GM's Wagoner says gas taxes, $4/gallon price floor "worth considering"

Wow, I bet the die-hard GM zealots are ready to burn Wagoner at the stake.

 

Does anybody listen to anything spewed from GM exec's anymore? Not since they drove the company into the ground. I'll listen to him ... when he says what Lutz recently said ... that he's going to quit.
How's that volt commin' Wagoner? Still trying to find a radio that doesn't kill the batteries? Or does Wagoner want the tax hike to nudge buyers off SUV's and onto the Volt. Has Wagoner adjusted the price up another $10K on the Volt yet?

 

He's not going to lobby for a tax that makes the Volt popular and kills sales on every other vehicle GM makes. If he's advocating a tax that would cut sales of gas-guzzlers and boost sales of fuel-efficient cars, I'll give him credit for saying something good for a change.

 

Naw it's just more .... smoke and mirrors

 

If a new model X gets better fuel economy than the previous year's model X, perhaps people would be more inclined to buy a new X if gas prices were high than if they weren't. It doesn't necessarily mean people would do a model shift (let alone a modal shift).

My current local price of 88.9p/L amounts to £3.37 per US gallon, about $4.80 using current exchange rates. Peak price I paid was 119.9p/L, £4.54 per US gallon. Now that would be £6.46 though at the time the exchange rate was better, around $2:£1 so over $9/gallon.

Note that a fixed fuel duty like we have, especially as it is such a large proportion of the fuel price, acts as a damper on raw fuel price fluctuations. It's currently 52.35p/litre, and VAT at 15% is charged on top of that, making VAT 11.60p/litre, and tax 63.95p/litre in total, nearly 72% of the pump price. If tax had been a fixed 72% of the pump price, i.e. tax being 2.57x the raw price, peak price would have been 132.9p/litre (at that time, VAT was 17.5% and duty 50.35p/litre, making the raw price 51.69p/litre). The result of this damping was that we actually didn't have much of a waiting list on fuel-efficient cars; I think the Prius waiting list was a few weeks. It would be better to make the tax scale with the fuel price and have a fixed floor to stop prices dropping too low.

I'd also like to see greater punishment for excessive greenhouse gas emissions. We have a scalable car tax system that currently sees a car emitting between 100g/km and 120g/km CO2, on the EU combined cycle test, pay £35 per year ('alternative fuel' vehicles get a £20 discount), while one that emits over 225g/km pays £400. Trouble is, there are cars in the database that emit more than twice that - the worst is a 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago 147, which emits 500g/km. I really think there should be a £1000 penalty for operating that thing on public roads. Bringing it out of the realm of sportscars, Chrysler offer a Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 6.1 litre engine, automatic transmission, which emits 381g/km CO2. Relatively speaking, a Lexus GS300 (6-speed auto), which just falls into the category at 226g/km, is an absolute saint.

I believe the new banding scheme makes the top band 255+, but cars built before the start of the new scheme will not be re-banded.

Unfortunately some poor suckers who bought their Classic Prius just before the banding scheme was introduced in March 2001 have to pay £125 per year (the engine is below 1.55 litres, which was the previous demarcation).

 

GM's Wagoner just got fired. Breaking News... Its a little late

 

OMG ! ! Could it be true?

GM CEO resigns at Obama's behest - Mike Allen and Josh Gerstein - POLITICO.com

And what will his golden parachute cost GM . . . another billion? No big deal if it does. After all, that's their spin on how much they (meaning taxpayers) spent of the EV1 development (but I'm sure that includes lobby work to gut CARB, and crushing expenses).

All I can say is bye bye !
:rockon:

 

Yep, tah tah, don't let the doorknob hit your nice person on the way out

He's still going to be able to relax in luxury, considering he gets $20 mil for running a company into the ground

Why, oh WHY, won't somebody pay ME to run a company into the ground?

 

You don't have the evil greed gene, so you don't qualify...

 

Hmmm always a catch.

 

He's getting $20 million severance.
And it doesn't end there, but that's all I can type through the tears.

 

Re: haha, I doubt we'll see taxation like that in the US

For us, cars over 2,500kg were measured to 'light commercial vehicles' limits for toxic emissions, up to and including Euro 4. The new Euro 5 regulations, which apply to new vehicles type-approved from September 2009, and to all vehicles sold from January 2011, remove this exemption.

A car is defined as Category M1, which is a subclass of category M, "motor vehicles having at least four wheels, or having three wheels when the maximum weight exceeds 1 metric ton, and used for the carriage of passengers." Category M1 is restricted to "vehicles used for the carriage of passengers and comprising no more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat." SUVs and minivans fit well within that division. There are also categories M2 and M3 for minibuses and buses (the division between the two is at 5,000kg).

Light commercial vehicles are category N1: category N is "motor vehicles having at least four wheels, or three wheels when the maximum weight exceeds 1 metric ton, and used for the carriage of goods." N1 is vehicles less than 3,500kg. Pick-up trucks, unfortunately, count in this sector even if dual-cab.

Category N1 pollutant limits are subdivided into three classes by weight and also by fuel, diesels being permitted more NOx and petrols more CO and HC. Petrol SUVs would fall into the heaviest class III, where they were permitted 2.27g/km CO, 0.16 g/km HC and 0.11g/km NOx. The 'car' equivalents are 1.0g/km CO, 0.10g/km HC, and 0.08g/km NOx. Euro 5 reduces the NOx limit to 0.06g/km, requires non-methane HC less than 0.068g/km, and adds a particulate limit for direct-injection (e.g. VW FSI) engines.

We don't have an equivalent of CAFE. Instead there were voluntary agreements with the manufacturers to reduce CO2 emissions. The European manufacturers association, ACEA, committed to a target of 140g/km by 2008. The intermediate target of 165-170g/km by 2003 was achieved. Ford and GM are members of ACEA. JAMA, the Japanese association, and KAMA, the Koreans, have to reach 140g/km by 2009. JAMA met their interim target of 165-175g/km by 2003, KAMA missed their target (delayed by one year). Sadly, the 2008 target was missed by quite a way (ACEA managing 157g/km), and the EU have decided that legislation is necessary.

That legislation is targetting 130g/km by 2012, a 23.5% drop from the current situation. The fines seem too low, though: assuming 160g/km, no change from now, the fine would be €2,610 per vehicle. (27 x €95 + €25 + €15 + €5 - missing by 1g/km costs €5, by 2 €20, by 3 €45 and after that €95 per g/km.)

Toyota are going to have to get on and hybridise everything.

 

Darrell, the 20 large is just openers. Let the publisher's book deal negotiations begin!

It's a strange world we live in, to be sure.

 

Man, I must be getting old. I remember when "large" wasn't as large as this! I remember when "million" was an impossibly large number. And now (well, up until last year) that just means the value of a house in CA. And now we're getting all confortable with "billion." Billion used to be reserved for talking about the number of stars out there in the universe, and now we toss hundreds of billions of dollars around as if it existed. :sigh:

 

When I was younger 20 large would mean 20,000.
Does it now mean 20 million?

Not that he is worth it... his retirement package should be 5x what a line worker gets in retirement and disappear if GM cannot continue to pay its promised retire benefits.

 

If I *promise* to run a large company into the ground, will somebody pay me $10 mil? Five? How about if I only f*** it up a wee bit for $487,912.83?

 

Hell, a line worker actually does useful, productive work. Wagoner should get 1/5 what a line worker gets, and for running the company into the ground he should have to give back all they've paid him over the years!

 

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon we'll be talking real pocket change!