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Comment by kordite | Hacker News Reader

A friend and I were talking about the weight of EVs and we assumed my EV would be heavier than his car, a BMW 3. The BMW was heavier. Maybe the average EV is heaver than the average ICE, but if you compare what the EV has replaced for that owner, it might be that the EVs aren't noticeably heavier. I just checked the car I had before the Leaf - a Subaru Outback. It was also heavier.

I don't think that taxing vehicles based on weight is the right option though. If the pollution is from tires, then tax tires. Do this based on the compounds present in that tire. If someone drives rashly, doing donuts all over the place, then they as a greater polluter will need to pay more. I don't really know anything about Formula 1, but get them to do the race on a single set of tires. Not for pollution, but for solutions that might make it into regular tires.

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Denmark used to tax cars based on weight as it was considered that weight was equal to wear and tear on the roads. Although that logic should probably have been weight * distance driven.

Now there’s a fun tax to implement!

https://da.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A6gtafgift (Sorry in danish only)

I think just taxing the tires is the solution! More wear on roads should closely correlate with more wear on tires, and each tire likely has a lifetime determined by weight * distance. You need to account for tire structure, but even if you tax all tires the same, it should be a good approximation of what we're looking for.

This is a good way to incentivise people to buy the shittiest tyres they can and stretch them well past usable life because it’ll cost them a motza to replace.

Is there a way to tax tires (tyres?) based on wear and not when they have holes in?

One potential way to do this would be to weigh the tires at sale and charge a tax based on the weight of the tire. When the tire is ultimately disposed of, a refund is issued based on the weight of the disposed tire.

This would encourage both avoiding tire wear and proper disposal of tires. That assumes obviously that people don't cheat the system by making tires heavier somehow when returning them.

And how would a system work, to check all that? To me that sounds like a lot of overhead to make sure no one outsmarts the system

and of course the system will 100% be outsmarted

Weight * distance is actually literally fun for governments to implement.

Why?

Because it gives them more taxes, bigger government and as a bonus more spying on citizens.

The Dutch government has been talking about this type of tax for decades. The idea is to put a mandatory live-tracking device in every car that sends data to the government about where you are at all times.

Currently the tax is based on weight and type of energy source of the car and some of the highest taxes on fuel in the world. This boils down to the same as the weight * distance tax. But why keep it simple if you could complicate it further AND get free live spying as a bonus?

In UK my yearly MOT records how far my car has driven.

Taxing distance doesn't need to track _where_ the car has been, just how far it's gone.

I seem to recall when selling cars the V5 transfer also has a mileage (so easy to attribute)

It isn't precisely easy (MOT and tax timings won't line up etc) and arrears rather than advance etc. We definitely have enough data to do a fair approximation - just high operational overheads to collect

That depends. Do you also tax when the car is driven outside the country?

It's legitimate to track entry and exit on national borders though. A tax exception based on entry/exit times is doable and better than constant geo tracking.

It's utterly insane, but there is no equivalent to the MOT in the US. There's an emissions test, but not a safety test. I don't know if mileage is recorded at the emissions test.

Why would you not just use the odometer reading?

Cars get sold, eventually. You put the odometer reading on the paperwork to transfer the car. Check that against tax records. Purchaser has incentive to check that the recorded mileage is correct, otherwise they’ll have to pay the tax. The odometer is already tamper-resistant. Not perfectly so, and there is fraud, but there is always tax fraud.

> there is fraud, but there is always tax fraud.

It's also a type of fraud which is fairly easy to detect. If a car is recorded as driving just 2000 miles per year, yet freeway cameras detected it driving 100 miles every weekday all year, open a fraud case.

> It's also a type of fraud which is fairly easy to detect. If a car is recorded as driving just 2000 miles per year, yet freeway cameras detected it driving 100 miles every weekday all year, open a fraud case.

Sure, but why bother? That would involve a ton of overhead and server time for a system that's still going to miss a lot of travel, thereby limiting revenue. I question whether the added expense of that kind of surveillance system would even recover enough revenue to break even. The same goes for mandatory GPS reporting devices, plus the civil liberties issues associated with such systems would make passing such a tax even more difficult.

Most countries have some sort of annual safety/emissions inspection, so any mileage-based tax could just use the odometer readings from the inspection. Sure, a mechanic could falsify paperwork, but how likely is that when it'll eventually come to light? If you want to sell the car, you're going to have to eventually admit the miles you hid so that they match the odometer reading at the time of title transfer. That means you're going to have no choice but to pay the tax eventually.

No need to try and build a more perfect mouse trap.

Nah - you get citizens to self report odometer readings annually, or use annual inspections. And you employ a few people to run your 'fraud team' which will use CCTV to catch fraud, and auto-mail out letters with fines.

15 peoples civil service salaries = $1.5M say.

