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Comment by kergonath | Hacker News Reader

Cars should be taxed based on their weight and there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility.

There is no reason why most of us should subsidise a few people’s status symbol and their entirely unnecessary use of public resources. Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost to others. We are not talking about pickup trucks and light trucks used in the countryside: these monstrosities are designed for motorways and paved roads and will never see as much as a dirt road.

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Even better tax based on weight to number of permanent seats ratio. 7 seaters for larger families shouldn't be penalised, but structure it so manufactures can't just throw a couple of fold down seats in the back of a large SUV as a work around.

But everything about road tax needs to change with the reduction of fuel duty due to electric cars. The public haven't seen this coming yet, but it's going to be a difficult transition.

Sounds like a good way to end up with unintended consequences like happened with the chicken tax and the Subaru Brat.

No, why should I subsidize somebody else's children any more than I should subsidize somebody else's ego booster?

Ignoring the fact that this wouldn't even work because SUVs would just get extra seats to work around the tax structure.

7-seat private buses wear down the road just as much as private tanks, so tax them equally.

Because somebody else's ego booster mobile won't grow up to be a delinquent that commits crimes that directly or indirectly affect you (unless it's evil K.I.T.T.).

Whether societal family planning should, at all, play into road taxes is quite the question, but it's widely accepted that society should bother to educate its children.

As long as we're inventing new taxes, we should tax friction-based braking systems and components, to the point that regenerative braking becomes the norm on all new cars. We're wasting so much energy using friction to stop, rather than electromagnetic fields to induce stopping and regenerating batteries.

I agree entirely, FWIW.

> Cars should be taxed based on their weight Why weight in particular?

Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive.

In some places in the world (e.g. some parts of Switzerland) there's already a tax on car weight. I do not see it being particularly effective.

> there should be much stricter standards regarding visibility. SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

> Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe). 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive.

Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

He may be referring to other vehicles visibility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_SUVs

Or like my other note at

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38150286

Visibility needs depend on your environment.

> Those costs aren’t proportionate. Road wear increases exponentially as weight increases.

Road wear depends on the weight and the surface area. SUVs have much wider tyres.

Weight is an important metric as it has a big influence on two very important external affects.

Road wear/damage is proportional to roughly the fourth power of weight. However, this won't have much impact on SUVs directly, but on large lorries and buses. (It's easy to see the damage at bus stops where the slowing to a stop and starting from a stop, both noticeable deform the road after a time. This is also visible at traffic lights.

Tyre and brake pollution are very closely tied to the vehicle's weight, which leads to the issue of EVs producing almost as much total pollution as a lighter ICE vehicle even though they don't produce exhaust pollution. Tyre pollution is one of the most insidious types of pollution due to the size of the particulates and the chemicals used in tyres.

> However, this won't have much impact on SUVs directly

Why not?

Even an increase from 1.5 tons to 2 tons results in 3.16x the damage on the road.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

If that weight difference results in a noticeable tax difference, then lorries will be virtually priced off the road due to the tax. Realistically, the tax would have to be affordable for heaviest vehicles which would make the tax difference between 1.5 to 2 tons negligible.

Maybe one way round it is to have tax bands for heavy commercial vehicles and weight-based tax for cars and SUVs.

Edit: thought I'd try to work out an example of pricing.

If a fourth power tax rate on weight works out to a £100 difference between 2 tons and 1.5 tons, then an 8 ton vehicle would be paying over £37,000

> If that weight difference results in a noticeable tax difference, then lorries will be virtually priced off the road due to the tax.

That’s a red herring. Lorries don’t have to be taxed the same way as cars, and actually most of the time are not.

They absolutely are taxed much heavier than most cars. Truck are charged on most highways in European Union, I expect UK has similar system. They pay per-km driven.

I am addressing the “but higher taxes will put companies out of business because lorries” straw man that appears a couple of times in the discussion. Taxes for family cars and for professional vehicles are effectively decoupled and can be adjusted independently.

If all cars are responsible for some small fraction of road damage, it probably isn't going to have much impact to carefully apportion that fraction of the damage.

> That’s a red herring. Lorries don’t have to be taxed the same way as cars, and actually most of the time are not.

Yes, but I can see it being unpopular to introduce a "road repair" tax that is justified based on drivers paying for the damage that they cause to roads and then not apply the same rules to the vehicles that cause the majority of the damage.

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

SUVs provide drivers great overview of traffic, visibility of other cars, and long-range visibility. This is good. However their height severely limits the visibility of people and items near the car, which is very bad in cities where drivers often share space with cyclists, children and potted plants:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...

