Should Teslas (& EVs) cop luxury car tax?

[GrimRe]

This.
But some people will no doubt argue that this is a tax on the poor as they cannot afford to buy newer, lower emission cars, they have to travel further to work, and only the rich can afford to drive zero emission cars and live in expensive inner-city areas. At the same time, a Ferrari that is driven for only limited number of km each year will likely to be much cheaper to own.

Hmmm... yes good points. Say you are a nurse working night shifts on 75k, you can’t exactly afford a new Tesla nor take public transport to work. The Ferrari example I personally am not too fussed about. If somebody wants to buy a Ferrari and not drive it to reduce operating costs then in theory it benefits everyone. Maybe their second daily driver car will at least be an EV?

Perhaps the supposed road tax plus emissions tax are in conjunction with other initiatives to help bring EV to the masses. Say reduced rego, “cash for clunkers”, reduced tolls plus higher tax deductions for work travel. This way; a nurse earning $75k could in theory buy a $50k AUD EV as the total cost of ownership would be equivalent to say a $30k econ box (Yaris etc) all things considered.

for small business such as sole tradies, they should be able to access instant asset write offs for EVs to help with their cash flows.

 

[Shock-On-T]

This is a bit off-topic (OK, a lot off-topic), but I’ve read some articles that showed that “bias” is often unconscious, and that even the way software rules or boundary conditions are written can often embed an unconscious bias which then, of course, is perpetuated. And the software engineers or rule-setters don’t even realise they’ve done it.

The fact that software and AI development is an overwhelmingly male profession is of itself a red flag because it omits the life experiences, thinking and mindset of half the population.

There were some great examples provided in the articles I read which were really eye opening. I should see if I can find them.

That’s true. In fact, even without programming bias in, the AI can develop its own biases for the same reasons we do.
Some examples:
this US DoJ software made to work out how likely someone was to commit another crime to assist with sentencing guidelines gave higher risk scores to black criminals.
Machine Bias — ProPublica
And this Amazon hiring AI fire shortlisting job applicants that preferentially decided that men were better choices when hiring software programmers than women.
Machine Bias — ProPublica
But even with the shortcomings of AI, if it is given careful limits and regualarly reviewed it should be better than humans. At least it should be more evidence-based and incorruptible.