this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 157 points 8 months ago (43 children)

Yeah well let's quit making 7000 pound consumer vehicles. Small EVs would be more efficient and better for the environment because they need less materials to build and and less energy to recharge.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (20 children)

Judging by the general trend I don't think this is happening anytime soon. The overall car industry is obsessed with even bigger cars.

And even in Europe it is sickening to see those half buses on our roads. And this is especially true for big cities, where parking space is very limited and usually those cars occupy park space for 1.5-2 cars.

And knowing that the fertility rate is really going down I wonder what justifies those cars.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (14 children)

That's because the USA subsidizes bigger trucks as "work vehicles". This practice needs to stop and they need to be taxed more than smaller vehicles.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (4 children)

That’s because the USA subsidizes bigger trucks as “work vehicles”.

Can you cite this? Don't get me wrong, I understand that if it's actually a work vehicle you probably get some tax credits/breaks, but I highly doubt many consumers are getting these breaks for buying large vehicles.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?feature=shared

Not op, but I really liked this video, as it explains quite a bit. It is of course a biased video, but still...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/jN7mSXMruEo?feature=shared

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I watched most of the video, it's primarily about safety. It's says the growth is mainly due to the regulations not applying the same to light trucks, which SUVs are classified as. This seems to contradict the claim that I was asking about.

If there is something about the state subsidizing the vehicles and I missed it, I would appreciate a time stamp. Noone needs to convince me that suvs are unsafe and an environmental disaster.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

In the US it is called the 179 deduction. For trucks over 6, 000 lb gross vehicle weight you can deduct the total price for the year the truck is put in service.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Thanks for the citation, I'll look into it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

In Australia it breaks down thusly. (for reference average wage is about $80k per annum).

If you buy a vehicle for $50k, you're entitled to claim a tax deduction for that cost, usually spread over a number of years.

However, if you buy a vehicle for $100k, you're only entitled to claim a tax deduction for the first ~$56k (changes each year), unless the vehicle has a large enough carrying capacity that it can be considered to have been designed for the purpose of carrying stuff rather than people.

This rule is designed to disallow deductions for wanky vehicles. Like why should someone be allowed a deduction for driving a wanky mercedes SLK when a cheap and chearful toyota camry can perform the same task of moving a taxpayer from point A to point B. Of course, if someone buys a $300k prime mover (tractor?) designed for hauling 90 tonnes of wheat from a farm to a port, it's just not possible to do that with a toyota camry so you should be entitled to claim the entire cost.

Suppose you have 2 vehicles, both costing $100k, one is a regular sized Toyota truck, and the other is a ridiculous RAM truck or something. Suppose you plan to sell whichever you buy, after 8 years or so, when it's value is $50k.

On the Toyota you can only claim a tax deduction on the $6k difference between the $56k notional purchase price and the $50k sale price, which if your tax rate is about a third then you save yourself $2k in tax, so the vehicle cost you $48k to own for 8 years.

On the RAM you can claim a tax deduction on the entire $50k difference between the $100k purchase price and the $50k sale price. A third of that is ~$16k, so it only cost you $34k to own that vehicle for 8 years.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

See my post above with citation.

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