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Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
California EV Drivers Might Lose HOV Lane Access In September
As newly minted Tesla owner/spokesperson and President of the United States Donald Trump looks to cancel legislation intended to preserve the environment, it seems like California's HOV lane exemption for electric and plug-in vehicles is next on the chopping block. We covered just about everything there is to know about HOV lanes earlier this month, but as it pertains to this topic, one function of HOV lanes is that they encourage road goers to carpool to decrease the number of tailpipes that belch out Earth-warming emissions. California currently allows owners of Clean Air Vehicles to apply for special decals that allow drivers to use the HOV lane regardless of vehicle occupancy, thanks to their decreased or eliminated emissions. The state issued 194,486 Clean Air Vehicle exemptions in 2024, a 52-percent increase in the number issued in 2023, but the current program is set to expire on September 30, and prospects of an extension look grim. The 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century allowed states to issue these permits, and California instituted its program the following year in 1999. Qualifications for these decals have become stricter over the years. Originally any sort of hybrid qualified — you'll still see second-gen Priuses driving around with their original stickers in California — but currently, qualifying vehicles must be fully electric, hydrogen-fuel cell, a plug-in hybrid that meets certain conditions (mainly EV range) or compressed natural gas vehicles that meet certain conditions. Automotive News reports, In 2024, the state's Department of Motor Vehicles issued 194,486 stickers allowing cars to use the HOV lane with single occupancy through the Clean Air Vehicle decal program. That's a 52 percent increase from 2023's 128,122 decals. The popularity of the program paradoxically undermines its efficiency. As more vehicles are able to use the HOV lane, it becomes more crowded, eroding the incentive for both clean-air vehicle drivers and those making a concerted effort to carpool. "You're going to reach some point where you've exhausted that excess capacity," said John Swanton, an air pollution specialist with the California Air Resource Board's communications office. "We're not at the point where, no matter what we do, it's totally exhausted, but the challenge to our legislature is how to keep this a meaningful incentive." Read more: Honda Prologue Costs Less, Gets More Range Than Chevy Blazer EV Sibling Swanton told Automotive News that the impact of discontinuing the program "is not going to be a deal-breaker," since the number of people buying qualifying vehicles to take advantage of the carpool incentive is small nowadays. On the flip side, California Republican State Assemblymember Greg Wallis said it's a "key incentive" for many Californian car shoppers. Wallis authored a bill that would extend the state's Clean Air Vehicle decal initiative through Jan. 1, 2027, but it is currently pending extended federal authorization. That federal authorization is likely going to be very challenging for Republican Assemblymember Wallis' bill. The Republican-led Congress has introduced a bill to eliminate the individual $7,500 EV tax credit, and both Trump and his pick to run the EPA Lee Zeldin have been quite vocal about their intentions to gut environmental protections, so hope for the revival of the decal initiative is waning. According to the California Energy Commission, California had over 1.6 million EVs on its roads at the end of 2024, not including plug-in-hybrid or hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. The impact of losing the Clean Air Vehicle initiative could have been more devastating to widespread EV adoption in years past, but hopefully the impact is minimal should Wallis' proposed program extension get shot down. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
California's HOV Access for EV Drivers Could Disappear Later This Year
California may lose access to a popular EV incentive that allows drivers of electric and plug-in-hybrid cars to use HOV lanes without passengers. A federal statute that expires on September 30 allows California to extend HOV-lane access to single-occupancy cars. Legislators in California want to extend the incentive, but lawmakers in Washington have not made any moves to do so. California drivers with low-emission vehicles have long been allowed to enjoy the perks of the high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane, no matter the amount of passengers they carry. That perk may soon be coming to an end, though, as reported by Automotive News. The federal statute that allows states to give low-emission cars special access to HOV lanes is set to expire on September 30. The AN report says that California lawmakers want to extend the provision, but legislators in Washington D.C. have not made any moves in that direction. Greg Wallis, a Republican state assemblyman who authored a bill to extend the bill in California, called the program a "key incentive." "Many California auto buyers purchase ZEVs to access HOV lanes," Wallis said in a statement. "I strongly encourage the Trump administration to extend the program to keep our transportation transition moving in the right direction." Since 1998, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century has allowed states to permit drivers of single-occupancy vehicles to use HOV lanes, so long as their car is "certified as an inherently low-emission vehicle." A year later, California introduced its Clean Air Vehicle Decal program that incentivized the switch to more efficient vehicles. Cars are only eligible for the decal program once, and the incentive isn't transferable. The program requires ICE cars to meet California's SULEV and Federal ILEV emission standards, plug-in-hybrid cars to meet California's TZEV standards, or be 100 percent battery-electric or hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered vehicles. The potential loss of the HOV incentive is one of many recent blows to electric vehicles, but the program's efficiency was already at risk. As AN reports, the number of decals the California DMV issued to EVs increased by 52 percent between 2023 and 2024, so as the program's popularity has increased, the benefits of the restricted HOV-lane access have decreased. You Might Also Like Car and Driver's 10 Best Cars through the Decades How to Buy or Lease a New Car Lightning Lap Legends: Chevrolet Camaro vs. Ford Mustang!
