Is the HOV Green Sticker certification a given?

I read here somewhere that there will be a limit of 40K green stickers available on a first come-first served basis, for all qualifying vehicles, including electrics. You will need to have a permanent plate on the vehicle before applying for the sticker. The estimated delivery time plus registration/plate turn-around with the DMV ought to give enough time to get the pip officially designated as eligible for HOV stickers.

 

Don't electrics get the white sticker, not the green. I don't think you need to worry, google the CA website that has the info. There aren't many cars that qualify, even the Volt doesn't qualify until the 2012 model since they have to tweak it.

 

yeah electrics get white stickers. to my knowlege there are no cars beside the 2012 prius phev that qualify for the green stickers.

apparently hydrogen fueled ICE cars will qualify, but until i read the below i never knew such technology existed.

Eligible Vehicles - Single Occupant Carpool Lane Use Stickers

i'm pretty sure they used to list the 2012 phev prius on that page but now i can't find it.

 

Moolman, you are correct. I was misrembering what I had read. I checked the DMV site and white stickers are indeed for dedicated CNG and all-electrics, along with hydrogen cell vehicles.

 

i wouldn't worry too much. my understanding is that the volt did not qualify due to the engine emissions. the phev prius has pretty much the same engine as the gen 3 prius and california was giving replacement yellow stickers to people whose gen 2 priuses were totalled.

so i think the 2012 prius is going to make the list.

 

If you use the link "pfile" provided above, and scroll down to the listings of eligible vehicles for 2010, you will see that the plug in Prius is listed as qualifying. Apparently the CARB folks accepted whatever prototype Toyota was testing at that time, so I think the new 2012 model will be added to the list before any of us actually get our hands on a production model from today's order.

 

ah yes - roger is right, the 2010 prius is on that list. i was searching for the wrong terms on the page.

while the battery technology changed between the prototype and the production car, i don't think that's material to the emissions, at least in any negative way.

 

actually, the main thing that worries me personally is not ARB approval but rather federal approval. note the text from that page:

 

Same thing happened with the original issuing of the yellow stickers. The feds are not going to risk the ire of a whole passel of Californians by not giving the OK for the green stickers. I think the issue was then that federal funds had built the HOV lanes, and thus the fed approval was needed.

 

The updated Volt that will qualify for the Green stickers can currently be ordered from CA Chevy dealers. First deliveries will occur in February according to Jim Federico from GM

Noel

 

interesting! i did not know that. good news for GM.

 

That's good for GM, but I don't think they will sell 40,000 Volts before the PIP arrives. Wikipedia says that Chevy forecasts 45,000 Volts will be sold in the US in 2012, so I think we can comfortably say that they won't sell 40,000 in California, much less between February and April-May.

 

yeah hard to see the volt really eating up all the green stickers.

 

Here's one thing worth considering:

What models will qualify?
Qualifying vehicles will be posted to this web page. In general, vehicles with the potential of meeting the Enhanced AT PZEV requirement include plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and hydrogen internal combustion engine (hydrogen ICE) vehicles. In order to be certified as an Enhanced AT PZEV, PHEVs and hydrogen ICE vehicles must:

• Meet California's most stringent tailpipe emission standard
• Have zero evaporative emissions
• Have a 15 yr/150K mile warranty on the emissions system and;
• Have a 10 yr/150K warranty on the zero emission energy storage system.

I may be wrong but I don't think the Toyota 2012 PiP meets these warranty requirements. I wonder if that's going to be an issue.

 

well last time around toyota just warranted those things for those lengths in california...

i mean seriously, besides the volt version 2 and phev prius, there are just no other cars that would qualify for the green stickers. why would the state bother with the program? CA certified the prototype PiP. are those cars still on the road or did toyota "recall" them all?

 

Yeah, I'm fairly confident that the PiP will qualify for the green sticker, but since I haven't been able to nail down any concrete assurances, I'm still a little skeptical.

 

Worrying for the sake of worrying???