zx10rse a day ago

Automotive industry is one of the biggest scams on planet earth. One of my favorite cases recently is how Suzuki Jimny is banned in Europe and US because of emission standards allegedly, so the little Jimny is emitting 146g/km but somehow there is no problem to buy a G-Class that is emitting 358g/km oh and surprise surprise Mercedes are going to release a smaller more affordable G-Class [1].

[1] - https://www.motortrend.com/news/2026-mercedes-benz-baby-g-wa...

  • mft_ 21 hours ago

    Manufacturers must hit a level of CO2 emissions on average across their whole fleet. As such, Suzuki is choosing to discontinue the Jimny because of the tougher fleet average targets starting in 2025. Overall you’re right that it’s a bit of a fix; Mercedes ‘pools’ its emissions with other manufacturers/brands. It currently pools with Smart, but may also pool with Volvo/Polestar? [0] It’s such an obvious approach to ‘game’ the targets, it’s a wonder the EU didn’t see it coming when they introduced the scheme. [0] https://www.schmidtmatthias.de/post/mercedes-benz-intends-to...

    • throw10920 15 hours ago

      This is why its so important to be super careful with how you write regulation - because even if the intent was good, it's so hard to both anticipate unintended second- and third-order effects, and it's so difficult to update after you've pushed to production.

      Just like code, regulation isn't intrinsically valuable - it's a means to an end, and piling lots of poorly-written stuff on top of each other has disasterous consequences for society. We have to make sure that the code and law that we write is carefully thought out and crafted to achieve its desired effect with minimal complexity, and formally verify and test it when possible.

      (an example of testing law may be to get a few clever people into a room and red-team possible exploits in the proposed bill or regulation)

      • motorest 15 hours ago

        > This is why its so important to be super careful with how you write regulation - because even if the intent was good, it's so hard to both anticipate unintended second- and third-order effects, and it's so difficult to update after you've pushed to production.

        It seems that the goal is to pressure automakers to improve the efficiency across their entire line instead of simply banning low-efficiency models altogether.

        If an automaker discontinues a low-efficient model in order to have access to a market, isn't this an example of regulation working well?

        • throw10920 7 hours ago

          Did you read the parent comment?

          > so the little Jimny is emitting 146g/km but somehow there is no problem to buy a G-Class that is emitting 358g/km

          This is an example of a manufacturer discontinuing a more efficient vehicle while continuing to sell a larger vehicle that is significantly less efficient.

          That's the opposite of what you want. So, no, this is not an example of regulation working well.

      • [removed] 7 hours ago
        [deleted]
    • tonmoy 17 hours ago

      I don’t see the issue in that though. If the target was to keep the average emission down across the entire country and if inefficient brand A decided to merge with efficient brand B to keep the average down that seems like it still adheres to the spirit of the law

      • pbhjpbhj 10 hours ago

        Seems more like it meets the letter of the law.

        The spirit was surely be too accelerate efficiency by ensuring all manufacturers improve. That has been negated; reducing the necessary efficiency for some manufacturers just because others are doing well.

        It's like if you allowed multiple people to mix blood samples for a DUI check. Sure, there'd have to be less drinking over all, but some would still be drunk af and the effectiveness of the law would be greatly reduced.

        • Jweb_Guru 5 hours ago

          Not a great analogy. CO2 emissions are a global phenomenon, so the average emission level is exactly what matters. Drunkenness is not.

    • cenamus 12 hours ago

      A last effort to extend the many favors granted to the dying german auto industry

    • kranke155 18 hours ago

      They likely saw it coming… and deliberately did it this way.

      All local industry distorts their relevant politics. There’s lobbyists in the EU too.

      The EU economy has a lot of car manufacturing, so cars are probably a big deal in Brussels.

      • chihuahua 15 hours ago

        Especially in Germany, which has several major manufacturers (Daimler-Benz, VW, BMW) that are important to the economy. Additionally, VW is part owned by the government of one of the states, which is why they are frequently favored by the government. Despite various scandals at VW, there are rarely any serious consequences for the company, because the government always finds a way to make trouble go away.

        And Germany is fairly influential in the EU so they probably extend the protection of these companies to the EU level.

        • kranke155 7 hours ago

          EU politics are basically French, German politics vs smaller countries now, I think. The triangle balance of France, Germany, UK has been replaced by a more centralised but also more diffuse model, although Poland seems to be becoming more important.