People watch about 20 feet ahead of their vehicles, we don't need to build tall cars that let you see a bit further.

> Why weight in particular?

Kinetic energy (thus fuel consumption and particles from brakes) and road wear scale with weight. It's not perfect but it's most of the way there.

> Two arguments here: 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe).

This does not solve the issue with externalities: fuel cost absolutely does not offset the cost to society caused by car use, same for accidents and road wear.

> 2. SUVs are already taxed higher because they're more expensive.

They are not taxed higher, they have exactly the same VAT as any other car (give or take specific government schemes to incentivise things like hybrids and TVs).

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

SUVs have terrible visibility and situation awareness because of huge blind spots and higher sitting positions for the driver (which is better on motorways, but terrible in cities). They are also much worse for pedestrians and cyclists in case of a collision.

Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle. Most fuel consumption is about overcoming drag rather than accelerating so you should expect it to scale with something like cross-sectional area, say weight^2/3, though making cars longer adds weight without much drag and making them boxier can add drag without much weight.

I don’t think fuel taxes are particularly good as indirect taxes on the externalities one might care about – road wear, vehicle deaths/life-changing injuries, noise, pollution, parking space in streets, passing room on narrow roads, etc.

> Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over an axle.

Cars are not getting more axles, even SUVs, so this is a constant multiplicative factor. I would be happy with a tax that scales as the fourth power of the mass, no problem. That would be actually quite dissuasive very quickly. Though even a linear scaling would be an improvement over the current situation.

> Most fuel consumption is about overcoming drag rather than accelerating so you should expect it to scale with something like cross-sectional area, say weight^2/3, though making cars longer adds weight without much drag and making them boxier can add drag without much weight.

Right. We should ideally account for aerodynamics and drag factors, which also keep getting worse year after year. One does not preclude the other.

> I don’t think fuel taxes are particularly good as indirect taxes on the externalities one might care about

I entirely agree.

> Cars are not getting more axles, even SUVs, so this is a constant multiplicative factor. I would be happy with a tax that scales as the fourth power of the mass, no problem. That would be actually quite dissuasive very quickly. Though even a linear scaling would be an improvement over the current situation.

Sounds like we should tax EVs then: https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/06/27/evs-cause-twice-th...

The road tear on SUVs will not that that much larger, because they have wider tyres, so when you calculate kg / sqm you might get smaller value than for smaller cars.

> Sounds like we should tax EVs then

No argument on my part: huge EV SUVs are also very bad.

What do you mean by constant multiplicative factor’. Are you saying that cars are perfectly balanced between front and back axels (surely a reasonable thing to want for tyre wearing if nothing else). The point about the scaling is that it is not linear: if you double the weight over an axle, you get 16 times the wear but perhaps 1.5-2x the fuel consumption. For this reason I dispute that fuel duty effectively taxes the (externalities due to the) weight of cars. Though I concede that wasn’t really the point you were making.

> What do you mean by constant multiplicative factor’. Are you saying that cars are perfectly balanced between front and back axels (surely a reasonable thing to want for tyre wearing if nothing else).

Right. An implicit assumption was that the weight repartition does not change much, i.e. that if 2/3 of the weight is supported by the front axle, that ratio would be similar for a hatchback and a SUV. This does not seem completely unrealistic when comparing ICEs with other ICEs or EVs with other EVs (though EVs will have a very different weight repartition compared to ICEs due to the way batteries and motors are integrated).

With this in mind, the front axle bears 2/3 * m_1 for a sedan of mass m_1 and 2/3 * m_2 for a SUV of mass m_2. So the effective weight (as seen considering only one axle) is just a linear function of the actual weight. It changes the magnitude, but it does not change the scaling.

Ultimately, the people who pay any tax are the end-consumers. A tax like the one you're proposing impacts trucks, ambulances, and buses as well as commercial ride-sharing and taxis. The final cost of the tax will be reflected in the raised prices of groceries, EMS requests, and trips to the airport.

I’m not proposing a tax, to be clear. One problem with these sorts of taxes on driving is that drivers often see them as a ‘service charge’ they pay to use the roads and they then expect governments to plot that money into road maintenance/construction. I think it’s not great to have a tax whose revenue that people feel should be earmarked for certain things. Perhaps something like an emissions/inefficiency levy on car tax (and based on miles driven) would help but I doubt it would be politically tenable, especially with the current government trying to de-boris their policies (and so walk back on various green things).

