Electric Vehicles etc

hifiandmtb

Sphincter beanie
Kryton rates it very highly:


I do believe the Chinese are the new Japanese - they are turning out quality cars faster than the Japs managed to get a handle on.
 

beeb

Dr. Beebenson, PhD HA, ST, Offset (hons)
Kryton rates it very highly:


I do believe the Chinese are the new Japanese - they are turning out quality cars faster than the Japs managed to get a handle on.
Oh, if only we could get a normal looking estate instead of a fugly "compact SUV".

This is the ZS: (I haven't watched the ep yet)
 

beeb

Dr. Beebenson, PhD HA, ST, Offset (hons)
Another good article on the lack of urgency around the EV revolution in Australia:

'We'll be left behind': Australia's electric car inertia is getting it nowhere

This was something I hadn't picked up on previously either (I knew that emissions had increased, but not that it was benchmarked to such a long time ago...):
Meanwhile, national transport emissions have risen 17% since 2005, the year against which the government’s international climate commitment is measured.
 

hifiandmtb

Sphincter beanie
Not sure why there would be an expectation that emissions would be decreasing - we all seem to be driving willy nilly in bigger shitboxes than ever.
 

beeb

Dr. Beebenson, PhD HA, ST, Offset (hons)
Not sure why there would be an expectation that emissions would be decreasing - we all seem to be driving willy nilly in bigger shitboxes than ever.
Agreed, I was just flabbergasted that we were benchmarking against values from 2005.
 

leitch

Feelin' a bit rrranty
Victoria announcing a 2.5c/km tax on electric vehicle use like SA now too... What the actual fuck are these idiots doing?

“If you’re spending $180k on a Tesla you won’t notice a bit extra” says the CEO of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia... yer okay sure thing, guy who is about to get his marginal tax rate reduced to 30c.

Starting to smell like a bit of ScoMo National Cabinet back room dealing.
 

Plankosaurus

Spongeplank Dalepantski
Victoria announcing a 2.5c/km tax on electric vehicle use like SA now too... What the actual fuck are these idiots doing?

“If you’re spending $180k on a Tesla you won’t notice a bit extra” says the CEO of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia... yer okay sure thing, guy who is about to get his marginal tax rate reduced to 30c.

Starting to smell like a bit of ScoMo National Cabinet back room dealing.
What the actual fark is going on indeed!

Sent from my G8441 using Tapatalk
 

hifiandmtb

Sphincter beanie
Seems the fuck faces in the IPA were involved:


The statement from the IPA is misleading on many fronts. It ignores the many people who have bought second hand Nissan Leafs for less than $20,000 and who are certainly not millionaires. And it ignores the millionaires in hybrid Lexus cars and the like that pay little in the way of fuel excise.
Figures.

Straya. The land of disappearing up it's own arsehole.
 

leitch

Feelin' a bit rrranty
Seems the fuck faces in the IPA were involved:
I think the IPA they’re referring to is the quote I paraphrased above from the CEO of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (yeah, me either), not the Institute of Public Affairs (RWNJ “think tank”).

But yeah they were probably involved too.
 

Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
Victoria announcing a 2.5c/km tax on electric vehicle use like SA now too... What the actual fuck are these idiots doing?

“If you’re spending $180k on a Tesla you won’t notice a bit extra” says the CEO of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia... yer okay sure thing, guy who is about to get his marginal tax rate reduced to 30c.

Starting to smell like a bit of ScoMo National Cabinet back room dealing.
It's called paying for roads. I'm sure you've heard of them.

We currently pay for roads through a dogs breakfast of sources but one of the main ones is fuel excise.

Pay as you go charging is actually an improvement. It would be better again if it scaled with weight, carbon taxes and congestion charges.
 

leitch

Feelin' a bit rrranty
It's called paying for roads. I'm sure you've heard of them.

We currently pay for roads through a dogs breakfast of sources but one of the main ones is fuel excise.

