Interesting, some form of this type of tax structure will eventually be put in place everywhere. If you want people to behave in a certain way, you design incentives and disincentives into tax laws to encourage the results you want. There's nothing new about this, but I doubt an extra $1000 in tax is going to change many peoples behavior. If you want Bubba to get rid of his silly $40K truck, you are going to have to cost him significantly more cash. Most folks will just drive what they want and pay the tax, but it is an interesting gesture.