I think part of the solution would be changing safety standards to better capture the dangers to other road users, changing liability rules/penalties to make such cars more expensive to insure (though probably the effect is too small to make much difference), having some fines scale with the value of the car (on the one hand I think people speeding, etc, in flashy cars should be particularly penalised. On the other, the UK already has some fines that are meant to scale with income and letting people off by driving smaller cars seems bad. Perhaps an alternative would be fines for certain infractions that are higher for cars that would do more damage were something to happen as a result of the driving), installing more bell bollards on corners so the people who aren’t good at staying on the road risk big dents instead of running over a toddler, and more enforcement against minor violations. Lots of those don’t specifically target oversized cars though.

> They are not taxed higher, they have exactly the same VAT as any other car (give or take specific government schemes to incentivise things like hybrids and TVs).

They're absolutely taxed higher. $100k SUV will cause a much higher VAT you need to pay than $50k sedan. So by buying a more expensive car you do contribute more taxes to the state funds.

> SUVs have terrible visibility and situation awareness because of huge blind spots and higher sitting positions for the driver (which is better on motorways, but terrible in cities).

Any sources on that? It's clearly not my experience. Most SUVs have much bigger side mirrors and the side windows are much larger (because the car is taller).

Please compare cars of similar length (so not large SUV vs a hatchback).

> This does not solve the issue with externalities: fuel cost absolutely does not offset the cost to society caused by car use, same for accidents and road wear.

The premise is: does the tax on the additional fuel spent by driving a SUV offset the cost to the society, comparing with driving a similarly-sized but non-SUV vehicle?

Making it a clear example: is driving a BMW X5 that much worse than driving a BMW 5 series (both are similar length, X5 is ~300 kg heavier)?

Because damage to the road increases by something like the weight increase ^ 4.

Which means, as pointed out by e.g. zemvpferreira, proportionate-to-damage then either makes HGVs completely unviable or the wear component of tax for any passenger car negligible.

And HGVs really are the limiting factor on road design. We could ban SUVs maybe, we could ban cars and scooters and bicycles if various factions get their way, but if we ban HGVs - cities starve, in weeks if not days.

> if we ban HGVs - cities starve, in weeks if not days

Which is why nobody wants this. Though we ought to be chasing efficiency there as well because as you wrote lorries are a significant contributing factor.

> 1. SUVs are already taxed on weight indirectly - they consume more fuel which is heavily taxed (50+% in most of Europe)

In UK all electric cars are tax free be it a smart or a huge SUV and difference in electricity consumption AFIK less than in fuel consumption (thanks to recuperation) for ICE cars. Where I live in the UK I see little SUV in general but cars with green plates (electric) are disproportionately SUV.

SUVs bonnets are the height of my 6 year old, she can easily be out of visibility, as there are plenty of non SUVs around I can see it's not the case for the them.

The exhaust is not at just the right height for kids in buggies when you cross the road.

Yet in the countryside, the higher driving position gives better visibility, with grass verges etc blocking the view around corners. That is what I see from my 20 year old non status symbol 4x4.

Should I be taxed because my car is inappropriate for London, where it will never go?

If they tax rural registered vehicles less, people will register their SUVs in rural areas. If you live in the country you probably need a 4x4 or a pickup truck, depending also on the type of work that you do.

> If you live in the country you probably need a 4x4 or a pickup truck, depending also on the type of work that you do.

There already are exemptions and tax credits for professional equipment, right? It’s nothing that has not been solved already.

There are no exemptions for road tax, it is just deductable against income tax, which means you get some fraction of it back depending on your tax rate.

Unfortunately for me I am commuting to a job through the countryside, and therefore I can't deduct anything.

You’re right, people commuting with large cars would see the larger costs. The thing is, we need to provide less-polluting alternatives to commuting by cars and also disincentivise using large and heavy cars for daily trips. People commuting alone in a large car are an absurdity.

These alternatives could be better public transport, tax credit for small vehicles or car sharing, incentives for remote work as much as possible, none of which are completely outlandish.

How about a tax credit for having a second smaller car if you already have an SUV?

> SUVs usually have great visibility because of large windows.

I find they usually have crap visibility other than ahead and over other cars (and only cars) because of the huge pillars to avoid a rollover crushing the roof in with the heavy body and high sides. And that's when driving, when parking, they're a deathtrap until bristling with cameras and sensors because they have massive blindspots all around them.

I don't find the ability to see over the other cars especially helpful because no matter how big an urban tank is, it can't see through a Transit van, let alone an HGV.

The best visibility is a convertible with no B-pillar, but most car-shaped cars (i.e. not crossovers) have better visibility in my experience.

