range, and use some tricks to keep the weight more manageable. Structural batteries, which integrate the battery into the frame, lower weight because the bulky part of the battery is now part of the frame. (Instead of a separate frame and battery.)
If you can't handle it then you'll miss some content, the same way you'll occasionally see comments in here posted in a language you don't understand. Do what feels reasonable to extract the information, or just accept that you won't and move on. I guess downvote if you really wanna.
Socially enforcing a high standard of what is essentially typesetting does nothing but discourage people from contributing who may have thoughtful responses but not the time or ability to edit them to your standards.
not to be pedantic but my text formatting makes you "a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations..."[0] is certainly interesting commentary. perhaps it should be interpreted as a compliment? thanks.
There's going to be businesses that need this sort of vehicle and particular hobby enthusiasts will be willing to pay much more to have one, but regular people doing typical activities absolutely do not need these and we should dissuade them from buying vehicles that are so much more dangerous and polluting than others.
If they are goint to increase registration costs, it should also not be merely "if >6000 Lbs, increase $500", but a formula steadily increasing the cost so that mfgrs don't merely post the 'official' curb weight 10Lbs under the threshold. So, something more like $10/year for every 100 Lbs over one ton curb weight.
It'd be even better to do this via fees combined with a congestion tax system. This has worked very well for many cities to charge road use tolls higher in congested times, therefore motivating people to not use vehicles if they can avoid it. In this case, just increase the costs based also on vehicle weight, so the heavy vehicles have higher fees even at 3AM. Plus, this will avoid people avoiding it by registering their beast at their out-of-city home, or their brother's address or something.
If we cannot make it illegal, it should be inordinately inconvenient.
If we cannot make it inordinately inconvenient, we should at least do something so that we can feel better about ourselves having done something.
Whether or not it actually solves the problem - or if there’s even a problem in the first place - barely registers as a concern.
I doubt DC has a lot of 6,000lb personal vehicles on the road, and I doubt a $500/year tax will dissuade anyone from buying one.
Reminds me of how Boulder instituted a steep sugar tax despite being one of the healthiest cities in the country.
This is a yearly punitive sin tax assessed because someone feels a moral imperative to coerce the behavior of others.
> “You can’t ban sales of these things,” says Mary Cheh, a D.C. councilmember who developed the new fee structure, “but you can make them pay their own way.”
My 3 ton pickup truck is my sole vehicle, and has been driven a total of 19,000 miles over the past eight years.
That’s an average of 2,375 road miles per year, over eight years.
In absolute terms, I’m doing a lot less damage to the road and producing a lot less pollution than the individual commuting to work every single day, even if they’re driving an EV (charged by our existing non-renewable infrastructure!).
My truck will also last me for at least another decade, further avoiding the massive carbon footprint inherent in building a new vehicle.
It’s reminiscent of our sugar tax. I now pay an extra 60 cents for a diet, sugar-free soda when we go out for hamburgers, because restaurants are required to collect the tax if you could get a full-sugar soda at their soda fountain.
In a city that was already the healthiest in the country, and has absolutely no obesity problem.
Assessing the cost of externalities is fine.
Useless laws that do nothing — other than soothing the anxiety and moral panic of their authors — externalize the cost of doing so onto the rest of us.
https://3kpnuxym9k04c8ilz2quku1czd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/w...
So the people making these sorts of rules will not be affected by them, and they are just making a moat around the luxuries that they want to enjoy so that they have status over the common folk.
Kind of like politically connected and wealthy people wanting to get rid of gun ownership. They will still have armed body guards provided by the state or that they pay for.
"Paying for the road damage I caused is something I don't like, it should be illegal"
That is how capitalism works. Just make doing the right thing illegal. People complain about the homeless problem but don't talk about how they made it illegal to not have homeless people. They spend insane amounts of resources, like $60k per year per tent, because that is the best option that is still legal.
This tax would also have the side effect of being slightly more burdensome on particular demographics that are most likely to come up with half baked "let's tax X" ideas that fail to pass even the most cursory analysis as these demographics tend to drive fast high performance sedans.
Edit: Just to be clear, lower number = more tax. Work vans pay little, high performance toys pay a lot. This is a semi-satirical proposal.
It's basically what many countries in the EU do. France leading the charge (buying for example a Ferrari with a shitload of horsepower will be accompanied with a one-time tax of $40 000 USD (well, EUR) you have to pay to the state) and, no, people paying 200 K EUR for a brand new car are not happy about paying 240 K EUR so the tax "works".
It's also why the "downsizing" of ICE is happening: much smaller engines, but with turbos. And they do consume less fuel.
Of course now that all the EU countries pushed like crazy for sales of hybrid and EVs, they're now coming up with new legislation in the work that is going to take weight into account (because EV batteries tend to be heavy and they have to find a way to tax EVs).
I mean: those in the EU who bought an EV are kinda getting ripped of... The price of electricity is through the roof (in some cities like Brussels it simply doubled YOY) and they'll now be facing soon a tax on weight (it's going to be a EU directive so all the countries will have to adapt).
