Small fun sports cars don't cost that much in fuel do they? Ferrari and Bugatti owners are pretty insensitive to fuel prices anyway.

Fuel tax is the best solution. Pay as you go.

More fuel you consume more emissions you produce, more distance you go, more road your wear occurs.

Do you want to get 8l V8 engine? Fine, just pay your fuel taxes.

Each US state has a gas tax already. Higher gas prices also don’t seem to stop people from buying giant trucks and SUVs.

A reasonable well optioned truck is $75,000. People who can afford to spend that are immune from high gas prices.

You'd be surprised how many people look only at the monthly payment amount and ignore other financial concerns when deciding on a vehicle purchase. And perhaps with some terribly long loan term like 72 or 96 months they can get that payment to "fit" in their budget.

You'd be surprised how many people don't even consider the monthly payment. Not uncommon where I grew up to see guys making $50,000 a year driving $70,000 trucks. Because they "need it for work".

$75,000 is waaaay beyond "reasonable" and "well optioned." I got my used Ford F-150 with about 220,000 miles for about $3,000, but there are plenty of actually reasonable trucks with good options in the $15,000-$30,000 range. And I'm definitely not immune to gas prices, I only take my truck when it's for something that I can't reasonably do in our Elantra, or when my wife is out somewhere in the Elatra and I need to drive somewhere.

Make gas ten dollars a gallon and people will consider a more efficient car.

By global standards, the American states have very low gas taxes.

What about the electric SUVs?

You could tax momentum as well. (Or as a short-hand, tax fuel and tax vehicles by weight.)

Tax road wear. The weight over each axle to the fourth power times number of axles. That'll put smaller cars on the road.

This is a silly tangential point, but with good design a V8 can be as efficient as an I4 (and with bad design a V6 can be more wasteful than a V8).

Pinning fuel use seems to be the way to go, rather than penalizing engine geometry, for this reason.

It's important to remember, though, that semi-trucks get 5-8 miles to the gallon due to their weight/purpose. Perhaps these new fuel taxes should only affect classes other than A, B, and C to avoid knock-on effects.

>t's important to remember, though, that semi-trucks get 5-8 miles to the gallon due to their weight/purpose. Perhaps these new fuel taxes should only affect classes other than A, B, and C to avoid knock-on effects.

What's interesting here is that semi-trucks cause exponentially more wear and tear on the roads than consumer vehicles, while not paying the corresponding fuel tax — they're being subsidized by everyday drivers.

Also the knock on effects may not be completely negative, it could mean that it isn't economical to drive a truck door-to-door filled with low value merchandise (And give retail a fighting chance).

It's absolutely true that semi-trucks damage the roads.

What I was worried about was trucks used to transport groceries, not delivery trucks.

Last thing the poor need right now is the cost of food going even higher. They're already struggling to get by as it is.

You can tax momentum (and/or weight), too.

Basically, tax fuel and tax the car.

But no need for outright bans. Almost any externality you can think of from (big) cars is finite, and thus a finite tax is appropriate.