      • motorest 14 hours ago

        > The EU economy has a lot of car manufacturing, so cars are probably a big deal in Brussels.

        Car manufacturing is a strategic component of a nation's defense infrastructure. It goes way beyond trade protectionism.

    • jimbob45 19 hours ago

      Is that weighted for individual car popularity? Because couldn’t you put three push cars in your lineup that you don’t realistically expect to sell and be fine?

      • rv3392 18 hours ago

        AFAIK the average emissions are based on cars that were actually sold. So yeah, it's weighted for popularity in a way.

  • mjrpes 20 hours ago

    I wonder if that's why Ford, Ram, and Nissan all at the same time decide to discontinue their mini cargo vans a year ago.

    • throwawaymaths 18 hours ago

      If you're talking about the ford transit (I'm just guessing) but maybe the tariff rules changed? IIUC The transit was shipped to the US from europe as a "bus" because it was configured with car seats on board and then they would strip the seats and ship them back to europe. Buses are exempt from tariffs otherwise municipal public transit would be even more in the drink.

      • mjrpes 17 hours ago

        This is the Ford Transit Connect. They're known as mini cargo vans and popular with trades and for city driving because they're slightly smaller than a mini van. The equivalent to the Transit Connect was the Ram ProMaster City and Nissan NV200. They all were discontinued within two years of each other.

        • rasz 10 hours ago

          >This is the Ford Transit Connect.

          isnt that a VW made in Poland?

  • DidYaWipe 13 hours ago

    The Jimny is my favorite example of a cool little vehicle that would address a glaring hole in the U.S. market.

    The situation here is pathetic. We can't have truly small trucks or sport-utes because of obviously incompetent or corrupt regulations.

  • leephillips 20 hours ago

    The Jimny or similar Suzuki models would not be offered for sale in the U.S. because it’s basically the latest iteration of the Samuri, which died there after Consumer Reports falsely claimed that it was dangerously prone to rollover.

    • kranner 18 hours ago

      The Samuri, sold in India as the Gypsy and used extensively by Indian police, did rollover alarmingly often until the 1993 model when the track width was increased by 90mm.

      • olyjohn 14 hours ago

        Yeah but look at it. It's a tall vehicle. Of course it's more likely to roll over. It's tall so that it can go over things. It has a purpose. Don't drive it like a sports car and dont haul your family in it on the daily. People bought utility vehicles and used them as family haulers and then bitched when they rolled over. It's stupid. Drive a car.

        It's like complaining that you bought a boat, but the water surrounding them is dangerous and you could drown in it. So we need to make it work on land so that you can take the kids to school in it without drowning.

    • pelagic_sky 20 hours ago

      I had rented a barebones Jimny last month when I was in Auckland for the week. Not saying it was prone to roll. But holy hell was it feeling like I could roll that bad boy on some curvy gravel roads. I also loved it.

    • DidYaWipe 13 hours ago

      I don't recognize it as being a Samurai descendent.

      Related note: I just saw a Suzuki Sidekick on the road in L.A., in Geo Tracker trim... a rare sight nowadays. It sounded like shit, but with a robust platform a vehicle like that would be just what the U.S. market lacks: a burly SMALL sport-ute.

MostlyStable a day ago

Example #5621 that a simple carbon tax would be miles better than the complex morass of regulations we currently have.

  • aidenn0 a day ago

    That's overly reductive.

    1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive.

    2. You can work around #1 by applying incentives for manufacturers to make more efficient cars should lead any carbon tax

    3. If you just reward companies based on fleet-average fuel economy without regard to vehicle size, then it would be rather bad for US car companies (who employ unionized workers) that historically make larger cars than Asian and European companies.

    4. So the first thing done was to have a separate standard for passenger vehicles and light-trucks, but this resulted in minivans and SUVs being made in such a way as to get the light-truck rating

    5. We then ended up with the size-based calculation we have today, but the formula is (IMO) overly punitive on small vehicles. Given that the formula was forward looking, it was almost certain to be wrong in one direction or the other, but it hasn't been updated.

    • MostlyStable a day ago

      All carbon tax is inherently regressive but that's also trivially fixable. Make it revenue neutral and give every citizen a flat portion of the total collected revenue. Bam, it is now progressive, since on average richer people will spend more on fuel (and therefore the tax) even though it is likely a much smaller percentage of their spending.