What a way to thank people for not buying gas guzzlers!
Belgium probably buys a lot of France nuclear and France has been retrofitting their reactors and there have been a lot of them off-grid for the last year or two. Add to this the Ukraine war energy issues and lack of alternative sources and you get a short-term mess.
Belgium and France really need to look at how to get their respective countries more solarized like Germany - then use solar+batteries to balance the crazy electricity spikes.
Larger heavier vehicles need more energy to get around.
There is a middle ground with low-weight, low-speed vehicles like 800 lb "golf carts" and 1800 lb Japanese micro-cars.
Japanese micro-cars like the Honda n-box slash get enthusiastic reviews from motorheads and represent a realistic alternative.
I would love a future where we can have cheap super-sub-compact EVs and small utility vehicles. But as long as these Karens get to hand wringing every time they see someone hauling lumber on the roof or they a family pile out of a 1991 Civic said future is but a fantasy.
Look at why sprawl occurred, it was not started by cars, it started with trains. The trolleys would allow for undeveloped land to be used, reducing rents that had been increased by demand. Then came the car. Instead of being dependent on the trolley to get you from place to place, you could allocate resources to get there. Economic activity boomed after that. There may be some difference on the implementation of automotive vehicles, but they are not a mistake.
Trains and trolleys did allow for some suburban growth - but the sprawl didn't come into being until cars became the norm for transport... specifically, commuting by train and using cars for leisure could have been the world we live in, rather than this hellish landscape where cars are the norm for getting to the work or picking up groceries.
This may differ from your world view but please just compare the west to east coast where most of the eastern cities were built first without cars in mind and only later expanded - vs. a lot of west coast cities that have always been car first.
The difference is extremely stark.
But in America, if you want half a pound of pastrami you're probably going to have to get in a car to get it unless you live in one of the few areas that still follows that sort of dense city planning.
To each their own.
To me, the "hellish landscape" is the NYC subway system (arguably the best in the US).
While I live in NYC and not LA, I'm a frequent visitor to LA. I'd gladly sit through LA traffic over riding the NYC subway. Sitting in my own personal, clean, climate controlled space, listening to music I enjoy.
I would gladly use Seoul's subway. I only grudgingly use NYC's (and nowadays, I bicycle as much as I can to avoid using it).
Just out of curiosity, have you ever been to Tokyo? I feel I've heard good things about its public transit but have only visited so briefly I didn't get much chance to use it myself.
FWIW many discussions that criticize any aspect of NYC’s subway system often gets shut down with “but we have 24/7 service and they don’t”. Personally, I feel 24/7 service is a contributing factor to the NYC subway’s problems.
When I think "hellscape", I think of this, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agbogbloshie
American culture is partly unthinkable without cars because of planning and zoning failures made decades ago. Why don't have suburbs a lot of small super markets and other stores? Why does everybody need to drive miles and miles to get a gallon of milk?
1: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/8/28/the-growth-pon...
FWIW, many suburbs do have supermarkets and stores in their downtowns/mainstreets. I can walk...10 minutes or so to my local supermarket. But I choose not to do so because I can drive there and buy a week+'s worth of groceries and supplies in one go. I don't think most suburbanites hop in the car to get a single bottle of milk.
As much as there are people that prefer living in cities, there are people that prefer living in the suburbs.
A young twentysomething single me would have preferred living in downtown Manhattan and wouldn't have minded living in a 300 sqft studio, meeting friends, partying, partaking in cultural experiences that only a major city can offer.
Thirtysomething married me finds that scenario unappealing. Having a SFH in a quiet suburban street with a backyard to BBQ in, a garden to tend, lazy weekends with no cultural activities whatsoever, and a car(!) to drive around in is what I want... short of being extremely wealthy enough to have the best of both worlds.
As I said, it will be interesting how well the American suburbs will be able to function. They function only because of heavily subsidized infrastructure and the poor parts of town are the ones paying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...
Everything points to the American way of doing housing and infrastructure is wrong and could be done cheaper and easier if American city planners were to look at other parts of the world.
This only vaguely alludes to why some people drive ginormous SUVs. If you "own your own business" you can deduct a truck from your taxes.
My wife works with a doctor who "owns his own business." His family drives giant SUVs because it's cheaper than driving a normal car. The family across the street from me owns a franchise, and both parents drive giant vehicles. One of them is a truck that they use to tow large boats as part of their business; the other is never used for actual business purposes. (But it does have a commercial plate.) They have two kids.
The difference, IIRC, is that instead of amortizing the cost over years, IRS Section 179 allows you to expense the entire cost of a 6,000+ lb. vehicle in a single year. So if you own an Escalade like my neighbor, that's an $80,000 tax deduction in one year.
It's certainly tempting and I'll probably do exactly the same thing once my business makes enough income for it to make sense. The tax code is a thing: use it to your advantage.
Just because you bought someone a coffee after punching them in the gut doesn't mean they appreciate your patronage.
The Virginia part was already retroceded in 1847, less than 60 years after the creation of the district; retroceding the Maryland part is a pretty common Republican alternative to D.C. statehood since pressure began for it (though it is opposed by both Maryland and D.C. residents who have 232 years of separate history.)
