New Green Sticker Limit

I guess it depends how badly one of your neighbors needs the sticker for their commute

 

We bought a PiP yesterday with 2 miles on the odo. Sticker 37,836. Maybe they stashed it away to charge a premium. Oh, well, my wife loves the car. It makes us a two-Prius family, with our 16-year old driving our 3rd gen 2010.

 

Congrats on the new one and the old one

 

AB2013, to increase the green sticker limit to 85,000, is rushing through the Assembly like grease through a goose.

It passed its first and second readings yesterday and the day before, after a 54-21 procedural vote. After a third reading (today?) it should be on its way to the Senate.

It has been amended to be an urgency measure, so requires a 2/3 vote and would take effect immediately if signed. Sponsors must be confident.

 

I thought there were some concerns with the HOV congestion deterioration?

 

God I hope so.
That would be wicked awesome. But, HOV lane degradation for traffic is awful with all of the white stickered cars who really belong there "first" being overshasdowed by green stickers... so we shall see.

CA Electric-Car Incentive Update: Funds Run Out, Green Stickers Gone

 

How fast does grease go thru a goose?
Sheesh I hate to be the one to take the dirty grease to Gov desk for signature.

...85000 green does not seem to make sense?...CA already has 40000 green and about same in white stickers.
If you went to 85000 green, you'd also have about 85000 white stickers to, I believe as BEV (22k last year CA) outselling PHEV right now in CA (~20k last year). So you'd be at 170,000 green + white in 2 years worth of sales of BEV+PHEV.

I am going from memory re; CA sales, but I think the sticker sitation already looks crowded w/ 22k new BEV/year.

The most I was hoping maybe raise it 45-50k green just cause we need it bad to keep sales going. Otherwise I think the year end news is predictable: PHEV sales not so good.

 

Well, the risk to the green stickered cars is that when it gets too congested, they will kick the greenies out and leave the whites in there.

 

Unlikely. Maybe they will start kicking out the solo drivers with chutzpah but no sticker at all.

 

...or a sticker cap and trade system

 

A few months back, one of the large northern California newspapers published a series of articles detailing how most of the laws that make it through the state legislature are actually written by lobbyists and handed to legislators, who introduce them verbatim. And there seems to be some correlation with campaign contributions, but this tends to be obfuscated to avoid the appearance of breaking laws against quid pro quo.

The reason I bring this up is: just wondering if businesses with a vested interest in increasing PHEV sales (GM/Ford/Toyota and their dealers) are pushing this increase of the green decal limit, even though it could lead to all green decals being cancelled due to congestion thresholds being hit. But why would they care? They would have gotten their sales.

Sorry for the rather cynical post. But that seems to be the way state government is done here.

 

Do you think they will actually kick us all out, including pre-40k, if the carpool lane threshold is hit?

 

I think that is the way the law was originally written- an escape clause should the HOV lanes become clogged. As a practical matter for enforcement, there would be no way for an officer to tell what number was on any given sticker without pulling the car over for inspection, so we're all either in or out, regardless.

 

So who do we need to contact to voice our opinions over AB2013? Our local congressman?

 

Your State Senator and Assemblyperson.

 

AB 2013 failed to advance to the Senate yesterday. The vote was 43 yes to 5 no, with 31 not voting. Because it's an urgency measure (takes effect immediately) 53 votes were needed. (The no votes were three Republicans and two Democrats.)

My guess is that it'll pass on reconsideration and go to the Senate. Maybe attendance on a Monday was light.

 

There is now opposition to this bill, according to the CA legislature website:

Writing in opposition to this bill, however, the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission (MTC) is concerned that the landscape
of California's HOV lanes has changed considerably since clean
air vehicles were first allowed in them. In particular, MTC
notes that virtually every metropolitan region in the state is
operating or is planning to operate high-occupancy toll lanes
whereby single-occupant vehicles may access HOV lanes for a fee.
MTC does not believe access to these lanes should be given away
for free.

 

In other words, the MTC sees the potential $$$ in HOT and hence want to prevent as many no-paying HOV users as possible.

 

(Oops; duplicate deleted)

 

That is, nothing to do with safety or emissions or traffic congestion. Similar to the philosophy of where to place red-light cameras.