      Every single one of your ideas has problems that are solved by a carbon tax. Taxes are simple, they accomplish what you want, and they don't have loopholes. A carbon tax will _never_ have the unintended consequence of making emissions worse. Many of our current regulations, including the one I was responding to do exactly that because they actually cause people to buy larger trucks than they otherwise would with worse fuel efficiency.

      A carbon tax might not on it's own be enough to solve the problem (especially if you set it to low), but no matter what level you set it, it will help. Thanks to unintended consequences, many of our current regulations are actively counter productive, while _also_ having negative economic and other costs.

      • abakker a day ago

        All costs are regressive to people with less ability to bear them. By making them not regressive we don't change behavior! It doesn't matter if they're regressive if the objective is to get people to not drive or to burn less gas. Shifting the cost to the rich doesn't change behavior and it doesn't reduce actual carbon. There's a lot more low-income emitters than high income ones.

      • adverbly a day ago

        You are correct that most consumption taxes are intrinsically regressive, but you can turn pretty much any consumption tax into a progressive one by simply taking the money and redistributing it at a flat amount per person.

        I believe this would be more fair to children who are the ones who will be most impacted by climate change in the end.

        I believe there are even some governments that use this approach, but many of them don't make it feel as significant as it should. You should get a big fat cheque in the mail every month as if you won the lottery.

      • Thrymr a day ago

        It's hard to see any of this as "trivially fixable." Taxes are inherently political, politics are complicated, changing incentives on this scale are pretty much impossible in our political system.

        "Taxes are simple... and they don't have loopholes" is not at all how taxes work in the US. Perhaps your imagined perfect carbon tax is simple, but a simple tax with no loopholes is not likely to happen. Everyone wants a break or exception, and many of the interested parties are powerful.

      • Wowfunhappy a day ago

        ^ In addition, I find it notable that the political party that is in favor of more regressive taxes is also against a carbon tax.

        In an ideal world, I'd like the tax to be made more progressive, but I'll take anything!

      • Mister_Snuggles a day ago

        I see the carbon tax as a 'stick' (to penalize undesired behaviour, in this case emitting carbon), but it needs to be coupled with a 'carrot' to encourage the desired behaviours.

        I'd like to see a carbon tax coupled with massive investments to make public transit legitimately good. There are too many places where there is no viable alternative to driving, a carbon tax will unnecessarily punish those people without giving them a reasonable alternative.

        • Retric a day ago

          The carrot is doing the things you want to do like getting from A to B or building a home.

          Government ‘carrots’ are almost universally a terrible idea because they codify specific solutions. Instead you can get the same effect more efficiently with a carbon tax large enough for people to notice.

      • WalterBright 17 hours ago

        Finally, some common sense!

        I'll boil it down to:

            If you want less of something, tax it.
        
        It's the most efficient mechanism for internalizing external costs.
      • michpoch a day ago

        > since on average richer people will spend more on fuel

        Why would you think so? People driving older cars, not being able to afford to fly - will certainly spend more money on fuel for their car.

      • somat a day ago

        We already have a carbon tax, you pay it when you buy the carbon. 3 cents per liter federally and an additional 18 cents per liter in California specifically.

      • parineum 14 hours ago

        > Make it revenue neutral and give every citizen a flat portion of the total collected revenue. Bam, it is now progressive,

        Unfortunately, poor people don't have the cash on hand to hold them over until they get their Carbon Stipend on April 15th.

        It's going to hurt poor people to charge them more at the counter, even if you give them more later. The stipend is just going to end up paying for less than the interest the tax created on a credit card.

    • danans a day ago

      > 1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive.

      You give it back to poor as a income-phased out refundable tax credit. Crucially, base it not on how much they drive or consume, but on their income.

      Name it something like the "Worker's Energy Credit". In the worst case, it cancels out the carbon tax spent by them commensurate with their lower income.

      In the best case poor people who don't drive much actually come out ahead, and it's just a very progressive sales tax.

      The rich might hate it, and call it "redistribution", which is fine because that's exactly what it is, and what taxes have always been, but this one would redistribute downwards instead of upwards, and incentivize lower carbon emissions by those who can afford it.

      • jeffbee 19 hours ago

        This is way too complicated. You just give it to everyone unconditionally and tax it as income. We already have progressive graduated income taxes with a huge exempt class, we don't need to layer anything on top of that.

