[AlexanderB]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

You people are dreaming on getting a huge increase in gas tax. [...] It would be the biggest tax on the poor and middle class you could think of, the most regressive tax in the country.

You can always tax cars by weight, every month, and add a x3 bonus multiplier on it for 'missed income' from more efficient fuels like diesel.

Or tax cars upon initial purchase/import based on their EPA fuel economy rating, the less efficient, the more you pay. (The result is system-gaming and hybrids that have just enough electric range to pass the test.) Lots of Hybrid SUV's that get barely double digit MPG's while they promise 50+ mpg in the sales catalog. People get the luxury SUV, without the $100k in carbon-tax.

Make car insurance mandatory, and also put an insurance tax on every kind of insurance.

My country does all of these, including fuel tax.
My car costs me about $300 a month or about 25 cents a mile excluding write-off, and its not a giant suv, it's actually on the low end of the scale for what people pay here.

On top of all this, the gov't keeps proposing and then cancelling the idea of GPS-trackers to be mandatory in every car, for an additional tax. The idea is that its fairer to tax per mile (I mean, whats the 200% tax on fuel for then if not that) and to increase variable rate tax for the working class people who obviously drive around for fun at 7 am in the morning and 5 pm in the evening.

Originally Posted by freebeard

You call that cheap? I pay $0.052/kWh. Soon that will be expensive.

I pay about $0.22 a kwh where I live (about 50/50 split between power and fixed fees/taxes), and about $7 a gallon for gasoline.

Originally Posted by jakobnev

I disagree, we have had 50mpg+ cars for over 30 years. It would not be a tax on low incomes,

That sounds optimistic. Where I live, older cars get taxed higher / don't get tax breaks / get banned from cities because they were built before an arbitrary date. I mean, outside of hybrid systems, there hasn't been any kind of real world progress in emissions control systems in the past 25-30 years, but obviously everything older than 10 years is evil and should be scrapped and replaced with a nice new car. (A new car that has the same or worse economy, weighs more, gets taxed more, costs more to insure, etc..)

Originally Posted by jakobnev

it would be a tax on poor decisions.

Yes, I'm starting to think buying a car and working for my money was a poor descicion. I should've broken a leg or gotten me declared insane and gone on the dole, I'd probably have more money left over after not having to pay for a car. Poor people get a lot for free where I live, but as long as I have a car and a job, I'm not poor enough to qualify.

Originally Posted by jakobnev

And high mpg cars are cheaper than low mpg cars

Yes and no. Used cars certainly are not, used high-mpg cars barely depreciate while low mpg barges drop like a brick and reach "near-free" status after 15-ish years, because the tax and fuel to run it are worth more than the car.
For new cars though, the gov't incentive (read: massive tax on new low mpg cars, some tax deduction for electric cars) does make economy cars cheaper, doubly so if you pick a small hatchback instead of a bigger car, which a lot of people do.

Originally Posted by WyrTwister

How much for the energy ( that must come from some where , have not heard of any hydrogen wells ) ?

Industrial quantities of hydrogen are currently made by cracking natural gas into CO2/water/some hydrogen/bunch of waste heat.

For that reason, and the many other wasteful steps of hydrogen storage, I automatically assume every proponent of hydrogen as a fuel energy carrier to be at least uninformed or at worst an idiot who fell for the hype.

If you're using NG to make the hydrogen, just put a CNG tank on the (existing) truck like normal people. Requires less modification, and the infrastructure is not difficult, and already in place in a whole bunch of places around the world, including where I live. It's more efficient and less wasteful at every step of the way.