From an online comment thread at the NYT

“Meg”: Look, the reason Chinese cars are affordable is that they are subsidized by the Chinese government. Heavily. Removing import restrictions on these cars would devastate the American car industry. We are talking hundreds of thousands of jobs lost. How about instead we have the American government subsidize affordable cars here, or return to requiring CAFE gas mileage standards which created all those options in 2012.

Clifford Winston: If you want people to drive more fuel efficient cars to help conserve gasoline and reduce emissions, charge them a vehicle-miles-travel tax. Some states are exploring the idea.

Eissendad*: Actually if you "want people to drive more fuel efficient cars to help conserve gasoline and reduce emissions" shouldn't you charge a fuel tax? Charging "a vehicle-miles-travel tax" doesn't incentivize fuel efficiency it incentivizes driving fewer miles, something that is harder to do in rural America.

Clifford Winston: A VMT tax has the benefit over the fuel tax of being sufficiently flexible to address multiple automobile externalities including congestion, emissions, and safety.

Winston is right. A VMT tax could address congestion, emissions and safety. But he did move the goalposts. In his first response to the original post, he brought up fuel efficiency, and his next response suggested that a fuel tax is non optimal for externalities like congestion, emissions and safety. The challenge is to incent both fuel efficiency and other positive externalities.

One of my favorite books on the negative externalities of automobiles is Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker.” It’s the biography of Robert Moses, who is mostly responsible for modern day New York City, although he never held elective office.

*not me, this is one of my brothers