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Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

bloomberg.com

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Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#201

Post by panick21_ »

megablast wrote: post #111
panick21_ wrote: post #99

Australia needs to get its act together and build high speed rail lines. Their geography is actually fantastic for it, its criminal not to have done it 40 years ago.

Why? What problems will this solve? Much better to spend it on public transport improvements in our cities, and a congestion charge to make cars pay for what they use.

Those things are not opposed to each other. In fact one benefits from the other. One is national, the other is more local.

And the main thing holding back cities is cars and removing them is not primarily a cost issue, but a political one.

As for what will it solve, it decarbonize the most important air routes in your country. It will serve as a backbone for the transportation network of your country for next 100 years.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#204

Post by Beldin »

GenerWork wrote: post #76
rippercushions wrote: post #32

Australia also has a remarkable tax incentive that lets you buy EVs basically tax free (fringe benefits tax exemption for novated leases, in bureaucratese). Basically, instead of paying $70k for a Tesla post-tax, you can get it deducted directly from your paycheck for around $45k pretax. The exact math depends on your income, and perversely enough the subsidy increases the more you earn and the higher your taxes, but…

> the subsidy increases the more you earn and the higher your taxes What's the name of this law called that does this? Seems like quite the oversight.

To play devil's advocate: this puts higher-quality EVs within reach for more people. Some might go all out on a very expensive EV, but presumably most will just want bang for their buck. In turn, plenty of these vehicles will enter the second hand market, starting from a few years down the line.

Back to reality: such effects smell like trickle down economics to me. They may work, provided the rules stay the same. Around here, the govt eradicated the subsidies on hybrids right before the first generation lease hybrids were about to enter 2nd hand market. So we collectively sponsored a bunch of well-off consultants getting fancy cars that were, after the leases ended, all exported :s.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#205

Post by einpoklum »

stubish wrote: post #102
GenerWork wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the subsidy increases the more you earn and the higher your taxes What's the name of this law called that does this? Seems like quite the oversight.

It is Salary Sacrifice, where an employer agrees to swap salary for some non-cash reward. Employee gets less cash and the benefit (eg. a car). Employer pays Fringe Benefits tax on the benefit, employee doesn't pay tax on the salary they sacrificed. The trick is that there is no fringe benefits tax on electric cars, in one of the few ways Australia is actually promoting them. https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Fringe-ben…

For people living in cities/towns, how much of an option is it to go car-less? Is it more like, say, Dutch cities, or more like in the US?

Anyway, whenever I hear talk of promoting EVs without mass transit being mentioned together with it, my instinct is to assume it's some sort of an upwards-transfer-of-wealth scheme in which richer people get subsidized.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#206

Post by briandon »

flakeoil wrote: post #152
bblpeter wrote: post #127

Quitting coal mining in exchange for lithium mining? That’s like saying an addict is healthy because he quit heroin in exchange for being hooked on fentanyl.

CO2 in the air is damaging all life on earth, while a lithium mine at most damages the local area around the mine. It's probably much better to have a few local "dead" spots than a complete planet out of whack. And as a sibling comment said, lithium can be recycled.

CO2, whether from fossil fuel combustion or respiration (e.g. part of your and my exhaled breath, day and night) becomes plant tissue. Land plants, algae in the oceans, the herbivorous content of your salad, the flowers in your garden, etc.

"Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds" https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#207

Post by gambiting »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #194
gambiting wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>and if you want an ebike, the most wco friwndly option, you fuck right off That's absolutely not correct, the tax subsidy for buying bikes and ebikes in this country is bonkers and better than pretty much anywhere else. If you have any job you can always buy any bike(including an ebike) through the cycle to work scheme meaning it's deducted from your salary pre-tax (meaning that effectively it's a deduction from yo…

> That's absolutely not correct, the tax subsidy for buying bikes and ebikes in this country is bonkers and better than pretty much anywhere else. Have you actually tried using it? Four problems: 1 - The bicycle belongs to your employer, and when it's ownership is formally transferred to you, you have to pay tax on it. 2 - The 'cycle Scheme' is implemented separately by each major bike shop running their own scheme,…

I have. We have an ebike that was £2200 brand new, and it was effectively a 100% tax deduction. And yes there are some restrictions around it but they are easy to work with. I have no comment about employers setting their own limits, that's just dumb.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#208

Post by dukeyukey »

bblpeter wrote: post #164
flakeoil wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO2 in the air is damaging all life on earth, while a lithium mine at most damages the local area around the mine. It's probably much better to have a few local "dead" spots than a complete planet out of whack. And as a sibling comment said, lithium can be recycled.

> lithium can be recycled It can’t. This is an extremely energy intensive process that produces toxic waste products. It’s a fantasy.

Lithium is regularly recycled already.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#209

Post by Reason077 »

IanCal wrote: post #158
irjustin wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should it be a refund (instead of a tax break)? I'm leaning towards the refund since it effectively gives everyone the "same final price"

Not for the goal in the UK. The UK doesn't have a tax break for buying electric cars as regular people at home, it's for companies. The important tax break more specifically is around providing them to workers under what's called a "salary sacrifice" scheme where you forgo some of your income in return for a benefit in kind. The BIK rate for EVs is very low, meaning they're almost tax free. This is targeting people w…

> *"The UK doesn't have a tax break for buying electric cars as regular people at home"

Not exactly true. Besides company car tax (BIK) benefits, electric vehicles are exempt from vehicle excise duty, which can save up to £4000 over the first 5 years of vehicle ownership. They are also exempt from congestion charges, low emission zone charges, etc, which can save thousands more. There's also no fuel duty on charging an EV, you only pay 5% VAT on electricity if charging at home, many local councils offer discounted parking and/or charging, and there is a grant available that pays 75% of the cost of installing a home charger.

Re: Australia is quitting coal in record time thanks to Tesla

#210

Post by sjy »

ehnto wrote: post #187
ilyt wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they ain't paying tax for fuel, roads have to be fixed for something...

Fuel excises do not get allocated directly to some kind of "road budget", they go into general revene. Almost all of it can be accounted for in corresponding fuel tax credits, three quarters of which go to mining companies. From memory the difference in 2019 census was like 100mil, so 7.8billion came in from fuel excise, 7.7billion went back out in fuel tax credits. In essence, everyone pays for federal roads, road u…

In 2021-22, fuel tax raised $18.2 billion, of which $6.89 billion (38%) was returned as fuel tax credits. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_depart...
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