I was driving today, and getting about 37mpg.(cold+led foot) This made me think about the tax and wonder who would decide how much better mileage a hybrid gets over a non-hybrid car? I think they will have a very hard time placing this tax on many different fronts. I hope they wouldn't base the tax on the feather footed people from this website?

 

OK, is there some correlation between SUV’s and Republicans, and Hybrid’s and ..? Whatever! Guess I bought the wrong car. But I think I'll keep it anyway!

 

Can't you just see the fine print on THAT window sticker: the Federal Gas NON-Guzzler Tax...........?

 

nimbus2k; It just has that (Special-Ring) to it; Like $,$$$.$$ More Dollars for "WHO" ?????

Terry

 

Better still, why not change the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) rules?
Instead of requiring every manufacturer to average ABOVE a certain MPG, they should require all manufacturers to average BELOW that MPG.

Can I get an exemption from the tax if I promise to burn 10 gallons of gasoline in my backyard grill every week?

 

They could hit hybrid owners with a one time gas saver tax, similar to a gas guzzler tax. Now it's all making sense.

 

I remember one town meeting here in Canton about resurfacing a scenic way, the experts were saying that each fully loaded tractor/trailer combo caused as much wear as 3,000 or so passenger vehicles...Could this be possible??? sounds a bit much but you never know.

 

Most taxes are designed only to apply to a few people. It makes it easier to get away with creating and raising taxes if you can say "Well don't worry about it, it only affects maybe 5-10% of the people out there." The problem of course is that there's thousands of special tax rules so there's plenty of taxes that apply to everyone anyway.

The hybrid tax is just another example of how they want to create a special tax to apply only to a certain set of people. We already have a gas guzzler tax, although in their infinite wisdom, our lawmakers exempted the worst guzzlers of all; large SUV's. Now we'd have a tax on the most fuel efficient vehicles too. Pretty soon there will be a sedan tax, then a compact tax, then a sunroof tax, then a "cars with red paint" tax, and so on. Everyone would say "Oh, that tax only applies to a couple cars, who cars" but pretty soon there will be a specialty tax that applies to everything. It's basically the old military strategy of divide and conquer.

 

This report was absolute lunacy. It defies even the most basic common sense, which is why it worries me. Let's not rule out that this kind of nonsense may have originated by the oil companies.

I think it will fail on one point alone: where do you draw the line on how fuel-efficient a car has to be before being penalized. High FE is not the exclusive purview of a hybrid. In fact, all but 3 hybrids get comparatively "regular" mileage (20's or 30's). A Civic EX, Toyta Echo or Corolla all can get higher FE than a lot of hybrids and can be in the 40 MPG+ club with the Civic/Insight/Prius. Not to mention motorcycles...

Anyway, I think as a hybrid community we ought to be ready to fight this kind of stupidity. I've looked up my congressmen and prepared to write. If this pops up on the news again, I will.

 

Following the logic of the hybrid fuel-miser tax we should tax the 4 cylinder option extra over the V6. It also goes against what some states are trying to do by regulating CO2 emissions and offering extra tax breaks. When there are significant numbers of EVs and plug-in hybrids on the road (500,000+) then a system of taxation will have to be phased in to apply the road tax to the electric power used to charge the car (or yearly odometer readings + weight rate) so that they contribute to the system equitably, but normal hybrids burn gas, they don't source any electricity from elsewhere, there's only so much improvement in efficiency to be gained from combining electric motors and gasoline motors, in fact similar efficiency can be done with a normal ICE, but it would be missing the performance the electric motor(s) provide, the impact on tax revenue is nothing like a plug-in where liquid fuel may only be used on occasional long trips.