johnh wrote:
French Malus charge
Didjû, c’est pas de la blague. 50 000 EUR CO2 malus tax and 13 500 EUR malus by weight for, well, the car I now drive. “Generously,” the 50 000 EUR combined cap kicks in and the total of the two taxes is “only” 50 000 EUR. I don’t live in France (and no plan to move there), but I had completely never heard of that.
MD, which standards does the Camry not meet any longer? Emission? Anything else?
Practically speaking, it’s infeasible to drive a new car in France with a decent-sized ICE engine. The €50K Malus applies to anything more than about 2 litres. Even smaller cars attract quite a penalty. To buy a typical US-style SUV is out of the question unless you really have way too much money. Toyota isn’t importing anything that would attract a big Malus – because nobody would buy it. I guess the Ferrari/Lambo/Porsche dealers stay in business because there are indeed people who will spring >€100K on a car and don’t mind paying the Malus.
Old and new……
aart it had several issues the examiners wanted fixed. Parts alone would have been 7k. E.g they do not accept a welded exhaust… and similar stuff. Simply the sum of it was too much to be economically feasible.
On the other hand I passed cars which were in much worse conditions in Bulgaria. I would actually have loved to export it there to use it. But as it’s not of EU origin customs would have been prohibitive.
There has always been a fiscal penalty for buying a high horsepower car in France.
In the days when we had road tax the higher the horsepower the higher the road tax. That’s why even large cars like the Citroen DS prestige only had a 2500cc engine with a low fiscal hp.
Nowadays, the higher the hp the higher the malus. Meanwhile a hybrid or electric vehicle and some lower hp cars will attract a discount. I’ve never seen a €50k malus. The malus being part of the tax on the carte grise (registration certificate for a vehicle). It is calculated based on the CO2 the vehicle produces. You can get a discount/refund on the malus if for instance you have 3 or more kids and a 5 seat vehicle. It’s a complicated system but there are online calculators.
The tax rate varies from €2 for each gram of CO2 emitted between 50g/km and 100g/km to €27 per gram emitted above 250g/km.
France loves complicated tax calculations
You should see the annual declaration of revenue.🤪🤪🤪
You’d think after a while they’d figure out that micromanaging people’s lives and confiscating their hard earned money benefits nobody… except maybe those taking the money. Which is of course the real point of the exercise, along with self deception by many of those involved.
I have 12 road registered vehicles for personal use, so I’m quite happy that no MoT inspection applies to any of them. Fuel consumption varies (between 53 mpg and 10.5 US mpg, or between 4.44 and 22.6 L/100 km) and utility varies equally so I choose the one that best suits my needs on any particular day. All are maintained well, mostly by my own fair hands, and the most expensive of them was $22K, a very nice Japanese mid-range full sized car bought new for that amount in 2017, all taxes included.
I’ll be in Corsica and the French Alps again this year, both are great places to vacation. Same for the Engadin and nearby where I’ll be on the way. The motorcycle I use there has been US registered in Europe since 1998, a set up which avoids the hassles and inspections of local registration. It cost me about $3000 in 2006 and is serviced about every 5000 km without anybody forcing me to do it 
gallois wrote:
I’ve never seen a €50k malus.
Well, the CO2 malus is also capped at 50% of the price (including VAT) of the car, so yeah, for most (fuel-burning) cars that cap will be reached and that will be the amount of the CO2 tax; but then the “weight tax” seems to be on top of this cap, and at 10 EUR per kg of maximum laden weight… ça pique quand même!
The full table is hereI’ve never seen a €50k malus
Actually I was wrong, the maximum figure is €60K for 2024. €50K was for 2023. I didn’t know about the 50% cap though. Even so paying 50% over the official price would hurt enough that you’d have to be stinking rich to do it.
benefits nobody… except maybe those taking the money
Not really in this case. The effect is that nobody buys cars that would hit a siginficant malus. I think we paid about €400 when we bought our Duster three years ago – about 2% of the vehicle price, so in the noise. Generally people don’;t buy “fancy” cars in France – even people with money drive smaller cars. If you see something show-off round here, like a Bentley or a Lambo, it nearly always has Monaco (or further afield) plates.
And your area has the highest proportion of high performance super cars in France.
Most Ferraris, Porsche etc cars around here are in the hands of collectors and of an age pre malus.
And your area has the highest proportion of high performance super cars in France.
The only place I’ve seen a Ferrari and a Lambo parked outside the same house was in Hossegor (on the Atlantic coast). I was pretty surprised too.
You see a decent sprinkling of native Porsche round here, but I’d say 99% of the Ferrari/Lambo/Bentley class are from Monaco, Germany or Switzerland.