      • betelgeuse6 15 hours ago

        Why don't the poor just buy smaller cars? Less weight - less pollution. Nobody needs a to drive a pickup, unless they run a farm or construction firm. A car weighing less than a ton would be perfectly enough for 99.9 % of drivers.

      • sokoloff 21 hours ago

        Giving it back based on being alive on Dec 31 seems the best solution to me. (It’s very difficult to game and if you give 900 billionaires under a million bucks in total, it’s just not that big a deal…)

      • dgfitz a day ago

        > The rich might hate it, and call it "redistribution", which is fine because that's exactly what it is, and what taxes have always been, but this one would redistribute downwards instead of upwards, and incentivize lower carbon emissions by those who can afford it.

        Larry Page would be pumped. His annual salary is $1.

        I feel pretty strongly that adding exceptions and loopholes to taxes only benefit wealthy people, which is the opposite of the intent.

        I would be interested in reading a study where all the tax laws in the country were burned down and rebuilt, with no loopholes or exceptions. Also, eliminate borrowing against a stock portfolio. That is downright evil.

    • breakyerself a day ago

      Carbon taxes become progressive with the simple step of returning the revenue to taxpayers as a dividend payment using the existing social security payment infrastructure. Richer people have such outsized carbon footprints that most people would get back more in dividends than they lost in higher costs.

    • bflesch a day ago

      Meanwhile jet fuel for private jets is (and remains) not taxed at all, even in the EU.

      • almostnormal a day ago

        > Meanwhile jet fuel for private jets is (and remains) not taxed at all, even in the EU.

        Not correct. Fuel for private aviation is taxed, including jet fuel and avgas. However, there are very few "private" jets, most are operated by some company, and therefore not private. Jet-A1 for a truely privately operated C172 with a diesel engine is taxed.

      • cogman10 a day ago

        Which is bonkers. If ever there was a thing that should be taxed it's jet fuel for private jets. 300% tax on private jet fuel would be reasonable.

        The emissions just to shuttle rich people from one side of the country to the next (For some, multiple times per day) is insane. You should need to be a billionaire just to afford flying private jets and it should still eat a significant portion of your income if that's what you choose to do.

        And for what? Like, we live in the modern era, why does anyone need to travel from NY to Florida to Texas to California in a day?

      • michpoch a day ago

        What makes a jet private? Should Trump's Boegin 757 count as one? What if an airline is flying a jet with no passengers? Cargo jets?

    • xvokcarts a day ago

      Looks like as long as only positive change is allowed to touch the poor, there will be little change.

      • austhrow743 a day ago

        Going to let us burn because not doing so would be regressive.

    • morepedantic 15 hours ago

      TIL poor people can't pollute, so their market segment shouldn't be incentivized to cut pollution.

      TIL that US car companies won't make smaller cars in the face of different regulations, even though they made larger cars in response to current regulations.

      The only way to avoid perversions is to tax the problem directly. The market will adjust to all proxies in unintended and harmful ways.

      • parineum 14 hours ago

        A disincentive on a thing you don't want makes people choose another thing that you may or may not want.

        The only way to avoid perversions is to incentivize the things you want.

        Taxing cigarettes led to vaping. Maybe less bad but still a nuisance.

    • AdrianB1 a day ago

      If you want to reduce carbon emissions, if the tax is regressive or not does not matter as long as you tax emissions. If you want to mix too many things, you will not get a good solution for any.

    • bongodongobob a day ago

      Are you saying used car sales would have a carbon tax? I've never heard anyone suggest anything like that. It's just a tax on new items.

    • nullc a day ago

      > 1. Poorer people tend to drive older vehicles, so if you solely encourage higher fuel economies by taxing carbon emissions, then the tax is (at least short-term) regressive.

      The idea that policy makers care about this in any meaningful sense is absurd given the EV mandates, as EV's radically change the lifecycle costs of cars in a way that is absolutely destructive to people who aren't wealthy.

      EV's lower the 'fueling' cost but shift part of it into large cashflow crushing battery replacement costs.

      Automobiles have been a significant engine in elevating less wealthy americans because you can buy a old junky car for very little and keep it limping along with use-proportional fuel costs and minor maintenance. Even if it's an inefficient car, you use it to go to work, so you're making money to pay for the fuel. Less work, less work fuel required.

