It’s been clear for a long time that the war on cars won’t stop with the internal combustion engine vehicle but will extend to EVs too.
As New York has recently demonstrated with its congestion tax, the war against cars has been relentless, although the arrival of a new administration in the White House may now change matters on this side of the Atlantic. One of this war’s many, many campaigns, especially in Europe, has been demonizing SUVs (and other larger or more expensive cars) for being (1) too big or (2) too dirty or (3) being owned by the rich or, sometimes (4) too American, or any combination of the forgoing.
In a recent article, I noted that:
SUVs play neatly — extra horsepower of the apocalypse — into a millenarian narrative in which hubris, greed, and extravagance are triggering a climate catastrophe. Under its mayor, Anne Hidalgo, a socialist consumed by her hatred of cars, Paris may ban SUVs altogether. They make a handy poster villain for politicians and innumerable activists battling cars in general, whether out of concerns over the environment (from a changing climate to the harms caused by the nitrogen dioxide emitted from the tailpipes of conventional vehicles) or over wider quality-of-life issues. . . .
Making parking more onerous is a good way to discourage both car use and car ownership, as those waging the war against cars have realized. Parking fees have soared in various European cities. Sometimes disfavored types of car (such as SUVs or heavier EVs) are singled out. Sometimes not.
France’s embattled government (long story, but a snap election last year has made things a little tricky) is trying to reduce its deficit (by a bit) and score some green points as well.
As of next month, the tax on a Porsche Cayenne or a BMW X6 M will be €70,000 (£58,000), rising to €90,000 by 2027. That is a tax with teeth. [The pound currently trades at $1.24].
The malus écologique (green charge) is a rising penalty based on grams of CO2 per kilometre. These start at 113 g/km this year, tightened to 103 g/m by 2027, with some hardship exemptions. That is already enough to capture two thirds of all cars currently sold in France.
The tax on the workaday Renault Captur will double this year to €330, rising to €851 by 2027. The more powerful TCE 90 model will be close to three times that.
Weight above half a tonne will be punished on a rising scale. Above two tonnes, the penalty will rise by €30 a kilo, adding about €1,200 to a Tesla X or €1,800 to a larger e-Mercedes SUV. That makes sense. Lithium, cobalt and steel do not grow on trees.
The French car lobby Mobilians is furious. “The whole sector is in a slump. Our production is the lowest since 1960, the plants have excess capacity and the market is more than 25pc below 2019 levels,” said Xavier Horent, its director-general.
The “weight tax” applies to electric vehicles (EV) as well as conventional cars. Many EV drivers probably expect that a mileage tax is on the way if or when the switch to EVs away from conventional cars eats too far into gas tax revenues. They may be more surprised to find themselves still ranked among the eco-criminals as they are compelled to pay taxes on the weight of their cars. But there is some logic to that. EVs are often marketed as “clean” cars from an environmental point of view. But at best they are cleaner. As alluded to above, weight is one way to measure (a part of) their environmental impact, and many EVs will be heavy enough to trigger this tax liability. Typically, they are heavier than conventional cars because of the size of the battery needed to give their drivers some hope of a decent range.
It’s been clear for a long time that the war on cars won’t stop with the internal combustion engine vehicle but will extend to EVs too. Cleaner is not clean. Environmentalists will be joined in this effort by the plague of contemporary urbanists determined — themselves often motivated, at least in part, by environmentalist concerns — to force as many cars as they can out of the city. The latter hawk a (supposedly) “people first” vision, which will, by discouraging or reducing mobility and convenience, will undermine a city’s effectiveness as a place to meet, to do business, to work, to act as a cultural entrepôt, and, indeed, to live.
The fact that ownership of EVs is difficult for those living in large city centers, such as many of those in Europe, with no facilities to charge their EVs at home is a feature not a bug. Those city-dwellers who do insist on clinging onto their cars will be “encouraged” to buy small EVs with ranges that would be good enough for short journeys, but not much more — cars in keeping not only with environmentalism’s obsession with control, but also its hair-shirt asceticism, an asceticism in which there can be no room for autobesity (yes, there’s a word).