They will contact local car park owners, municipalities and states who have ANPR cameras, etc. From each, they'll get a spreadsheet of plate no, date/time and camera lat/lon. Many police departments already centralize that info to search for stolen cars etc.

They'll then run the whole lot through a python script to make a database of plate num + annual mileage. They'll then compare that to the self-reported mileage and investigate any underreporting.

Assume that this is implemented in the USA, and 1% of people fake the odometer by 50%. Assume the tax is 5 cents a mile. Total vehicle miles traveled is 3e12 miles, and assume we can easily detect 30% of offenders, due to them driving long distances on highways, and fine all those detected 3x the fraudulent amount. Total takings: $337M.

Clearly worth enforcing.

The reason I have read is that the car can only be taxed within a given jurisdiction. If you travel outside that jurisdiction then the vehicle would not be taxed by that authority. I could be taxed by an authority in another jurisdiction.

The analogy is probably a fuel tax that is paid at the point of purchase.

Still, it seems that we could agree that taxes for a vehicle be paid in the jurisdiction where it is registered and just use odometer readings to calculate the distance traveled.

> The Dutch government has been talking about this type of tax for decades. The idea is to put a mandatory live-tracking device in every car that sends data to the government about where you are at all times.

Why would they need a tracking device for this? If Google is to be believed the Dutch government requires periodic vehicle inspections. Couldn't they just go by the odometer difference between inspections to get the mileage?

God damn.

I would have gone with "mandatory service where the odometer is sent to the government, and government keeps track of when last service was done and fines owners who are late"

Isn't weight * distance proportional to gas consumption?

Sure, you'll under-tax the more efficient cars but I don't necessarily see this as a problem.

Not for EV's. Which is why my state has been researching the move from a fuel tax to one based on mileage.

My current favourite pet policy (UK) is to introduce a zero rate tax band on energy, to help those least well off, and have a higher band beyond some average consumption.

You encourage people to use less, and also tax things such as EVs that use more electricity.

Of course it doesn't quite capture everything discussed though.

There was a proposal to do income based utility bills in California. It was unpopular for a lot of reasons, one of which was that it would make ICE cars cheaper to fuel than EVs for most people

Well this is conceptually a tax on marginal electricity use.

you'd also have to pair it with a commitment to making IC use more expensive than marginal electricity use.

They want the live tracking service because they want to change the price per mile driven based on congestion on the road. So your trip from Maastricht to Eindhoven will be a lot cheaper at 2am than it will be at 8am.

Why not just tax the fuel?

The Netherlands already has one of the highest fuel taxes in the world. There's pushback from fuel station owners near the borders because many people fill up their cars abroad.

Also the Netherlands is projected to become the first country in the world with EV sales reaching 99%.

I really wonder. I'd expect Norway to be there sooner.

As for the Netherlands: there are significant grid capacity problems, EV tax is going up due to expiring subsidies (which will double road tax for EVs in about 3 years) and lots of people seem the be very conservative and cling to their ICE cars because as everyone knows it's vital you can drive for 800km without taking a break. Of course, all can be solved by prohibiting people from buying a non-EV. It just means a lot of people won't be able to own a car anymore. I'm not quite sure how that would work out politically.

It's actually a fourth power law, not a linear relationship. So trucks are polynomially more damaging. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law

I wonder if that applies to the amount of material the tyres shed as well.

Well they have more tires than four vehicles do.

> Well they have more tires than four vehicles do. Actually, four vehicles would have more tyres in total (:

The Tesla Model 3 Long Range weighs 1823 kg.

The BMW M340i xDrive weighs about 1818 kg.

Seeing as these two cars are similar in size, capacity, and performance (0-60 mph in 4.2 s), it is nice to see that the electric option weighs about the same as an ICE car of similar specs.

The Leaf, of course, is a very budget car that can hardly be compared to the BMW 3 series.

While EVs are just as bad as ICE cars on the tyre microplastics front, they are at least slightly better in terms of brake dust thanks to regenerative braking.

I expect they are also slightly worse thanks to the immediate acceleration. Even if 0-60 is similar to a particular ICE car, 0-5 or 0-10 is not.

By the way, there are EV tyres - does anyone know why? Is it just marketing or do they have some special properties?

Often they have sound damping foam, and try to be more efficient.

> By the way, there are EV tyres - does anyone know why? Is it just marketing or do they have some special properties?

They have lower rolling resistance, in attempt to extract a bit larger range.

I think the difference isn't so much between car models, it's the drivers behaviour that wears down the tyres. Something happens to drivers of cars that has the power to accellerate fast from 0. Electric wears down the tires faster because of how the average driver uses the pedals.

Just to be pedantic, the fuel has some weight too. I think your average cars have a 50 to 80l tank, which is an extra ~40-60kg when full.

