This is the government using the stick when they should try and use the carrot.
> This is the government using the stick when they should try and use the carrot.
You can provide as much carrots as you want and people will still say it's not enough. Everyone wants to freeload, no one wants to pay the true cost of burning fossil fuels for transportation (which would be >$10/gallon if you bake CO2 emission and health costs in).
I was ready to buy an FEV this year. Instead, my company laid me off to get record profits, my state and country gaslit me to belive unemployment is low and the economy is great (while also taking about mysterious headwinds. Almost like we're heading towards a recession...) , and the job market went from an annoying but reasonable hoop to a whole-ass circus.
I've been getting spanked all year and people are asking me why I'm destroying the environment with my 2008 Sedan? Clearly no one wants me to even afford rent at this point.
If we want to talk about externalities in a balanced way, we can’t pick and choose. You can’t just recognize CO2 from burning gas or specific health issues, because that is the same as artificially picking what you want to allow and not allow. You have to also price in the externalities and opportunity costs of the alternative. In the case of electric vehicles, it is everything from raw materials (mining), to the reduced quality of life due to limited range of EVs, to child labor in the supply chain, to the geopolitical implications of using certain battery suppliers like CATL, to pollution (not just greenhouse gases from car production or electrical utilities but other environmental pollutants as well), to increased tire wear from heavier vehicles, and more. Maybe no on wants to pay the true cost of fossil fuels but no one wants to even talk about the true cost of EVs let alone pay it. I don’t know which is “better” but I suspect the math will be more complicated and not support heavyweight taxation.
I’m all for public transit and California needs more of it. At the same time, gas is really bad and so perhaps deserves a stick, just like cigarettes?
- The federal gas tax has been 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, and has not increased to account for inflation
- Vehicles are more fuel efficient than in the past, which has reduced the demand for gas by the gallon on an individual basis.
- The cost of infrastructure materials has increased (e.g., building new roads and bridges)
There is a very decent argument to be had that nobody is actually paying the societal cost of driving, that all of society just loses value by driving. In other words, each mile you drive in your car incurs costs on the rest of society that nobody directly pays, and therefore everyone pays.