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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Bad idea from an image perspective, from a statistics perspective it wouldn't matter. But if you want to create buy-in from the population the best way to sink that is to give an exemption to the ultra rich.

The easiest way would be to start enforcing the ban today, but percentage wise, and then over the course of the next 14 years enforce a fixed percentage of the cars produced to be fully electric until the last vehicle to roll off the line with an ICE is made in 2035. That way nobody gets an excuse and the likes of Ferrari can make bank by selling their ICE based vehicles at auction for ever higher prices. Problem elegantly solved.

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These companies seem to be a point of pride in Italy so the political effects could go either way.

Yes, absolutely, but Ferrari is simply a part of the Agnelli empire and the other brands are going to have to follow suit anyway. So Ferrari may just as well accept the inevitable, Italy certainly isn't going to drop out of the union on account of a couple of thousand of vehicles, besides, at some point the stigma of buying a new ICE car will be such that it may well be that nobody wants them except for collectors who just want to own the cars and not drive them (which isn't rare with Ferrari's to begin with).

The problem with an exemption from a ban is that once you go down that road there will be plenty of others that will want an exemption as well, so best to leave that door closed. Because all those little exceptions in the end do add up. Why exempt say Ferrari but not MB/AMG or Maybach or Rolls Royce, or even the (currently dormant I believe) Phaeton line.

Instead of mandating particular technologies, a better solution would be to just impose a gradually escalating carbon tax and let the free market sort things out. If gasoline costs €20/l then consumption will be so low as to make the environmental impact minimal.

> tax

> free market

Yes?

I mean, the free market has always operated within the constraints of public policy. Law mandated an end to slavery, the free market adapted. Law mandated a minimum wage, the free market adapted.

I see no reason for why the imposition of yet another tax would make the market any less free then it always have been. It will adapt given the constraints applied.

No, that still sends the wrong signal: that rich people can buy their way out of doing their part. The same already happens to some degree with speed limits, which the owners of fast cars regularly ignore by driving just under the limit at which your car gets impounded. They don't give a damn about the fines. This leads to a class society in all but name. Some countries have the right idea on this front (progressive fines based on either income or value of the vehicle).

If you do that in the UK, you lose your license after doing this a few times. Drive without a license and you'll lose more than your car.

Do other countries not have point-based offenses?

It depends, some countries do, some don't.

So you can destroy the planet, but only if you're rich?

With wealth inequality where it is, trying this would spawn a very quick, very unpleasant revolt.

Strikes me as one of those things —like public health— that's better if we all follow the same rules, all the time.

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