Pay as you go charging is actually an improvement. It would be better again if it scaled with weight, carbon taxes and congestion charges.
It's been said many times, but fuel excise tax is not quarantined for road infrastructure, so no, it's not "one of the main ones" - fuel excise goes into consolidated revenue, the government of the day decides through budget allocation how much of total revenue is spent on infrastructure in balance with all other funding requirements. EVs may not contribute directly to fuel excise but they are more expensive on average, they are predominantly charged through purchased mains electricity etc etc so contribute to tax revenue elsewhere anyway. By eliminating tailpipe emissions they also contribute to reduced health system costs associated with pollution and don't contribute to urban heat island effects etc in the same way as ICE vehicles so there are other downstream cost reductions that benefit the whole system.

In this context, it is a direct disincentive to the uptake of EVs, which is already hampered by the lack of the sorts of incentives other jurisdictions have established - as you've noted re: congestion charges etc. At this point, when EV uptake is so low, we need to reduce the barriers to uptake, not increase them.

If fuel excise is not bringing in the revenue it once did, then it should be supplemented by congestion/emissions charges on all vehicles (i.e. majority ICE). A PAYG levy should be reserved until such a time as EVs represent a significant enough proportion of road stock (and are well enough supported, cheap enough etc as a result) to both not be a barrier to transition, and also be able to raise enough revenue to actually be worthwhile.

As is is, these taxes seem likely to cost more than they raise anyway, because there will continue to be fuck all EVs (meaning revenue raised will be low), and we'll still be having to cover the various costs associated with more and more Hiluxes and Rangers on the road from the diminished/diminishing funding envelope.
 
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Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
It's been said many times, but fuel excise tax is not quarantined for road infrastructure, so no, it's not "one of the main ones" - fuel excise goes into consolidated revenue, the government of the day decides through budget allocation how much of total revenue is spent on infrastructure in balance with all other funding requirements. EVs may not contribute directly to fuel excise but they are more expensive on average, they are predominantly charged through purchased mains electricity etc etc so contribute to tax revenue elsewhere anyway. By eliminating tailpipe emissions they also contribute to reduced health system costs associated with pollution and don't contribute to urban heat island effects etc in the same way as ICE vehicles so there are other downstream cost reductions that benefit the whole system.

In this context, it is a direct disincentive to the uptake of EVs, which is already hampered by the lack of the sorts of incentives other jurisdictions have established - as you've noted re: congestion charges etc. At this point, when EV uptake is so low, we need to reduce the barriers to uptake, not increase them.

If fuel excise is not bringing in the revenue it once did, then it should be supplemented by congestion/emissions charges on all vehicles (i.e. majority ICE). A PAYG levy should be reserved until such a time as EVs represent a significant enough proportion of road stock (and are well enough supported, cheap enough etc as a result) to both not be a barrier to transition, and also be able to raise enough revenue to actually be worthwhile.

As is is, these taxes seem likely to cost more than they raise anyway, because there will continue to be fuck all EVs (meaning revenue raised will be low), and we'll still be having to cover the various costs associated with more and more Hiluxes and Rangers on the road from the diminished/diminishing funding envelope.
Ok now go and sell that to people like me and my political masters who have been thinking about this for the last 5-10 years.
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So how did you go?
 

leitch

Feelin' a bit rrranty
Ok now go and sell that to people like me and my political masters who have been thinking about this for the last 5-10 years.
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So how did you go?
About as well as everyone else clearly... What's your point? That despite a decade of work by public servants and various research bodies, our political representatives still make decisions that act to uphold the status quo and satisfy the financial priorities of their corporate benefactors at the expense of progress? I think we already knew that.
 

Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
Ok now for the non smart arse answer.

EVs are inevitable. The technology is getting cheaper and better and ultimately the pollution regs will phase out pure ice cars internarionally even if a carbon tax doesn't .

If you want to hurry the whole process along the best way is to introduce a carbon tax. But this has proven difficult. I'm still optimistic that we will get one eventually.

Given that every government in Australia is struggling to balance its books, even before Covid, none of them are wild about the prospect of losing a revenue stream. Sure the states could give a tax break to hurry the adoption of EVs, but they know the best policy for EV adoption is a carbon tax and that's in the federal Govts purview. So why take the financial pain for an international problem when it was all the Feds screw up?
 
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