The trouble with that is most of these people would just pay the tax anyway. So you'd only be increasing inequality on the road. In addition, lorries and vans that actually need to be heavy but are nevertheless a public good will be taxed more for no good reason. Taxing everyone based on their exact use of a utility is against the basic point of a public utility.

Instead I think the easiest and best option is just to ban SUVs from the public highway. It is essentially car obesity. Just bigger and heavier for no reason. They even look like obese versions of regular cars. Heavier vehicles have more responsibility and require stricter testing and licensing. Heavy vehicles should always be box shaped because that is the most efficient shape for carrying goods.

> lorries and vans that actually need to be heavy but are nevertheless a public good will be taxed more for no good reason

Almost all large vehicles that I see on the roads are privately owned and cause significant road damage (which is roughly proportional to the fourth power of weight). That means that tax payers are subsidising the profits of logistics companies and artificially reducing the cost to them of using public roads which could possibly change the economics of rail use instead.

"Ultimately you should not be able to buy these, at least in their current form, as they serve no purpose whatsoever besides inflating their owner’s ego at a significant cost to others."

I am wary of this statement, because it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services.

On another note, if SUVs are much more dangerous to others than other cars, insurance claims against SUV drivers and insurance premiums that they pay should reflect this. Why hasn't this happened?

> it could justify banning a wide range of consumer goods and services

GP qualified their statement pretty precisely: no purpose other than ego, significant cost to others. What's the harm in banning anything that ticks both of these boxes?

On the surface, it seems to make sense. I'm wondering if it falls apart quickly.

"I like it" and "because ego" is a hard line to carve. I usually hear ego-purchase and translate it to "you like it and I don't."

Lots of things are provided at a cost to others. Some argue the modern economy can't exist without exploiting someone. And there is all the things that ticks tragedies of the commons.

What could be made illegal using such a lens? Fashionable clothing seems fit (hell, the US killed off an entire species of pigeon because their feathers looked good on a hat; a hell of a cost to everyone). Mountain climbing or hiking to summit could be viewed as an ego thing and the trails have to be maintained and emergency personnel available -- all at significant costs.

Depending on how sensitive "cost to others is" and depending on how willfully something can only be attributed to ego makes this more slippery.

In the UK you’re taxed more on vehicle excise duty if a car costs more than £45,000 as it’s a luxury.

Only lasts 5 years, and doesn't affect cars with emissions < 150gCO2/km (which a lot of hybrids will fall into).

I'm not in the UK. But, you can pry my minivan from my cold dead hands.

I’m guessing you live somewhere with wider roads and more private vehicle-centric urban planning. That is not the UK.

Or anywhere else in Europe, really.

Mostly it's the sliding doors. My idiot children love to fling car doors open. I'm sure there's a European minivan equivalent that's teensy weensy but is considered too posh

> Cars should be taxed based on their weight

Not against that, but there should be an exception for electric vehicles, because these batteries are heavy.

Maybe an offset, not an exception imo.

Pollution must be taxed as well, and electric vehicles will have an advantage there.

No need to unnecessarily dictate technology. We want light cars and we don't want pollution.

Hell no, new Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 electric lorry has battery that weights 4500 kg. Add that tyres will wear out much sooner and produce more microplastics pollution killing rivers.

4500 kg is MORE THAN TWO Ford F-150

https://nimbnet.com/news/mercedes-benz-eactros-600-a-long-ra...

I think that if at all, this exemption should last until 2030 at maximum.

The reason is that batteries with densities sufficient to make EVs no heavier than ICEs exist (like https://amprius.com/products/ ) but they need investment for production to be scaled up - the 5GWh plant Amprius is planning will go entirely to niche applications, so it's not enough.

Meanwhile the Chinese are introducing cars with 700kg+ batteries:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeekr_009

This is counterproductive.

And yet they suffer from the exact same issues (energy consumption, particles, road wear, etc). What we need to incentivise is small EVs for daily trips, not huge wasteful things like Teslas because their owners have range anxiety for the 2 times a year they do more than 100 km in one trip.

The scale does not need to be the same, but in the end heavy EVs are much worse than lighter ones.

SUVs are typically shorter and lighter than mid to high class sedans. They just look big, but you can't fit a fridge inside, unlike many station wagons.

You're not from the UK are you?

Those aren't SUVs, they are crossovers. Mostly based on hatchbacks, but worse in every objective way.

SUV means "Sport utility vehicle". The Sport part is straight up BS, but the utility part differentiates them from crossovers. An SUV is built on a truck frame or at least needs a strengthened chassis to give it some utility like towing or offroading.

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