I think that you missed what the GP was going on about:
Many people in the USA are "brand loyal". IE as long as their first vehicle and the maker treat them decently enough, they'll go back to them for their next car. For example, me and Toyota. Though in my case it's less that I'm brand loyal (I do look at other maker's cars when I shop), and more that Toyota produces vehicles in the price range and feature set I'm looking for.

So if somebody wants a small new car, to use your mentioning it, they go with Honda, because GM/Ford and such just aren't in that segment anymore. Then, when they want to trade up to a crossover SUV, their first stop is likely going to be the Honda dealership, and that might be their last stop. So Honda picked up a future sale because they got the first sale.

That's what sphealey was talking about, I think. It's not that small cars aren't being produced at all, it's that manufacturers who don't make one might find themselves losing sales because people go for the brands that DO make them, because they're a lot of people's first new vehicle.

You basically implied that the used car market can satisfy those currently buying NEW cars (young consumers) even if the car companies stop making them, which caused me to simply point out that if no new cars are made, the used car market will eventually lack them as well.

Even if, due to economics, most young purchasers go for a used car, if their criteria is "car" and not "SUV/Truck", and GM/Ford aren't making them, then they end up in a used Honda, and again, it's to the Honda dealership they'll go when they decide to trade up to a new car. That means a vehicle GM/Ford isn't getting to sell, which is trouble for them.

BLUF: (Bottom Line Up Front)
To repeat what rally2x said: "Luxury goods" is a misnomer - it's actually spending above the poverty line that is taxed.
Under most standards, the criteria to get the prebate IS NOT COMPLICATED: Are you a legal resident of the USA? You get the prebate.
VAT: Could you please give me your definition of VAT so we can figure out what the difference is? I think you're using VAT where you mean "national sales tax". Fairtax is not a VAT by default, though it could be implemented as one fairly easily, but would increase complexity in the USA because that would make simply using the state sales tax agencies (as was proposed) more difficult, because none of them currently do VAT. So you can't do "Add 23% to the stuff you're already taxing".

Uh, I think we may have different perceptions of what a VAT - "Value Added Tax" is, because I'm still not seeing how Fairtax is a VAT.

Could you please give me your definition of VAT so we can figure out what the difference is?

But that means that it's an implementation, which fairtax by default would not go with, because none of the states are using VAT.

It's not that simple, I'd argue that there are benefits and negatives to it. For example, in the USA there are entire businesses that don't have to deal with sales tax at all, because they only sell to exempt parties (other businesses). If you go to VAT, suddenly they do. There's extra accounting the businesses downstream have to do, etc...

Honestly, I think you're saying VAT when you mean "national sales tax", because that's in the context of how the EU countries use VAT.

Note, I'm far from convinced that fairtax is actually a good proposal, as I already mentioned. But this indicates that you still don't understand the proposal. To be fair, I'm not really a proponent of it, and rally2xs doesn't necessarily explain stuff well.

But I know full well that rally2xs already explained the luxury thing to you. To wit: "luxury" in this case means anything new that is in excess of poverty line spending. IE $15k for an individual in 2024. $31k for a family of 4. So the individual would get 23% of $15k = $3450/year. Exact amount may vary based on the actual legislation, for example, it wouldn't be that unusual to set the prebate amount at 150% of the poverty line, the poverty line itself might be adjusted, etc...

Complicated mechanism for the handout: Are you living inside the USA legally? You get the prebate. Done. There may be a handful of other exceptions like "fugitive on the run", "currently in prison", and such. But despite the USA imprisoning the most people per capita in the world, that still not that many people, and the bureau of prisons can handle that.
Compared to the income tax code? Extremely simple.

Resident aliens getting it basically comes under 'very short summary'.

As for sales tax, you're talking that, in exchange for a percent or so of the federal tax, the state tax agencies would handle collecting and forwarding on the sales tax, right? Logical enough, i guess, but you would still have the 5 states, the prebate, and you'd still probably want an audit and fraud investigation unit. These days, I wouldn't trust a the states to be on the up and up.

And yes, you pay at the cash register. Just like how the lions share of income tax is collected via paycheck deduction by the employer. A lot of people don't send a check or whatever to the feds at all, instead the feds send them a payment.

The rebate would be huge, plenty of work for the IRS to manage.

It's because they were dumbasses who parked in the airport parking lot (without charging), left them in sentry mode which consumes more power for a month, then tried to mob the charging stations without knowing enough to precondition the battery by telling the car that you're going to a charging station.

That's why you weren't hearing similar stories coming from other cities further north, such as Canada, Norway, Sweden, and such.

There are many solutions:
1. Driver education
2. Improving standby power use
3. Installing at least trickle chargers in airport parking lots
4. More charging stations so you can handle the rush of low-charge rate customers (low charge rate because they didn't precondition).
5. Improved batteries that can charge faster anyways, or retain more range after sitting in a parking lot for a month
6. Software improvements so the battery gets preconditioned anyways
7. Hardware improvements so the battery can precondition faster
etc...

I think that it's also that populations are getting older. Many of the older people in my family have mobility issues. For example, I have to help mom out of my car if she rides in it - but she can get out of their compact SUV just fine.

