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Australia’s roads are full of giant cars, and everyone pays the price. What can be done? (theconversation.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/australia@aussie.zone
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[–] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (12 children)

People are surprisingly unkeen on tracking in their car. So kilometers driven wouldn't work.

I'd say just go with a fee based on the weight of the vehicle, exponential of course. We need fewer heavy cars, fewer kilometers driven will be a side effect. And as a bonus effect maybe I'd be able to buy an EV without a range that's 8 times what I actually need.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    Eh, people can submit odometer readings once a year with their rego renewal.

    Honesty based should be good enough. Penalties can apply if you're caught tampering or severely underreporting.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (8 children)

    Have you actually driven outside the city here? I need the 400km my EV has to get between capital cities

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    A child’s skull doesn’t know whether it’s steel or lithium making up that extra 0.5T.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    A child got by my small long range EV would be more likely to survive than one hit by a similar weight internal combustion vehicle as mine is a car (with proper pedestrian safety) and the other would be much higher and larger.

    A child still cares that the front of the vehicle is low, that it doesn't have a bull bar. A kid would be better off hit by an electric car than by a landcruiser

    A 2t EV is much smaller than a 2t diesel

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (2 children)

    Why would you drive between capital cities? There's public transport for that.

    I need to drive from the bush into the nearby major town and back again. 50km round trip.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (1 child)

    I'm on a visit to the wine region around Adelaide, and am staying in Willunga. The trips I'm doing need a car, and the timing would be similar and the cost higher if I had flown to Adelaide and hired a car for the month

    And I couldn't have seen the painted silos had I flown

    And I couldn't have seen the sights of the great ocean road had I flown

    And road trips in an EV are quite nice.

    You can make good savings by not having a car at all, but that's not possible outside Sydney and Melbourne and probably Hobart

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    So I should spend more money and natural resources on an overpowered EV so I can save a little bit of money on a wine tour?

    Also, I'd just take the bus or train. I wouldn't really fly domestically because planes suck.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    @psud @Tenderizer guess you're not driving to Perth anytime soon then?

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Odometer reading is a relatively unobtrusive metadatum.

    It is recorded when the vehicle is serviced so it is already in someone’s database.

    If kms travelled had to be reported annually at the time of registration, no-one will complain (except sov-shit cookers, and they don’t pay rego anyway).

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