[kordite]

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.

[wodenokoto]

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)

[bboygravity]

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?

[notpushkin]

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.

[RobinL]

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

[porphyra]

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.

[yreg]

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?

[DanielHB]

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.

[jnsaff2]

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?

[pjerem]

> 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.

[rixed]

> 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.

[oliwarner]

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.

[danpad]

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.

[kordite]

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.

[mrweasel]

> 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.

[kordite]

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.

[cocoa19]

“ 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.

[juliusgeo]

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

[Cumpiler69]

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

[akira2501]

> 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.

[AnthonyMouse]

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.

[darkwizard42]

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?

[AnthonyMouse]

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.

[d1sxeyes]

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.

[extraduder_ire]

Fuel is already heavily taxed in most countries.

[ArnoVW]

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.

[raxxorraxor]

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

[ummonk]

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

[kordite]

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.

[pcunite]

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

[RecycledEle]

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