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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.
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A federal statute that expires on September 30 allows California to extend HOV-lane access to single-occupancy cars.
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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.
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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.
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