Yet none (?) have a tax on kerosine. Which is arguably worse for the environment for multiple reasons. Airplanes are a lot less efficient than buses, ships or trains. Also airplanes release their exhausts up in the atmosphere which is worse for global warming.
There are lots of taxes (and subsidies) on air transport, and no real alternative to fossil fuels for powering planes. Adding a kerosene tax - instead of, say, a "landing tax" or a grant of land to build an airport - would just slosh the money around a bit, it wouldn't create an incentive for people to take electric planes.
Some alternatives are skyping, VR and bullet trains.
This is kind of similar to how the USSR industrialised in the 1930s. Western nations were simply stunned at the rate of change, and while we now know it was underscored by unspeakable atrocities, it still applies that such a tightly controlled economy can be very agile and responsive to threats such as climate change.
The atrocities were very much avoidable and unnecessary though.
Yes, while reading the Gulag Archipelago about the forced labor camps and how people would be worked to death or freeze due to inadequate clothing, it definitely seemed the atrocities held back faster progress rather than promoted it. If they had been more humane they might've industrialized even faster.
And yet, in a weird way it's working in a way that aligns to wider, long-term, individual interests. By making the government the controlling monopoly, China ends up with a form of capitalism where externalities apply to other countries rather than surrounding corporations and citizens. That's kinda interesting compared to how most other capitalist nations are handling their shit right now. You can do 'common good' s…
> where externalities apply to other countries rather than surrounding corporations and citizens Not according to the devastated ecosystem, flooded archaeological ruins, and 1.3 million people once living around what is now the three gorges dam.
But those costs may have been worth the benefits. We weren't part of the decision-making committee, so we don't know what factors were weighed. It certainly doesn't look like an obviously bad decision to me. There was a big loss, there was a big gain... which one was bigger, I don't know sitting here 10,000 miles away.
Even more good could be done if the money were spent well, but the fact that the tax must be paid at all serves as the incentive that pushes behavior in a more environmentally friendly direction.
There are less regressive ways to incentivize change. Taking money from people hurts the people that rely on money more. Rather, investment and encouragement of particular industries is less punitive, but again goes back to valuable spending of public funds.
It would be great if someday those who want to "make a change" or "progress" society understood that succeeding at actually changing their neighbors' minds is more effective than succeeding at getting laws passed that confiscate their neighbors' wealth so that some government program may or may not end up being effective at getting to their end goal. The effort to defend political tribes is so high - imagine if it was used to help create a natural demand in various markets to achieve a given outcome.
>We're all looking at Tesla to bring electric cars to the masses. Should we be looking at China instead? Right now, Tesla consumes more than 60% of the word EV batteries and their shares is still increasing. I'm sure most of the world's EVs will be Chinese but the most high-end ones will probably be Teslas (made in Shanghai if need be). One can draw a parallel with the smartphones market :)
A top level commenter mentioned Geely-owned London Taxi Company is building electrified black cabs. Geely also happens to own Volvo: I think an electric Volvo will do very well in the high-end against Tesla. Also, if China decides it needs extra EV battery capacity, expect the total number to significantly increase, and Tesla's slice will shrink (in relative terms).
Volvo's ex-performance brand, polestar, is being spun off into a hybrid and electric only manufacturer. They are starting off with the Polestar 1, a hybrid sports coupe, but after that, the polestar 2 and polestar 3 are planned to be electric (sedan and suv, respectively). Polestar 1 will be out of reach for most ($150k), as well as being in a coupe form factor. its competitors will likely be honda NSX, and maybe DB11 or R8. But it will be interesting to see how Polestars future products do.
The smartphone parallel is what I was thinking of. More particularly the transition from dumb phone, to smart phone, Tha basically destroyed most of the incumbents. I take it you're saying Tesla is Apple. Perhaps, you don't have the network effects and lock in with cars, that you do with phones, and Tesla don't seem to make 'the best' hardware like Apple do, but I don't have a crystal ball either, so I won't argue.
> you don't have the network effects and lock in with cars Maybe charging stations is the network effect, Tesla has lot stations across the US so you know you wont run out of juice on your trip.
Good point.
I wonder what the situation is in China. My impression in Europe and America everyone but Tesla had standardised on one charger.
So, resident of Albuquerque here. Our city embarked on a plan to modernize our bus system by introducing a bus rapid transit (BRT) system down one of our busiest streets. This plan included ordering 15 buses from Build Your Dreams (BYD), a Chinese electric bus manufacturer. Very recently, the city sent the buses back and demanded a refund after they failed to meet their advertised miles traveled per charge. They were…
Just to throw something out there. My city here in Ontario Canada has been running BYD buses for a while. We have been very happy with BYD buses. These buses are clean and don't emit the black smoke. We have had very positive experiences.
I'm curious to know more. I tried to look into it but all I could find were news articles and press releases saying that the first electric buses in the province were set to arrive in 2019
That type of taxation of externalities is really a no-brainer in the West too, but there’s just not democratic majority for implementing it. A tragedy. Tragedy of the commons, really, on a spectacular scale. A general CO2 tax wouldn’t be hard to implement if we were a dictatorship.
Taxes are hard to implement in many countries, including the USA, because people have seen that the tax money is not spent on what proponents say it will be spent on. You'd have a hard time getting a CO2 tax passed because it would just end up going into the general fund and get spent on pet projects, not on anything that really addressed CO2 emissions, or helped with the cost of alternative fuels or vehicles.
New Flyer, the US's biggest bus maker, is making battery-electric buses. But sales are low - 40 to Montreal, 10 to Toronto, 35 to Los Angeles. In comparison, Shenzhen recently replaced 16,000 of its buses with electrics, all from BYD. Shenzhen also replaced all of its cabs with electrics.
Edinburgh invested in electric and hybrid buses, but they turned out not to have enough power for some of the steeper routes. London is planning to have "Europe's largest electric bus fleet" next year .. of 240 buses? https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/london-to-h... I'm not sure where Shenzen would manage to run 16,000 buses given that London's TFL only have 8,500. The streets must be absolutely full o…
I'm not sure where Shenzen would manage to run 16,000 buses given that London's TFL only have 8,500.
I am all for electric buses, I have stated many times I think the best route for that would be to Federally mandate replacing all school buses with such. However while mass transit is very heavily subsidized by the Federal Government the same is not true about school bus fleets, that should flip. Fund the school buses and let mass transit pay for itself more. I like EVs in general and think people should make a choic…
Wait. How are school bus fleets funded? You don't have to pay to ride the bus. Or go to school. So -- from the outside -- it seems like they're completely funded by tax dollars. Are you saying that's not true? How does it work?