Why not remove sales tax on all hybrid cars in order to encourage more production and increased sales?
By Cars & Motorcycles on Dec 30, 2008 with Comments 7
howard f asked: Sales tax on hybrid cars run from $1800-$3600.
Filed Under: Hybrid Cars
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However you get a rather healthy tax break fro driving a hybrid vehicle so it makes it all good in the end.
Some people are stuck in their loans in their present vehicles and other do not want hybrids. If you want a hybrid, then you need to pay for your choice and pay taxes just like the rest of us.
The government has the task of encouraging environmental improvement AND economical gains– if they were to make any decisions that drastically changed buyer’s decisions it could in turn cause decreases in sales of domestic cars and a lot of job loss.
Not that its right– the environment is pretty important– but just that they cant win it all.
Until the cost of maintaining a hybrid is comprable to an internal combustion car, they will not be popular.
Sales tax is a state and local issue which has nothing to do with production in the factory. Sales tax is base only on a flat % of the cost of the car. If a person is willing to pay 24,000 for a gas car but not a hybrid it has nothing to do with the tax. I do not believe reducing the price the amount of sales tax will move people in that cost group from gas to electric.
When you have people like me who will buy new for around 14,000 – we can never make up the cost difference in money saved on electric to offset the 10,000 dollar difference over the 8 year life of a car.
Because these cars do not give the promised benefits in the real world.
The only time they give the promised fuel economy is when they are running on a treadmill at the EPA. In the real world driven by real drivers, they only give marginal improvements over their gasoline counterparts. This is why the EPA is changing the way they rate the fuel economy of these vehicles starting with the 2008 model year.
A better answer to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce automobile emissions is E85. We need to give the tax breaks to E85 retailers to make this fuel more available.
The tax breaks should go to the flex fuel vehicles instead. The run cleaner than gasoline engines. They have the potential to be more efficient under the right circumstances.
Current flex fuel vehicles are tuned to run mostly on gasoline, with the capability to run on E85. This compromise makes these engines run less efficient on E85 than gasoline. If there were more E85 retailers and vehicles, the manufacturers could tune thees engines to run primarily on E85 with the capability to run on gasoline, like in Brazil. E85 at 105 octane would burn more efficiently if the engines were higher compression and used the correct ignition and valve timing for this fuel.
E85 is the answer, not hybrid is the answer to our dependence on foreign oil. If you want a cleaner running vehicle, we need to push hydrogen fuel-cell technology.
Here in Ontario, Canada the government gives you back $2000, not a bad start.