      EV's significantly break the model and will push many more less wealthy people onto predatory financing which they'll never escape. Yet policy makers refuse to even discuss the life-cycle cashflow difference of EVs, and continue to more forward with policies to eventually mandate their use.

      > it was almost certain to be wrong in one direction or the other, but it hasn't been updated.

      It's been broken all along. We've had decades to fix it.

    • renewiltord 17 hours ago

      Yeah that’s the truth. The mass of poor people are the predominant polluters. They produce little of value and pollute a lot. So the question then is whether you care about the environment or about the poor and most people would rather the latter.

  • ponector a day ago

    I think the best way is to tax fuel itself. This way worse mpg result in more tax.

    Tax diesel more than gasoline, LNG less.

    • michpoch a day ago

      This is already done, in Europe most of the fuel costs are taxes.

    • nandomrumber 21 hours ago

      Thereby penalising existing vehicle owners who can’t switch to a more efficient vehicle overnight.

      We have to come up with a rigorous alternative that doesn’t disproportionately affect lower income folk, because people tend not to be overly concerned about nebulous concepts like the climate impacts on unborn future generations, especially when my carbon impact at the margin is negligible when taken in context of global population.

      • ponector 8 hours ago

        If it is an issue - then option is to have less driving. Take a bus once in a while. Or bike.

        Or switch to another old vehicle. Take old Golf instead of RAM, etc.

    • ChadNauseam a day ago

      That makes sense, but there would be no incentive to switch to an engine that emits less carbon for the same fuel consumption (if such a thing exists)

      • AdrianB1 a day ago

        You don't create carbon out of thin air, it's from the fuel, so burning the same quantity of fuel will result in the same quantity of carbon, no matter how the engine works. Therefore a tax on fuel is a tax on carbon.

      • idiotsecant a day ago

        By definition, more carbon is less efficiency. Efficiency is about how much of the hydrocarbon you turn into heat. Diesels often burn a little dirty. That's partly because diesel engines don't burn all the fuel

    • DrillShopper a day ago

      We already do in the US (but the money mostly goes to road maintenance)

      • ponector 8 hours ago

        Apparently not enough, as USA has quite cheap fuel. Add 100% carbon tax and people will start to pay attention to MPG ratings. With x2 price increase gasoline in USA is still cheaper than in Germany.

    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 21 hours ago

      Isn't that what a carbon tax is? Adding a tax to the fossil fuel based on carbon content.

  • rcpt a day ago

    The purpose of the CAFE regulations is very explicitly to favor American automakers who make big trucks.

    • tlb a day ago

      It wasn't the intended purpose. It turned out that way because the Detroit lobbyists were smarter and more motivated than the government policy people, and they bamboozled them.

      • smallmancontrov a day ago

        The congress critters knew what they were doing and didn't do it for free.

    • aidenn0 21 hours ago

      That was one of several purposes.

  • conductr a day ago

    This has been a known problem and could be changed if the political will to make common sense policy changes and corrections when needed was anywhere near existing. Unfortunately, we live in a [political] dystopia

  • JumpCrisscross 21 hours ago

    > a simple carbon tax would be miles better than the complex morass of regulations we currently have

    Doesn't this just punt the morass into the magic variable of one's carbon footprint?

    How about this: fleet efficiency standards are stupid, anachronistic and counterproductive. Scrap them. Then, separarately, create a consumer-side rebate based on a vehicle's mileage. (Because a gas tax breaks American brains.)

    • SecretDreams 20 hours ago

      > How about this: fleet efficiency standards are stupid, anachronistic and counterproductive. Scrap them. Then, separarately, create a consumer-side rebate based on a vehicle's mileage. (Because a gas tax breaks American brains.)

      It's a good concept that is also ripe for abuse with anyone who has some amount of "fuck your rules" money. Same reason why fines that don't scale with income/earnings in some form often do nothing to deter "the rich".

      I certainly like carrots more than sticks, but we need a couple of sticks as well.

      • morepedantic 15 hours ago

        Scaling fines with income only works to hard stop behavior, at which point just make it illegal. Most fines are proportional to damages.

        Criminalizing fossil fuels is insane. The fines should cover the externalities.

        • SecretDreams 7 hours ago

          > Scaling fines with income only works to hard stop behavior,

          No, it makes it so that the outcome is more equally felt across all income levels.

