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A comment on Buried in the 2700 page infrastructure bill.

Re:Buried in the 2700 page infrastructure bill by powerbroker on Thursday August 05, 2021 @06:42PM (#28081011)
A tax/fee that treats a Hummer the same as a Toyota Corolla, is going to be regressive. Moreover, if CO2 reduction is among the goals of such a policy, then the costs of manufacturing the Hummer (plus running the grid for it) is going to feel less of a 'pinch' from the taxman than smaller cars.

At some point, as unpopular as this is, an increase on the per gallon gasoline tax is going to have to happen, if you want to pay for the growing infrastructure costs of mobility.

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Re:Buried in the 2700 page infrastructure bill by toomuchtodo on Thursday August 05, 2021 @07:39PM (#28081474)
Ford F150: 4,021 to 5,014 lbs

Hummer H2: 6,600 lbs

Model S: 4,500 to 4,900 lbs

Model 3: 3,648 to 4,250 lbs

Model Y: 4,416 lbs

Damage to the roadbed is proportional to the 4th power of the axle load of the vehicle. This means that if you double the weight on an axle, your vehicle does sixteen times the damage to the road.

In short, trucks do far more damage than the delta between light vehicles. A single class for light vehicles, and another for semis, buses, fire trucks, UPS trucks, FedEx trucks, bucket trucks, etc ("big trucks"), would be enough for proportional capture of revenue for the O&M expenses incurred. This is to fund road infrastructure. If you want to discourage combustion vehicles, use a carbon tax on fuel (per gallon/liter dispensed). That neatly segregates the concerns and encourages responsible behavior with both pools of funds collected. Otherwise, it's just one big ol' slushy fund.

(sidenote: speaking only for Tesla, it would be trivial to create an OAuth scope to mileage data for each vehicle based on their API structure)

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Re:Buried in the 2700 page infrastructure bill by throwawaysea on Thursday August 05, 2021 @07:42PM (#28081494)
> Damage to the roadbed is proportional to the 4th power of the axle load of the vehicle.

Can you share evidence for this? I have read that semi trucks cause the majority of road wear and tear damage but haven’t seen a specific mathematical relationship like this before.

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Re:Buried in the 2700 page infrastructure bill by chitowneats on Thursday August 05, 2021 @06:52PM (#28081116)
The fee could be adjusted based on vehicle weight. I assume this is one of the pricing models that the study will consider.
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