Damage to the roads increases with the fourth power of axle weight. It follows that all passenger cars heavy or not, EV or ICE are insignificant for road-damage.

One could surmise that there is a similar relation with tire wear and therefore pollution from them as well.

But taxing tires is I think a good idea as it is a consumable and the wear and it's impact can be directly measured.

The problem I see with taxing tires is twofold:

- how is taxing going to solve this problem, it's unlikely that it is going to have a significant impact on driving

- can taxes be fed into tire research in a way that reduces the impact on the environment? Are there any solutions that need funding?

> If the pollution is from tires, then tax tires.

Why not but …

> Do this based on the compounds present in that tire.

I’m not certain we’d want to create incentive for less polluting compounds over security.

Also, tires are generally expensive and people are already driving with worn out tires regularly for this reason.

So why not, in absolute, I agree, but it may create issues.

> I’m not certain we’d want to create incentive for less polluting compounds over security.

Sure we do, if that pollution causes a greater risk. Those two security costs seam hard to compare though.

Those are two fairly substantially different cars though. A Fiat 500e is ~30% heavier than a Fiat 500.

I don't think you're wrong that we assume every EV to weigh as much as a Cybertruck, but there is a weight cost to EV power storage.

Your first sentence implies there is some relevance of taking an arbitrary EV and comparing it to an arbitrary ICE. There's not... I am gonna bet anything your random EV is gonna be heavier than a Suzuki Swift.

I don't think it was arbitrary though. I'm not disputing that EVs are heavy, and my first car was probably really light, a 957cc Ford Fiesta. That thing taught you to anticipate the road because you had to apply in writing when you wanted to accelerate. Got 50MPG out of that on one trip though. My friend stated that my Leaf would be heavier than his car, and when we checked, we were surprised. I think it is relevant because we are of a similar age, and same profession. It's anecdotal but the people buying EVs, especially early (my Leaf is 2018 and we were still being asked stopped and asked about EVs then) would probably by buying cars that were of a similar weight anyhow. We do need to get the weight down. We do need better battery chemistry. I am disheartened that my tyres are polluting, but for this sample size of one, the tires are probably not more polluting than if I had an ICE.

> If the pollution is from tires, then tax tires.

I don't think you can tax tires high enough that it will make a difference, but the same is also true if we attempt to tax by weight. Any tax is going to be the equivalent of slapping €10 on a plane ticket. It's not enough to stop the behaviour, but might be enough to keep some people driving on dangerously worn down tires.

It also doesn't matter if the car is an EV or ICE, the behaviour we want to limit is driving. The idea of taxing the tires could of cause lead to development of tires that doesn't shed microplastic.

“ the behaviour we want to limit is driving”

By we, what do you mean? If this was true, we’d build walkable cities, public transportation and promote home office as much as possible.

"We" as in a society that wants to reduce the amount of microplastics from tires (or who wants to reduce environmental impact as much as possible).

It's sadly also the same "we" that is more interested in preserving the status quo in the name of the al might holy economy as it exists today. The same "we" that doesn't want to upset voters. The same "we" who won't vote for the greener option because "we" can't imagine a future different from yesterday.

I think it's one problem at a time. Curbing driving is a separate goal. Reducing pollution from tires is potentially a smaller and direct goal. Either people drive less or use tires that don't shed. That's why I think the tax should be related to the composition of the tire. I agree that people may end up driving on bald tires, and we don't want that. I'm British but live in the US and I think it's utterly insane that vehicles aren't required to have annual or bi-annual safety checks. An emissions test is not a safety test. A safety test involves breaks, tires, and headlamp alignment. I really wish we had headlamp alignment tests in the US. I want the 'freedom' to drive knowing the other cars are safe or the other driver is going to be charged if they are caught or are involved in an accident.

Not really relevant to your overall point, but I found it interesting that apparently F1 already tried that:

In 2005, tyre changes were disallowed in Formula One, therefore the compounds were harder as the tyres had to last the full race distance of around 300 km (200 miles). Tyre changes were re-instated in 2006, following the dramatic and highly political 2005 United States Grand Prix, which saw Michelin tyres fail on two separate cars at the same turn, resulting in all Michelin runners pulling out of the Grand Prix, leaving just the three teams using Bridgestone tyres to race.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_tyres#History

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_United_States_Grand_Prix

Tire changes were disallowed in 2005 to break Ferrari's dominance who's strategy relied on super soft sticky tires being charged often.

Why couldn’t the other teams change tires as often?

They all could, but Ferrari built their car + strategy + drivers' style for multiple fast laps with multiple pit stops as the winning formula. Having just multiple tire changes without the same car, strategy and driver won't have the same results

Ferrari had an exclusive deal with Bridgestone that the other top teams didn't: https://au.motorsport.com/f1/news/the-bridgestone-and-ferrar... # The Bridgestone tire was superior to the Michelin.