I also don't think that proximity really confers any undo influence at this point - so if the federal buildings just became federal property within the state of VA/MD similar to thousands of other federal properties that'd probably be fine.
I'm sure many locales with 670k residents would love to become states, that'd be a pretty sweet deal.
We have a well established process for asking states about this sort of thing, the US Congress. They don't seem to be wild about the minimum populous state standard, we should ask about the median populous state standard.
First-of-its-kind? OK
https://www.chicityclerk.com/sticker:
> Vehicle with curb weight of 4,500 lbs or less with a payload capacity of 2,499 lbs or less - $90.88
> Vehicle with curb weight of 4,501 lbs or more with a payload capacity of 2,499 lbs or less - $144.33
> Vehicle, Truck, pickup truck with closed or open bed, or van with a gross weight of 16,000 lbs or less or with a payload capacity of 2,500 lbs or more - $213.82
> Truck or vehicle with a gross weight of 16,001 lbs or more with a payload capacity of 2,500 lbs or more - $481.10
This has been around for as long as I can remember, and there are a number of vehicles (especially minivans) where the lower trim levels pay one fee but the top trim level pays more.
Given this is D.C., I would assume this is just a manifestation of petty malice toward symbols their council associates with people on the “wrong” side of righteous causes.
And that ignores other externalities such as pollution, risk to pedestrians, etc.
I think city councils should even seriously consider banning such cars from busy city centers, like quite a few cities (mainly in Europe) do with older Diesel engines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-emission_zone)
https://dmv.dc.gov/node/1118861
Even if you didn't, nobody would want to register a vehicle in DC unless you absolutely have to. It is not cheap or convenient.
IMVHO the issue is another: we can't sustain cars in cities anymore because there are too much cars for roads and parking infra. There is no "classic" solution for that: cities can only be just public-transport + only needed vehicles (emergency/work-related etc) to work and being NOT designed for such usage they can't easily be adapted => cities are dead end, we can only rebuild them and we already know that since anything change at a certain speed doing such enormous challenge will be pointless, for when it end we will end up in the similar issues for newer/mutated needs and gears.
Long story short IMVHO we need some "hub", where people live nearby, BUT little kind an on-purpose only like "this is a place where only students and teachers live for their relative active 'duty', here is just a metallurgic area there are a residential part for workers, but just for their working times and all have relatives and homes elsewhere" etc. Tough to achieve but I see no over evolvable option. So far only moderately dense Rivieras have shown life and sustainability. Low density areas became too expensive, high density untenable.
Aside we probably can't sustain anymore entertaining a modern country-wide road network, some countries like Finland here and there have barely admitted something alike, witch means we need something else to move. Small flying drones can be ok for private travel, no I'm not joking, actually a small flying car can cost as a road-born car, on similar scale, the far reduced infra costs compensate extra energy costs BUT that's can work for low weight transports. For logistic is a bit of a nightmare and for that so far I hardly see solutions behind a disperse economy where most of heavy and abundant stuff are local and local only witch is not much achievable. Another is waterways but they are usable only on the sea and large-enough rivers, witch means in too limited spot.
The Ford Ranger was no larger or heavier than my sedan.
My last car was an Equinox...I believe they refer to it as a small or midsize crossover? It's much larger than that old truck in every metric.
And the new Rangers are as big or bigger than older F150s. Seems we're going the wrong direction on car design...
You'd likely see more stratification between the DC and adjacent markets though - some proportion of the plumbers based in Arlington might refuse to serve DC proper to avoid the fee (if it were somehow enforced on them, which seems difficult given they're relying on registration) - but that'd lower supply and possibly give plumbers who do remain in the DC market more command over their price.
Either way, when you're talking about running a business, if a 500$ expense is going to break the bank you're probably teetering on the edge of insolvency anyways.
Of course, these are even more true of large trucks, which we would find much more difficult to eliminate, even if we wanted to. So it's always going to be a matter of judgement how to proceed.
It sounds like there must be some good and interesting physical reason for this. Do you have an intuitive explanation for it?
There was some minor fuel tax benefit to the state, but with ultra-heavy electric vehicles like a electric Hummer, there's not really any penalty/paying of dues for having obnoxiously sized, dangerous vehicles.
Heavy cars do more damage when they hit things, emit more brake dust, and cause more damage to roads. Exploring ways to reduce (or appropriately tax) their use should be celebrated.
This is false.
It may be the case that electric cars, thanks to regenerative braking, do not emit more brake dust than a lighter non-electric car, but that's not what the parent comment here was saying.
>It may be the case that electric cars, thanks to regenerative braking, do not emit more brake dust than a lighter non-electric car, but that's not what the parent comment here was saying.
That's exactly what parent said.
> Heavier vehicles emit higher levels of brake and tire particles
"Therefore, future research is needed to better understand the overall impact of vehicle electrification on brake and tire wear emissions"
And of course once moving, fuel consumption is surprisingly insensitive to weight.