          What does someone affluent care if they have to pay a $100 speeding ticket or a $20 parking ticket? That's just the cost of business for them.

  • bgnn a day ago

    why can't we just tax the gas at the pump? this is, at least, what I'm used to in Europe.

    • brianwawok a day ago

      We do. But it’s a super regressive tax. Lots of very poor people depend on a bad MPG car to get to work and live.

      • morepedantic 15 hours ago

        If you subsidize polluting life-styles, you'll get pollution.

        You think the rich suffer from pollution and car dependency? It's not at all clear that taxing gas will lead to worse outcomes for the poor. It's entirely clear that subsidizing pollution from the poor will lead to worse outcomes for the planet.

        • kaishiro 7 hours ago

          What isn’t clear about the fact that increasing commuting costs for those living paycheck to paycheck leads to a worse outcome?

      • bgnn a day ago

        that's a different problem. US cities used to have good publhc transport, but the urvanization policies since 50s is car-centric. plus, because of the American cars having huge engines they have bad MPG. The current situation US is in is nothing to do with the tax regime.

  • guywithahat a day ago

    I don’t think it would be possible to produce a carbon tax that’s simple

    • patmcc a day ago

      Tax the fuel. Gasoline now has a $X/gallon tax, as does propane, as does coal, whatever.

      What is the difficulty with that?

      • hamilyon2 10 hours ago

        Not clear what is meant here. Does ethanol from corn count? Methane from waste dumps? Gray hydrogen? Wood pellets? Ammonia?

        Electricity from unclear source?

        Human ingenuity is infinite. It is not enough to enact simple rules, people will just produce electricity with hydrogen and claim it green if it will make them profit. If it will help them evade carbon tax. Nevermind that hydrogen came from some extremely polluting process involving damaging our planet atmosphere and everyone's health.

        • kurthr 15 minutes ago

          Well, you don't need to tax the ethanol from corn or methane from waste dumps or wood pellets, or ammonia itself. You would tax the oil/gas/coal that came out of the ground that was used to fertilize the corn, process the corn, transport the corn, and distill the ethanol (otherwise it's double taxation). You don't need to tax the wood pellets or the stove they're burned in, or the electricity, just the carbon that is burned to make and transport them. So this is largely irrelevant.

          A better question would be for imported items and services. How do you prevent tax shifting from carbon emission havens, which is no different from financial tax havens now. You tax them at entry using the most beautiful word, "tariffs". If an importing country doesn't tax carbon or carbon tariff their imports then you tariff them. Interestingly, it would then be a higher tariff for air transport than shipping. Where it actually get complicated is services, which people really don't like taxing. But if I run a LLM datacenter on coal in china or make bitcoin burning middle east oil, or consult on green projects on Indonesian gas those should be tariffed as well, and that's more difficult.

      • kasey_junk a day ago

        It’s extremely regressive. You’d need to also give a rebate based on income level.

  • [removed] a day ago
    [deleted]
  • osigurdson 19 hours ago

    If interested in a case study, have a look at Canada's experiment with it.

  • timewizard a day ago

    Fuel is already taxed. What would a "carbon tax" add here?

darth_avocado 21 hours ago

And what you’re describing is exactly the reason Kei trucks aren’t a thing despite most farmers actually liking them for their utility.

You can’t import them unless they are old because we want to protect the automotive industry. But we can’t build them new either because they don’t meet the safety standards (FMVSS) and are penalized more for being fuel efficient because the standards are stricter for smaller vehicles.

  • ganoushoreilly 20 hours ago

    To be fair, kei trucks are horrible in crashes too. That’s a big part of states starting to ban them.

    • darth_avocado 15 hours ago

      Motorbikes are much worse in crashes than kei trucks, we are more than happy to make, sell and operate them. I don’t actually buy the “unsafe” reasoning. It’s also perfectly street legal to buy and drive cars and trucks from the 60s with abysmal safety ratings.

    • proggy 15 hours ago

      They’re horrible in crashes in the North American region. That’s because the average vehicle size in North America is much, much bigger than the vehicles in the Kei trucks’ region of origin. And streets in North America are, on average, much, much wider and permit higher speed traffic than those in Japan. The cars themselves aren’t inherently unsafe; if you keep them mostly on private property and only take them out on low-speed public roads with light duty vehicles, they’re still operating in an appropriate context. Also pretty appropriate in historic city centers where the roads aren’t too fast and the trucks and full size SUVs aren’t too numerous. But yeah, take one out on the interstate boxed between two semi trucks, an F-350, and a Suburban and you’re going to be in real danger.

mtillman a day ago

Fine print: The truck in the link is only $20K after government subsidies/rebates. So if the government gives my tax dollars to buyers of this truck, then it will cost $20K.

