Quote:
Originally Posted by Akrapovic
I don't know where you are, but in the UK things like electric cars are driven by the government by cheap tax. When they were trying to make people move to diesel cars (oh the irony, I know), diesel cars were taxed cheaper. Now in the UK, every car is £140 a year tax (apart from the first year, which varies per vehicle), except electric cars which are free tax. That's how it's done here, and it does work - there are now a huge amount of diesel cars on the road that wouldn't have been there had it not been for cheap tax.
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Oh it works, until the money runs out. To the government cars are simply cash cows. Taxing them more and making electric ones tax free is fine up until the tipping point when they start bleeding money. In the Netherlands where I live the exact same thing happened with hybrid cars (the non-plugin variant). Sales crashed last year when the tax break was removed because it was too succesful. Here cars are taxed mostly by weight (stupid I know) so hybrid vehicles being naturally heavier have zero chance without a break. Same goes for electric vehicles by the way.
So the situation now is that the government is subsidizing rich guys who want to look cool because they have a Tesla. And rich guys who buy one of those glorified shopping carts for their wives while they drive around in their big diesel BMW. Sounds like the future doesn't it
Incidentally the best sold 'electric cars' in the Netherlands are.... plug-in hybrids.
Same thing with these electric racing series. The technology is nowhere near good enough to do anything interesting with (including FE) so it's all masked in PR smoke and mirrors. FE succeeds only because it can use the 'Formula' name and it got the blessing of the FIA who told manufacturers they can look good to governments who otherwise despise racing. And people actually fall for it, the cult of personality Musk has built over himself has turned into a tribe in itself. 'Electric is not the future but it's already here' and if you don't believe it you're a denialist who can't handle change. Or something of that nature.