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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.
France removed taxes on non-road diesel this year and paid per-liter-subsidies on top.
Keeping independent local agriculture is quite existential for any state, so this is understandable despite being morally questionable in my opinion.
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.
The way we are going, we are heading to a world that will be much harder and more expensive to live in.
Interesting fact: If you price CO2 at <$100/ton and assume that (ballpark) 2000 Gt of emissions (starting now) already lead to very severe consequences (this is quite generous), then you are pricing "somewhat intact climate for the next few centuries" at around one years GDP (which is insane to me).
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.
First degree: It came into your home from the factory through the shop. 80% product + 20% diesel.
Second degree: Product is aluminum can + water + ingredients. Aluminium came to be a can through 70% refined aluminum + 15% diesel (transport) + 15% electrical energy (pressing the can). Water was pumped locally: free from the ground + 100% electrical energy. Ingredients came from a farm: 80% local product + 20% diesel.
Third degree: Electrical energy came from 40% gas turbines, 30% hydro, 30% wind farm. Ingredients from farms came from soil 40%, 35% nitrogen fertilizer (== gas), 25% diesel (machines)
... and so on
If you decompose everything all the way, the global tally is either matter, which is given to us by nature for free. Or energy; The sources of which being vastly composed of fossil fuels. Fossil fuel prices affect everything.
These fossil resources being finite we can also conclude we're experiencing a centuries-long hay-fire. But hey, we're merely plateauing right now; and most of us won't be here for the harder part of the crash.
And I didn't even mention climate change.
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.
A diesel sedan might use 1.25 gal for 100 ton-miles, while a tractor trailer might use a third of that (though, to be fair, I thought this would be a bigger delta before I looked).
But then if you look at "Equivalent Single Axle Loads", a tractor trailer is ~2 ESAL while a diesel sedan is ~0.0003 ESAL. So we're talking maybe 0.13 ESAL/gal for the former vs 0.0001 ESAL/gal for the latter.
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?
Diesel will get used excessively and you will get more road wear, as the user proposed. If you tax it, you will pay more directly for goods, but as costs rise people will be incentivized to find more efficient transport solutions.
It might still be worth it if road wear is cheap or the predictable misuse is predictable and that saves money somehow, but in all likelihood little harm would come from a fair treatment of diesel vs. gasoline etc. taking into account road wear of each vehicle class. It would be more natural to tax vehicle weight, hours driven etc. directly based on a sound model of societal cost though.
I would also add to that affordable food is being first produced by agricultural machinery running on diesel, which is then transported by trucks running on diesel on roads build by machinery running on diesel. There is a good youtube video about this from channel driving 4 answers.
And then both are dominated by the drive from the grocery store to your house. If you care about food carbon emissions, walk/bike to your grocery store. That'll have far more impact than food choice.
It’s almost like they are trying to bankrupt everything and take it for themselves. O wait…
cost of diesel has a reverb effect across the whole economy.
the shrinkage is felt but won't be truly reflected in the economy. so the government can keep lying about the numbers.
[1] https://bensinpriskollen.se/dieselpris/
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.
I am feeling it for folks who use oil heat (diesel with different tax structure) in areas where there is no natural gas.
Home heating oil runs at about 75% the cost of diesel. The storage tanks are 275 gallons/1100 litres, so a fill-up, which might happen four to six times in a winter, would be extremely painful right now.
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.
[1] https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/longread/rapportages/2026/onderweg-...
We couldn't and didn't vote the primary cause for this in office, thank you very much.
It always makes me laugh when people can't follow an argument or chain of thought -- or misconstrue because they need to win random Internet arguments