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New rules are relaunching the debate on vehicle taxes, at a time when one in five new cars sold in Switzerland is electric.
Cars grow by one or even two centimeters each year on Swiss soil, according to RTS estimates. © Keystone
Published on 06.05.2024
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Traffic is responsible for around a quarter of annual CO emissions2 on Swiss soil. As for the automobile fleet, it has doubled in 40 years, reaching more than 4.8 million passenger vehicles in 2023. Worse, recent media surveys show that the Swiss are buying ever larger and ever heavier cars. How to deal with the most urgent?
The specialist in environmental assessment of vehicles with the Transport and Environment Association (ATE) Luca Maillard calls for applying the polluter pays principle, by penalizing the largest emitters. He It is also important to encourage the transition to light electric vehicles.
“Taxation of automobiles should therefore be based on three main criteria: the type of engine, consumption and weight of the vehicles,” explains Luca Maillard. Before adding that “their occupancy rate could also serve as a determining factor”.
Tax individual journeys
Taxing motorists parading alone in their big cars… The idea is attractive. But it is not about to see the light of day. And even less to be applied homogeneously throughout the country, where a disparity already reigns in terms of taxation criteria. These differences have just reached a new peak, two French-speaking cantons having made significant reforms to their tax system.
“The Geneva tax model seems to us to be the most favorable to environmental protection”
Luca Maillard
In Geneva, the car tax was revised, following a popular vote last March. It is no longer based on power, a criterion deemed obsolete by the TCS, but on CO emissions.2 for thermal ones and on weight for electric ones. This distinction between the two types of engine has the advantage of less penalizing the purchase of electric cars. It also compensates, to a certain extent, for the removal of the tax exemption granted to electric motor vehicles decided by the Federal Council at the end of 2023. “The Geneva tax model seems to us to be the most favorable to environmental protection,” greets Luca Maillard.
Vaud not very dissuasive
In the canton of Vaud, new legislation came into force at the beginning of this year. However, it presents a very different orientation. The new calculation of the tax reinforces previous criteria, such as weight and power, with a bonus and penalty system based on CO emissions.2. Except that on closer inspection, we see that the Council of State has introduced a limit in the increases concerning CO emissions2 (penalty).
Another surprise, the scale applied is hardly dissuasive below 2.5 tonnes and very little beyond, which spares a good part of the fleet of behemoth cars.
David Raedler, president of ATE Vaud, criticized this “decision to limit maximum increases to 25%” for automobiles that are most harmful to the climate. He denounces a “new law that is simply useless in its objective of fighting against unnecessarily heavy and polluting vehicles”.
Elsewhere, the system is still different. For Neuchâtel, two criteria are decisive. The first represents an incentive to choose a vehicle with no or low emissions. The second aims to use your vehicle for as long as possible and thus reduce the gray energy linked to the production of new vehicles.
For Philippe Burri, director of the Cantonal Automobile and Navigation Service (SCAN), there is no doubt: “Clearly, it is CO taxation2 which is the most effective method to help reduce emissions. We have been using it since 2014 in Neuchâtel. And we are considering differentiating the taxation of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, which all pay the minimum tax of 250 francs per year.”
Weight question
In the meantime, the Neuchâtel system does not further encourage the purchase of new light electric cars. The weight criterion is presented as very relative and even questionable, which concerns some regarding the new tax law passed in Geneva. As Philippe Burri points out: “For an electric vehicle, electricity consumption is more important than weight. A Tesla or a Hyundai often consumes less electricity over 100 kilometers than a Renault Zoé or a Fiat 500.”
It refers to the list of vehicles with consumption data provided by the TCS and the SuisseEnergie platform, the Confederation’s incentive program in the field of energy attached to the Federal Office of Energy (SFOE). This list serves as a reference to determine the “energy label” of automobiles, which is one of the tax criteria of certain cantons, including Fribourg.
However, this famous energy label is also contested by the ATE, which is surprised that the OFEN awards the best rating (“class A”) to high-end electric vehicles weighing more than 2 tonnes. The ATE has, for its part, published its own “guide to the ecologically responsible purchase of a vehicle”, favoring small city cars at an affordable price – and above all, two to three times less heavy.
Cantonal differences
Faced with the climate imperative, can we hope for unanimous and coherent measures? It won’t be tomorrow. “An attempt to harmonize the cantonal tax failed in the 1990s,” notes Massimo Gonnella, spokesperson for the TCS. From 2007, several cantonal models favoring low-consumption vehicles were introduced, without however moving towards harmonization of the calculation. Car taxes are a cantonal responsibility. Indeed, each canton has different requirements in terms of maintenance of the road network and decides on its financial policy according to its budgetary requirements.”
The contrasting realities between city, countryside and mountains explain the rest, according to Massimo Gonnella, who recalls that “the Alpine cantons generally do not wish to practice a punitive pricing policy for all-wheel drive vehicles because they are necessary for a significant part of their population”.
The Friborg recipe
Of all the taxation systems, that of the canton of Friborg appears to be one of the most favorable to electric cars. Michel Brischoux, deputy director at the Traffic and Navigation Office (OCN), recalls that the new law on the taxation of motor vehicles came into force in 2022, after being adopted almost unanimously by the Great Council.
“For passenger cars, the price is progressive and based on the power of the vehicles. This criterion has the advantage of being common to all types of engines: more power equals more consumption and equals more emissions.”
A priori, this “Fribourg recipe” mixing criteria and reductions seems to be bearing fruit
In terms of incentive measures, Michel Brischoux adds: “Price reductions are granted on the one hand depending on the type of engine: 15% for hybrid cars, 30% for electric or hydrogen cars; on the other hand, depending on the energy label: 30% for cars with energy label A.” Another advantage of the Friborg system: “The two reductions can be combined. An electric car therefore benefits from a 30% reduction thanks to its electric motor and an additional 30% if it has an A energy label – which is the case for a large number of electric cars –, i.e. in total a reduction of 60%.”
A priori, this “Fribourg recipe” mixing criteria and reductions seems to be bearing fruit. Friborg is thus ranked at the top of the cantons where the number of hybrid and electric cars has increased the most in 2023 (34% over one year to represent 12% of passenger cars, according to figures from the OCN).
In practice, however, there is a downside: 100% electric models remain rare in the canton, with only 3.3% of cars in circulation. And the age as well as the power of vehicles have increased significantly over the last ten years, with the population favoring second-hand, cheaper models. (GL)
