That's what happens when externalities are properly priced into vehicles using taxes. Nicely done Norway/Sweden.

That's a pretty huge assertion you are throwing in there.

I think there is a fair chance that some of the tax there is just a simple luxury tax, with accidental relief on the Tesla side (as opposed to a proper pricing of externalities).

The tax incentives in question the remove a fair portion of the tax penalty apply to all electric vehicles, not just Tesla. The "relief" for Tesla isn't accidental.

I would say you'd be correct if the benefits applied solely to Tesla vehicles, but not in this case.

My meaning was more that it depends on how well the laws captured the intent of the societies.

The nice subsidies on expensive electric vehicles may or may not leave a bad taste in the mouth of voters there (I haven't tried to figure out what public sentiment is).

> The nice subsidies on expensive electric vehicles may or may not leave a bad taste in the mouth of voters there (I haven't tried to figure out what public sentiment is)

I could not find the answer to this with some quick googling. I too would be interested in the answer.

When you just set a bunch of taxes to zero for a few years, it's hard to argue that is "proper pricing."

If the externalities they're pricing in are oil consumption in the vehicle, and the vehicle doesn't burn oil, setting the taxes to zero is "proper pricing".

That's not the only externality; another one is wear-and-tear on roads. In most countries, fuel taxes are used in part to pay for road and highway maintenance [1]. Certainly Norway's extensive, mountainous highway system is not free to build and maintain, and imo all road users should pay their share to fund it. You could have a direct per-km tax enforced via some kind of GPS unit, but that has privacy implications. Traditionally the fuel tax was a reasonable proxy, since vehicles used fuel in rough proportion to the amount of road traversed.

[1] In the U.S. the link is explicit: almost the entirety of the fuel tax is earmarked for highway construction and maintenance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_Trust_Fund

The vast majority of road wear and tear is caused by trucks, not cars:

"Heavy trucks obviously cause more road damage than cars, but how much more? According to a GAO study, Excessive Truck Weight: An Expensive Burden We Can No Longer Afford, road damage from one 18-wheeler is equivalent to 9600 cars (p.23 of study, p.36 of PDF)."

http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf

http://facweb.knowlton.ohio-state.edu/pviton/courses2/crp776...

With regards to your point to taxes, remove the per-milage tax and charge a flat per-vehicle rate based on vehicle class, distributing the cost to trucks more than to passenger vehicles.

Seems like that would only apply to highways. The average neighborhood road sees zero truck traffic, so 100% of the road wear is done by cars.

Which is why the average neighborhood road is overhauled far less frequently than highways.

Costs aren't being added to the gas cars, which would make sense. Instead, normal people are subsidizing luxury cars. That's stupid.

The costs are added to all gas cars, and "normal people" are subsidizing all electric cars. The cars that are selling just happen to be the most expensive electric car.