> before the Leaf - a Subaru Outback. It was also heavier.

A bigger car with more cargo capacity was heavier? Is that a surprise? How _much_ heavier was the Outback? Only 100 lbs or so? That's the surprise.

The Outback is also bigger and has more cargo capacity than the BMW 3 but likewise only weighs 100 pounds more.

The weight of electric cars is more proportional to their range than their size, and they also shed the ICE powertrain and exhaust/emissions systems, so the breakeven range where they weigh the same as an equivalent ICE car is a range of something like 200-300 miles. Which is why the BMW 3 and Tesla 3 have a similar weight.

The difference is that as new battery chemistries improve energy density, the weight of the electric car can go down. Whereas ICE powertrains are extremely mature with not a lot of low-hanging fruit, so significant improvements in power to weight ratio are less likely to be forthcoming.

> proportional to their range than their size

Well and total vehicle weight impacts EV range far more than it does ICE range. So the leaf is both small and with shorter range but the gain is a smaller battery pack.

> as new battery chemistries improve energy density

You can have improved density today. You're just not going to like the charge and discharge characteristics very much. EVs have lots of multi variable problems due to their efficiency and utilization aims. To be fair it just is a harder problem to solve but the years of development and lack of clear gains are still showing obvious bottlenecks.

> so significant improvements in power to weight ratio are less likely to be forthcoming.

You can have vastly improved PWR now. Just ride a motorcycle. I think Power train Weight to Total Vehicle Weight is what you really want to think about. In either EV or ICE case there are still plenty of gains to be had here.

> Well and total vehicle weight impacts EV range far more than it does ICE range. So the leaf is both small and with shorter range but the gain is a smaller battery pack.

The Leaf isn't really that small. It's 10" shorter in length but 4" taller in height than the Tesla or BMW 3, which in terms of aerodynamics would actually make it worse (larger frontal area), but it's a few hundred pounds lighter because it has less range.

> To be fair it just is a harder problem to solve but the years of development and lack of clear gains are still showing obvious bottlenecks.

Are they? The GM EV1 from the 1990s was using lead acid batteries. A decade later hybrids were generally using NiMH. Current electric cars are generally lithium ion with double the energy density of NiMH.

Things like zinc air or lithium air batteries haven't been effectively commercialized yet but they're under development and lithium air batteries would have an energy density on par with gasoline -- without the weight of the ICE powertrain.

By contrast, what's in the pipe that is going to make the ICE powertrain weigh significantly less?

> You can have vastly improved PWR now. Just ride a motorcycle.

That's just changing the size of the vehicle. There exist electric motorcycles that do around 200 miles to a charge and weigh the same as a Harley.

But you obviously can't use a motorcycle for everything you can use a car or truck, and they're incredibly dangerous. As in, for a third of people who ride a motorcycle as their primary vehicle, that's their cause of death.

It seems a number of factors contribute to this beyond weight: how you drive (braking and accelerating aggressively), what conditions you drive in, the state of your tires, etc.

Weight seems to be one easy to understand and affecting factor. Why not start there?

Because the thing you're worried about is microplastics, which are directly proportional to tire wear regardless of whether the wear is from heavier vehicles or more miles driven or idiots doing donuts, so if you just tax the externality directly you don't have to worry about which thing is causing it.

No-one actually wants to do this but the answer is to tax fuel. UK road tax for example already taxes bigger/heavier cars more (albeit not particularly granularly), so there’s your weight component. Fuel consumption is a decent proxy for distance.

Obviously there’s some maths needed on how to apply the tax to both ICE and EVs, and to think about edge cases (super efficient but hard on tyres), although my gut says that likely the harder you are on tyres, the harder you’ll be on fuel.

Fuel is already heavily taxed in most countries.

Yes, maybe should have written “increase tax”, but assumed most of the people reading would understand.

Ideally, sure. But it will result in people stretching their tires more and more, and thus more accidents.

We already tax 'distance' by putting tax on the petrol.

Usually you calculate with 20% more weight from EV. Significant, but not as much as the general trend to build housewife tanks.

Are you seriously arguing a Leaf is somehow the electric equivalent of a BMW 3 Series or an Outback?

No, I'm not. It's apples and oranges, without a doubt. But, when I look at what car fits my needs. It was an Outback before, and the major factor was reliability. The Leaf has performed admirably there, with only the equivalent ICE components needing servicing. I probably wouldn't buy a BMW, but my friend would and that's where we started - hey EV's are really heavy, I wonder how much heavier it is than my car? Huh, TIL.

Taxing is not for punishment. Taxing is to support the government who's role is to shepherd the people.

Doing a Formula 1 tace on a single set of tires would change the strategy in auto racing. I strongly disapprove.

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