In the UK tax is paid explicitly per car, in tiers of engine size (for passenger cars) and I should assume emissions / weight for commercial vehicles. Petrol is heavily taxed (by US standards), but that’s everywhere in the continent.

I like the idea of taxing tyres, as it explicitly taxes mileage and pollution. Would it create weird incentives? People running on tyres too long to avoid the tax? Reusing old, more polluting tyres?

Maybe we should just tax on mileage. In fact why not at the pump/charging station...