Netherlands road tax

The Netherlands has announced that they are going to eliminate the tax on new vehicles, and replace it with a tax based on how many kilometres you drive. The tax will be higher with high emissions vehicles, and vice versa.

To do this, they will put a GPS tracker in every vehicle, and send the information about where you drive to the government.

I'm usually for carbon taxes, but this one seems iffy. If would be infinitely simpler, and much, much less intrusive to simply tax the gasoline more at the pump. Why they opted for a much more complicated, privacy eroding system isn't clear, though cynicism and/or paranoia could probably help provide you with some explanations.

I don't really like the idea of the government knowing where we drive. Then again, we already accept that google can see everywhere we visit, and that we can be tracked using our cellphones, so I guess this isn't that huge a leap.

But simply taxing gas would be a much better idea, from most points of view. Also, removing the tax on new cars seems odd, as it encourages buying cars. Cutting car prices by 25% would probably convince some people to buy a car if they'd previously been avoiding it for cost reasons. People are more likely to notice big upfront costs than small, steady costs like gas.