Wednesday, May 21, 2008

How to get people to drive sensible (fuel efficient) cars

Just read this article on a German news site and I think some of the European countries are onto something here. According to that news article cars are going to be taxed based on their CO2-emissions. SUVs like the Porsche Cayenne or the Audi Q7 will get much more expensive. For example, the Porsche Cayenne S will cost anywhere from an extra €3000 in France to an extra €53000 in Norway.
This is the only way to go to get people to drive more fuel efficient cars. Now, the extra €53000 (that's approx. $80000 on top of the car's MSRP) may be a bit excessive but the US would do a very good thing in employing a similar strategy, or at least do away with these silly rules that don't consider some SUVs as passenger vehicles (even though they are only used as such) because they are too big. I love the fact that the European countries act now instead of pushing some far-way goal of improving average fuel-economy by 2020.

I am currently visiting Europe and I have to say, I very much like the fact that you can feel safe in a small car because almost all cars around you are pretty small as well. A gallon of gas is roughly $8 in Germany, I can't imagine driving a big SUV over here.