Will cars keep on growing as the bigger they are, the less mpg required by CAFE?

[Xist]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

I'm not in America, but I'd support dropping car purchase taxes to zero (including spare parts and servicing) and raising fuel taxes accordingly.

You are not the boss of us! :P

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by Xist

You are not the boss of us! :P

I meant for Australia, but

[freebeard]

Xist -- That was a call to action, not bossiness; now give us 50 push-ups.

[Xist]

Response to: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post454169

Originally Posted by freebeard

Xist -- That was a call to action, not bossiness; now give us 50 push-ups.

Thanks. I needed a kick in the proverbial pants. I have been slacking lately and I have also had difficulty sleeping. I only did forty push-ups.

IOU.

[Madact]

Now that.. would be political suicide. Don't you remember the brouhaha a few months back when they were talking about incrementing the fuel excise? The "poor people don't drive cars" fiasco? And rightly so in this country too, even if we did get decent public transport in the cities (not ***** likely) there are a lot of people on low incomes in regional areas that rely on their cars and would be very nastily impacted by higher fuel prices, with no good options to switch to something more efficient (wish everyone had the time and temperament to eco-mod, but sadly it ain't so).

A better strategy (if you're interested in results in terms of emissions etc.) might be to part-subsidise (or remove tax from) LRR tyres, and subsidise or otherwise encourage regular car service and tune-ups (say by rebating a large part of the cost, but only if the car is serviced regularly). I suspect there are a *lot* of cars out there that could gain 5-10% F.E. just by being kept in better shape, only the owners are living week-to-week and thus end up spending less on maintenance, which is a bigger hit at one time, and more on fuel, which is distributed over time and easier to justify as an expense from that mind set - "I needed the fuel" is a lot more 'obviously true' than "I needed to service the car", even if the saved fuel was worth more than the servicing (though that's debatable with current labour costs).

In the longer term though, there's no substitute for preventing gas-guzzlers from getting on the road in the first place. People buying an SUV, ricer or "hot ute" aren't going to change their choices based on a 50% increase in fuel cost. For those with no common sense (all too common unfortunately) common sense must be supplied :-/

[Grant-53]

Here in non-urban America public transportation is limited. The latest round of CAFE standards were negotiated with the auto industry. SUV's are getting lighter and more aero friendly than the original Blazers and Ramchargers. The critical measurements are the grams/mile of emissions and the passenger-miles per gallon. I would reduce the tax on diesel fuel and allow biodiesel to be tax free. Consider the Chevy Impala of today is twice as fuel efficient as the 1960's version. The goal is 500 passenger-miles per gallon.

[Madact]

Oh, the SUVs and 4WDs are definitely getting smaller, and cars are generally getting (slowly) more aero - but the phrase "kicking and screaming" comes to mind.

TBH, the CAFE limits earlier in this thread aren't too bad - if they were advanced about 10 years. You can bet that they'll get "re-negotiated" several times before that point though - like fusion power, decent fuel economy is always 10-20 years away.

Not sure how we'd get to 500 passenger-mpg with typical car occupancy though, that doesn't seem realistic (unless doing pre-charged hybrid number-fudging or similar)...

[Sven7]

like fusion power, decent fuel economy is always 10-20 years away.

People on here tend to forget that to many, many people, 20mpg for a truck and 30mpg for a car is "good" fuel economy.

[Hersbird]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

I'm not in America, but I'd support dropping car purchase taxes to zero (including spare parts and servicing) and raising fuel taxes accordingly.

As far as I know the US doesn't tax car purchases or the purchase of parts or service. Some individual states or cities do. The fuel taxes should only be to the extent of funding the infrastructure and some leeway should be allowed for the amount of GNP that is created by the use of that infrastructure. That is, why should roads have to 100% pay for themselves (especially when nothing else does) when they are the back bone of the over all economy?

On another note I would argue that nothing short of the Constitution itself has contributed more to our individual freedom then our automobile culture with low priced fuel and massive free road and highway system.

[Madact]

In Australia, fuel excise, car sales taxes, stamp duty, registration and trucking taxes add up to approximately 30% of road infrastructure spending. I was reading about it recently but forget the reference, sorry.

But yes, I think this is a great thing for personal freedom. Also, the idea that revenue from a particular source should be linked to spending in that area is a very simplistic narrative used to by politicians to mollify the public when raising unpopular taxes - possibly a useful PR tool, but not reflective of reality. It particularly annoys me when used as a justification for calls to make cyclists pay rego etc. given that the cyclist is already paying far, far more than their share (if they pay income tax).