  • Brybry a day ago

    Electric vehicle tax credits are non-refundable tax credits meaning you can't get a credit for more than you owe. [1][2]

    Which means no one is getting your tax dollars to buy vehicles (though there may be some infrastructure or manufacturing grants for companies).

    [1] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12600

    [2] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-credits-for-individuals-wha...

    • crazygringo a day ago

      That's not really true.

      If the taxes someone would otherwise pay are going to their electric vehicle instead, somebody else has to make up the difference.

      So yes, other people are getting my tax dollars to buy electric vehicles. It just takes two steps rather than one, if you want to look at it that way.

      • Brybry 20 hours ago

        Is the standard deduction giving people your tax dollars? Anyone who itemizes?

        What if someone declines a promotion and thus doesn't increase their income and pay more taxes? Is that also taking your tax dollars?

        Sure, yes, if the government doesn't follow PAYGO[1] (which they almost never do) and offset tax expenditures (tax incentives) with reduced direct spending and government debt increases then maybe, some day, some portion of your tax dollars may get indirectly spent on this.

        But how do we really know? Do we know what other secondary effects will come from these tax incentives?

        If electric cars catch on maybe the government will get more revenue somewhere else (there are North American manufacturing requirements to qualify after all) or have to spend less revenue on something else (surely burning oil must have some effect).

        Or maybe the person getting the electric vehicle then uses it to make more money and pay more taxes than they would have before (unlikely but possible).

        But, directly, they're getting back their own money. The real issue with the credit is that it disproportionately favors people who already make a lot of money (but taxes also disproportionately tax people who make more money so maybe that's fair).

        [1] https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL31943

        • crazygringo 4 hours ago

          > But, directly, they're getting back their own money.

          It doesn't matter. Everyone else is now paying for all the federal government services they consume. Other people are paying for that. It's literally that simple.

      • nonameiguess a day ago

        Congress doesn't retroactively raise tax rates to make up the difference. If the government budget ends up in a deficit, which obviously it does, not just because of this but for many reasons, that is financed via debt. This isn't passed to the population as higher taxes, but as inflation, which affects everyone equally, including whoever got the tax credits in the first place.

    • tzs 14 hours ago

      However instead of taking the credit yourself you can transfer it to the dealer at time of purchase to use toward the purchase. You can transfer the full $7500 credit regardless of how much tax you eventually end up owing for the year.

    • anannymoose a day ago

      So, should I wish to purchase a vehicle this tax year, I tell my HR to adjust my income withholding such that I owe 7,500$ come tax time and then reap the rewards?

      Or is there more to the incentive structure?

      • palmtree3000 a day ago

        Withholding isn't relevant here. Non refundable means it can't cause the government to net pay you money: that is to say, it can't make your refund larger than your withholding.

        • anannymoose a day ago

          Adjust my withholding to generate a debt to Th enticement that I claim the rebate on? I think you’re thinking the other direction.

      • floxy a day ago

        What you have withheld is not part of the equation. It is your tax liability that matters.

      • Brybry a day ago

        The government still gives you back your money in a refund if you overpay them.

        Though, of course, you don't earn interest on it while the government is holding it.

    • PopAlongKid a day ago

      >Which means no one is getting your tax dollars to buy vehicles

      Then who is making up the difference between the tax that would have been paid, and the credit reduction?

  • floxy a day ago

    Even finer print: the $7,500 federal incentive is a tax rebate. If you don't have a $7,500 tax liability, you won't get the full amount. (this also applies if you transfer the credit to the dealer at point of sale). I mean, money is fungible and all, but your particular tax dollars aren't going to people who buy EVs, they are just paying less in taxes.

  • standardUser a day ago

    As opposed to other prices that are not the product of a political economy?

  • nullc a day ago

    It's ~28k without them, particularly when considering recent inflation it's an attractive price... inflation corrected it's in the vague ballpark of other small IC trucks when they were still available.

