>It's interesting that diesel is taxed more than gas in the US. It's the other way around in France.

Although in the US there is commonly an "on-road"/"off-road" split, at least in more rural/agricultural regions or states like mine. The diesel is dyed so it can be distinguished if inspected, and the off-road diesel is either not taxed at all or taxed at a much lower rate. The intention is to not tax agricultural usage, and also that it doesn't make sense anyway to tax tractors and other equipment (almost all using diesel still) used in fields and woods for road maintenance. In contrast, the biggest on-road use of diesel in the US is commercial trucking of various flavors, and those really do do much more damage to roads (and if anything aren't taxed proportionally at all). One of the very rare times the politics and costs have even mildly aligned.

It'd be nice if we could have more electrification in off road agricultural equipment as well but even putting aside all issues of energy density (which are solvable via quick swap packs/trailors if nothing else, and that's much easier to engineer in a tractor form factor and much easier to have a setup for at a typical farm) the weight will be a challenge, soil compaction is a very serious concern for most ag. Maybe electrification along with extra R&D/gov support can drive down the cost and improve the reliability of continuous track (or split continuous) for ag applications. John Deer has developed a few models with it, but the majority up and down the spectrum use tires. Combining the two though could allow for electrification with the same (or actually lower) ground pressure.

The diesel/gas relationship is inverted between the countries, so it actually makes a lot of sense (though not perfectly as both countries use diesel for freight)

It’s largely historical. France heavily encouraged diesel cars for decades, so there’s now a huge installed base. Once you’ve done that, you can’t suddenly jack up diesel taxes without making a lot of people very angry (and probably setting a few cars on fire).

Heavy trucks do more damage to roads so the fuel tax is higher.

Agricultural or ‘off road’ diesel is untaxed as the fuel tax is meant to pay for road maintenance, tractors and combine harvesters spend almost all of their time in a field and very little time on a road.

I think this will be an unpopular opinion here, but I believe gas/diesel prices in the US should be much higher. That is needed force a move to renewals with the US gov. trying to foster more use of fossil fuels.

The way we are going, we are heading to a world that will be much harder and more expensive to live in.

And the advantages are being enjoyed by all of us, at least in the US.

If you’re the kind of person who eats food, uses toilet paper and paper towels, and lives inside a building made of lumber, insulation, HVAC, pipes, and electrical components, those all got to your point of use on a truck.

This should be a per-mile fee that varies based on weight, modeling road damage. Set the tax to specifically counteract the implicit subsidy.

Otherwise you are taxing diesel sedans and tractor trailers the same amount per gallon when a gallon to the latter does far more road damage.

there are two sides of this argument.

only way we are able to eat affordable food is because some diesel truck is transporting it.

so maybe we must subsidize diesel fuel, to decrease grocery prices?

they can lie all they want, gas is maybe the most politically sensitive number since it does have the "whole economy" effect and the effects are seen reasonably quick

Well you see people voted for someone who told them he would take everything they had and give it to himself… whoops. No take backs!

I just checked prices this morning and realized the huge jump...

Ouch I just woke thought about that. Not going to be a good time for a lot of folks.

A large component of the price of fuel is taxes, which are then used for roadway construction and maintenance.

Here in the US (and probably Sweden too), those taxes are not sufficient to pay all of the roadway costs, so tax money from general funds - income taxes, sales/use/vat(?), etc - get diverted to help cover costs.

In reality, the overall cost of fuel is probably very similar. It’s just that the overall cost is more directly reflected in the price shown at the fuel station in Sweden than in the US.

5.85 USD/gallon is: 1.33€ / L or 2.10 CAD / L.

€2.66 for diesel in The Netherlands.

Which is double of the US price.

Good thing the majority of The Netherlands does everything on a bicycle and doesn't need a car.

It does hurt the transportation industry though. And agriculture, construction, heavy industries.

So what? People in the US should not feel pressured by it, because you have it worse?

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