Question Of The Day: How Would You Reform CAFE?
In response to today’s editorial on the CAFE overview, reader jmo proposed a novel solution to the very idea of regulating fuel economy.
Jmo writes:
“We don’t need to scrap CAFE”
Sure we do and replace it with a $2/gallon gas tax.
To hell you say, abolish both. But, between CAFE and fracking we’ve really put the screws to Iran, Venezuela and Russia. I’m all for the free market but we also have geopolitical enemies that need to be dealt with and low oil prices are far more productive than wars at keeping our enemies in check.
I like the idea of a gas tax in place of CAFE. Let the people buying the gas guzzlers take the hit, rather than punish the consumers with vehicles that designed around a deeply flawed set of regulations. In countries where gasoline taxes are higher, consumers tend to gravitate towards smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles.
Unless you’re Canada, where the Ford F-Series, Ram 1500 and GM full-size trucks still dominate the sales chart s. Canadian consumers do tend to shy away from thirstier passenger cars, but they love their pickups, and are willing to shell out at the pump in exchange for the chance to drive one.
Let’s hear your thoughts or alternative suggestions below
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0: kill every road, registration, and gas tax 1: decide which particular emissions you want to remove (co2, nox, whatever the fuck) 2: Insert sniffer in tailpipe 3: run on dyno at top gear at 100mph 4: subtract current mileage from mileage 1 year ago 5: multiply each emission element by its cost multiplied by the mileage difference 6: send a bill No bullshit over size, weight, or vehicle class. Just a straight tax per emission per mile. Drive an electric? No tax. Drive a clean car? Low tax. Drive a dirty car? High tax. Drive a lot of miles? High tax.
I am not going to wade through 163 comments. I am sure it has been said before. Consider tha a kind of a vote. Tax the hell out of it like in Europe, and plow that tax money back into providing the world class roads the "richest nation on earth" deserves.
If I ruled the world, we would simply have gas taxed to a reasonable level. $8 a gallon should do it. I would phase it in over a long enough period of time to allow for the fleet to adjust to it. Since that is not going to happen, then just make CAFE simple. None of this silly "footprint" crap or averaging imports separately or trucks separately or whatever. One target, make it or pay a big fat penalty that you can pass to your customers or eat, maker's choice. If you want your business model to be selling 20mpg trucks, fine, but that will be $10K per vehicle sold penalty please. If they are profitable enough that you can eat that, good for you! If not, pass it along to your customer. Sell all the big fat trucks and Hellcats you want, but if you can't manage to sell some really fuel efficient vehicles to offset them you are going to pay. This all assumes we even have a societal desire to minimize or reduce energy consumption. I don't really care, I'll be dead long before it will be an issue, and I don't plan to breed.
ITT: car enthusiasts that support higher fuel taxes?? What. I'm not an old guy by any means but what about freedom and free markets? You might argue Cafe provided an increased fleet average fuel economy, but there is no proof of this. You don't know what things would look like if there hadn't been Cafe. I might argue a few price shocks would be all it takes for people to change their behaviors. And if not, they live with their shortsightedness. That's supposed to be how it works. Or look at other parts of cars that advanced tremendously without any mandates. Tires, brakes, handling, Airbags, stability control, advanced materials, radar Collison systems etc etc. Those all happened on their own. Would higher mpg also not have occurred on its own? And at what cost? To save $10 in fuel you throw on thousands in expensive gadgets, made with rare earth materials that are hard and environmentally damaging, often in countries also our "enemies" (I will leave how they because "enemies" alone). These gadgets then break costing a lot of money to fix replace etc etc etc. All this does is reduce personal and economic freedom, reduce living standards, reward those connected or waste money on pointless agencies that add nothing to the overall quality of life of the people. Get rid of all of this. Taxes should only cover the expenses of those who use the services. Anything else is, IMHO, just an unnecessary crimp on freedom to live your life in the manner you best see fit.