Luxury cars ...

This thing is not a good Saab thing as the subheadline of my blog says. It's a bad car thing, unfortunately. The registration fee for cars is slowly crawling around and the course is towards my home country Slovakia.

The benchmark on which the registration fee will depend is engine performance. Not CO2 emissions, weight and /or age, origin or fuel type of the car. Let's see, what is coming :

Performance kW	Performance HP	Fee (€)
80 - 86	107 - 115	167
86 - 92	115 - 123	217
92 - 98	123 - 131	267
98 - 104	131 - 139	327
104 - 110	139 - 147	397
110 - 121	147 - 162	477
121 - 132	162 - 177	657
132 - 143	177 - 191	787
143 - 154	191 - 206	957
154 - 165	206 - 221	1157
165 - 176	221 - 235	1397
176 - 202	235 - 270	1697
202 - 228	270 - 305	2047
228 - 254	305 - 340	2467
254+	340+	2997

This is a pure taxation of luxury called owning a vehicle. It mirrors the thinking of the society. Consider this : the current average wage is just below 800 €. More than a half of the employees earn less. A paycheck on 1000 € and more is seen by 18% citizens. Therefore to earn a vehicle is widely considered as luxury.

I just wonder, why so many cars are on the streets ?

It's not about owning a musculative supersport, large SUV or a convertible. It's about the average man. A common reaction when a car is needed, (young family, small shop owner), is to buy a used car. Not anymore, these fees are applied to used cars as well and it is about first registration in the country.

So for them a used Skoda Octavia (leading brand here) or VW Golf 1.4TSI will cost 217 € more. If you want a diesel from them, you have to stay on the 1.6 TDI. It doesn't matter if new or used.

In a Saab case, the weakest petrol Saab, the 1.8i with 122 HP would require 217 €. Same for diesel 1.9TiD. The twin turbo TTiD with 179 HP would cost me a bit shocking 787 € on registration fee. My used Saab would cost me 2047 € more. Ooops...

The consequences : 

Lower car sales and increasing age of the cars. Milking the middle-class (not only through this fee) will cause less expenditures and waiting for the storm fades out. Does it helps the economy ? No way.

Increase of vehicles with foreign numberplates. People will search possibilities to register the vehicles in neighbouring countries, mainly Czech republic. Simillar example was when our hungarian neighbours registered cars in Slovakia, because of the price.

Support of local used car stores. It'is a common practice here to cheat the odometers and making cars "younger". So many scraps with good looking driven kilometers are appearing. They are cheaper to buy as import it. More expensive to maintain, dangerous to drive.

The most sad thing is, that in developed countries you get a counter value for your taxes. The level of state services - healthcare, retired pay, road system, creating job opportunities etc. Not so here. The majority of the collected money will disappear in private pockets.

This is only one of at least four of such a brilliant ideas coming here. It's about time to think about a defense strategy.