Modern cars are typically built so low that people with arthritus and bad ankles and such can have a hard time with them. So when they go to the dealership, they're going to buy a vehicle that they can get into and out of without hurting, and that's often not a car.

Plus, well, I've seen ads placing compact SUVs as cheaper than cars smaller than that. What's up with that? And the amount I saw wasn't a small amount - it'd be like 5 years to make up the price difference with the extra gasoline use of the SUV, assuming average driving.

fairtax proposal.

Very short explanation:
Replace the income tax (and possibly other taxes) with a 23% sales tax. If you meet requirements like being a US citizen, you receive a "prebate" equal to the tax you'd pay on poverty line spending. Somewhere around $3,464 for an individual, $7,176 for a family of 4 (I couldn't find these numbers on the site, I had to calculate them based on the description of the prebate). This makes it a reasonably "progressive" tax.

The site itself talks about "no longer needing the IRS". Personally, my first thought on that is that you're still going to need an agency collecting the sales tax money as well as administering the prebate, which would logically be the IRS. IE the mission changes in some major ways, but still remains - to collect taxes and pay out refunds as required by law. To me, the IRS is not the "enemy" most people who hate income taxes view it as, as it just operates how congress tells it to.

VAT and US style sales taxes are different. With VAT, what happens is that business A, for example, produces wood logs. They sell them to business B, charging VAT. business B converts them into boards (for example), then sells them to business C, charging VAT. They then get to deduct the VAT they paid to A for buying the raw materials. Business C sells the boards to customers, again, charging VAT. They deduct the VAT they paid to B, and remit the excess to the government.

In the USA, that's generally handled by simply making business transactions tax exempt. So A selling to B simply doesn't charge sales tax. You only charge sales tax when selling to the final consumer.

Except for the problem that you'd probably sell notably fewer $73k SUVs as long as somebody is still able to offer a $70k one, perhaps one imported from overseas where they pay even less.

Well, except fairtax isn't really VAT, the idea is to get rid of the huge mess and waste of time that is our income tax system, and replace it with a theoretically simpler to manage sales tax system.

Note: I say "theoretically" because I'm far from convinced that that is actually the case. For example, fairtax cites taxes foreign visitors as a benefit - but what about the tax loss of US tourists going elsewhere? If I can, say, go to Canada for a vacation and not pay 23% sales tax, why wouldn't I? Heck, maybe I'll bring back some stuff while I'm at it.

It hasn't paid more than the occasional token statement towards being communist for decades now. It's still statist and authoritarian, of course, but it isn't communist.

Except that if no new small cars are being made, eventually the used car market for cars with a decade left in them will dry up.

They'll be stuck buying the huge used clunker that consumes even more fuel now that it's old and a bit worn out.

While the analogy isn't entirely correct, it's my impression that Tesla's cars are the equivalent of BMWs in country, at least for electric vehicles.

So BYD can be like, say, Toyota. Once you're high enough economically, getting a Tesla for appearance's sake starts becoming a thing. Or maybe you actually need the extra capabilities.

I have to point out that it's more "all US vehicles", it is very much not limited to electrics. Hell, I'd argue that there are far more ICE vehicles with this level of monitoring and interference level built in the USA than electrics.

Your "how much to disable" comment? You might as well apply that to any newish car these days.

Remember, it wasn't an electric vehicle where the manufacturer tried to make heated seats a subscription.

And China will happily give your data to the TLAs.

Forgot to state a couple points clearly:
1. An insulated tank full of molten salts is relatively cheap for the energy storage ability. It scales up very well, as the skin of the tank is where unwanted radiation/heat loss happens, and that goes up by the square, while the volume goes up by the cube. IE double the volume of the tank, surface area and heat loss should only go up 40%.
2. Power turbines are expensive, but not that expensive. Our standby natural gas turbines already have them, and having extras, well, it's not bad for a plant otherwise. IE if you have extra turbines, you can take one offline for maintenance or replacement without affecting operations much.

Actually, the latest is to steal a bit of technology from reflective solar thermal systems - thermal storage.

There's a push to switch to MSR - Molten Salt Reactor. There's a number of potential advantages to this, including reducing the pressure of the reactor and enabling much higher temperatures for efficiency. But in the context of balancing supply, if you build one of these, you can also build a relatively giant insulated tank. You fill it with the superheated molten salts, heated up by the reactor. You then build an appropriate number and type of turbines, so you generate the exact amount of steam you need at the time using the heat from the tank.

IE you could have a 4GWt* reactor, putting 4GW into the tank. Then you produce anything from 0-10GWe using turbines as necessary. Your only limit is not letting the tank get too cold(the salt will freeze and the steam won't be hot enough to turn the turbines well) or too hot. If there's a risk of the tank getting too hot, you can turn off the reactor if necessary. Realistically, they can scale the power plant's output enough to avoid it being a problem. If there's a risk of the tank getting too cold, well, time to build another reactor and tank setup. Or if it's a momentary problem, make the tank bigger.

*GWt = GigaWatt thermal, GWe = GigaWatt electrical