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Old 02-09-2010, 04:17 PM   #20
iudexmaximus
 
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Drives: BMW
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Italia
Posts: 34
Quote:
Originally Posted by stand-al0ne View Post
more expensive in Europe.
Tax on engine displacement will hurt it and shipping from CAN to EU is more than what we pay to simply ship South...
What you say, and what is written on the link, is not completely true.
In Italy,for example, taxes aren't any more based on displacement since the beginning of 90's. Until those times, VAT on gasoline cars with displacement lower than 2.0L was 19%, while over 2.0L it was 38% IIRC.
Currently VAT is 20% in any case.
Every year we pay a tax based on how much HP the car has at the flywheel (...) and it's about 2.60 € per KW, based on emissions. It could be higher is the car is old, because it's assumed to respect older pollution laws.
The only tax that is based on displacement is the insurance, but the difference among my 2.2 liters bmw and a 6,2 liters camaro SS is just 30 euros per year.

The car prices is just a political matter: european cars are cheaper in the Usa than in EU, even if you have to cross the ocean to transport them and even if you have to pay import taxes. If OEM want to sell a car in a market, they have to fit the prices according to the local market. It doesn't matter if they don't gain so much money there: they will gain more money in other countries, tipically in Europe and especially in Italy.
Prices have nothing to see with euro/dollar exchange rate, or with shipping costs, or with import duties. Otherwise, european cars should be crazy expensive in the usa lately.

In europe, and especially in Italy, we have smaller cars, with smaller engines, because we have few space and a lot of people live in small areas. So, on small cars, OEM fit small engines, which should have low fuel consumption. This is not true, but people still have this idea in their mind, and OEM and governments push on it.
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