    E.g. a early 2000's Nissan frontier base model was $23k in today's money. It was a somewhat better speced (e.g. more hauling capacity) and much better range, but this new car likely has significantly lower operating costs that would easily justify a 5k uplift.

    So I think it ought to be perfectly viable without the subsidy, especially so long as the absurd CAFE standards continue to exist giving EV's a monopoly on this truck size.

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  • aaroninsf a day ago

    Yes, and you will benefit, because the role of the state is to advance the collective and common good.

    That's why we have TeH gOvErNmEnT.

_fat_santa a day ago

My favorite thing to come out of CAFE regulations was the Aston Martin Cygnet. It was just a re-badged Toyota iQ whose sole purpose was to raise the average fuel economy within their fleet.

Later they made a one off version for Goodwood that has a V8 stuffed under the hood.

  • mmooss a day ago

    > My favorite thing to come out of CAFE regulations was the Aston Martin Cygnet. It was just a re-badged Toyota iQ whose sole purpose was to raise the average fuel economy within their fleet.

    Maybe that's a good thing. It compelled Aston Martin to provide their customers with a fuel-efficient option.

    • masklinn a day ago

      Nobody looking for a fuel efficient car would look at Aston, and nobody looking at Aston would go for a fuel efficient car.

      Which was borne by its sales: sold for nearly 3 times the price you'd have paid Toyota for an iQ, it sold all of 600 units in two years before being cancelled, Aston's second shortest production run. The shortest was the Virage which sold more than 1000 units in a year.

      • pm3003 8 hours ago

        At some point they offered a free Cygnet if you bought one of their other models.

    • lupusreal a day ago

      Rebadging doesn't add any meaningful consumer choice.

nimish 17 hours ago

Repealing these Obama era rules would go a long way to restoring automotive affordability. Can't undo cash for clunkers though

UncleOxidant a day ago

This is largely why all the vehicles around us have become supersized. It's completely idiotic.

  • ethagnawl a day ago

    It's also who sedans and compact cars have largely ceased to exist. The vast majority of new vehicles are crossovers or _light trucks_, which aren't held to the same emission/efficiency standards.

    • Aurornis a day ago

      > It's also who sedans and compact cars have largely ceased to exist.

      Consumer demand is still an important factor.

      Sedans and compact cars are still out there, sitting on dealer lots with reasonable prices.

      • Workaccount2 a day ago

        Yeah but the only way to protect myself if hit by a freight train is to also drive a freight train.

  • Yhippa a day ago

    Anybody know how it got to this point? It can't be because of regulatory capture, right? I don't think small cars are getting made for the US because of SUV mania and something like a 67 MPG requirement for the Honda Fit based on it's build.

    • Aurornis a day ago

      > I don't think small cars are getting made for the US because of SUV mania and something like a 67 MPG requirement for the Honda Fit based on it's build.

      The famous 67MPG requirement was for a hypothetical 2026 model year car

      But Honda discontinued the Fit in the United States in 2020, long before the hypothetical 2026 target.

      The reason is consumer demand. People weren't buying them. There are thousands of lightly used Honda Fits on the used market for reasonable prices, but they're not moving.

      Yes, the regulations are flawed, but that doesn't change the lack of consumer demand.

      • AlexandrB a day ago

        > The reason is consumer demand. People weren't buying them.

        I think this over-simplifies things. Strict milage standards force a set of compromises on ICE car design that make them both shittier and more expensive[1]. Why would anyone buy such a product when they can get an SUV instead?

        [1] Some examples: turbochargers, CVTs, start/stop systems. All of these increase both the cost and complexity of building as well as repairing the car. And with higher complexity comes higher chances for something to fail as well so reliability suffers.

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nullc a day ago

I have a small(*) twenty year old i4 pickup and I regularly get cash offers for it while out and about. There is a lot of demand for the small inexpensive and relatively fuel efficient utility vehicles that the government currently prohibits manufacturing.

(*Ironically, though small it has a considerably longer bed than many currently produced larger and less fuel efficient trucks... I'm mystified by trucks that can't even contain a bike without removing a wheel or hanging one over a gate. Looks like the bed on this EV is a bit short too, but a short bed on a small truck is more excusable than a short bed on a huge truck)

api a day ago

> since 2011, bigger cars are held to a lesser standard by CAFE[1].

... and this is why American cars got so huge, if anyone was curious.