Bad news, electric vehicle owners. Starting Monday morning, one of California’s longest-running incentives for people to buy electric cars — a program that provided access to carpool lanes regardless of how many people are in a zero-emission vehicle — is coming to end.
The Clean Air Vehicle decal program expired Oct. 1, after Republican leaders in Congress and the Trump administration declined to reauthorize the federal law that allowed it.
Two months ago, the California Highway Patrol gave motorists across the state a 60-day grace period until Dec. 1. That’s Monday. The CHP says it will begin writing tickets for solo EV drivers who are in carpool lanes during restricted times from here on out.
“Starting Monday it will be an enforceable violation,” said Sgt. Andrew Barclay, a CHP spokesman. “Officers have discretion on every stop they make. But the important thing to remember at this point is that you can now be cited for a violation of HOV lane rules even if you have the sticker.”
A violation ticket for driving solo in carpool lanes in California, also known as diamond lanes, or high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, is a minimum $490 fine.
The colorful “Clean Air Vehicle” stickers have given drivers of Teslas, Priuses, Leafs, Rivians and other electric vehicles privileges to cruise along carpool lanes during commute times on congested roads like Highway 101 in Silicon Valley, 880 in the East Bay or the 405 freeway in Los Angeles.
For the past 25 years, federal law has allowed states to decide whether they want to grant carpool-lane access to electric vehicles. The original idea was to provide incentives to sell the vehicles, which reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases.
But under the most recent version of the federal law, signed by President Barack Obama in 2015 and called the “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act,” those permissions expired on Sept. 30. Republicans who currently have majorities in the House and Senate have not reauthorized the program, and President Donald Trump ended federal tax credits for electric vehicles, and blocked a California law requiring all new vehicles sold in the state starting in 2035 be electric.
Owners of electric vehicles say they are disappointed by the loss of the solo carpool lane access.
“It’s a huge, huge bummer for EV enthusiasts,” said John Stringer, president of Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley, a club with 6,000 members. “It has been one of the things we’ve been able to enjoy for years. It was one of the reasons why I bought my first EV.”
Most freeways in California require two, or in some cases three, people per vehicle to be allowed to drive in carpool lanes during morning and afternoon rush hours.
Stringer, a San Jose resident, said EV access has cut 20 minutes each way off his 1-hour-and-15-minute commute to work in San Mateo. Many of his fellow EV owners may have forgotten that the grace period for their once coveted stickers expires Monday, he said.
“It’s going to be a big adjustment,” he said. “If you are used to just getting into the carpool lane and going, you are going to have to adjust. People are going to need to remember. Some people are definitely going to be in for a rude awakening.”
California political leaders of both parties have opposed the loss of carpool lane access.
Last year, a Southern California Republican, Assemblyman Greg Wallis of Rancho Mirage, wrote a bill, AB 2678, to extend California’s EV carpool decal program until Jan. 1, 2027. It passed with large bipartisan majorities in Sacramento. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law. But it won’t take effect unless Congress reauthorizes the program.
The auto industry and other supporters of the program tried to insert last-minute language into legislation to keep the federal government open before the shutdown earlier this fall, but that failed, said Bill Magavern, policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, an environmental group.
Advocates are expected to try again next year when the federal highway funding bill comes up. But it’s far from a guarantee, he said, not only because Trump has pushed oil and coal over renewable energy and electric vehicles, but also because in some places like California, there are large numbers of EVs on the highways.
As of August, there were 511,877 active EV carpool stickers in California, according to DMV spokesman Jonathan Groveman. Since the program began in 2000, there have been 1,211,530 million issued.
When the program first began, after former Gov. Gray Davis signed AB 71, a law written by former Republican Assemblyman Jim Cunneen of San Jose in 1999, less than 2% of cars on the road were electric. Last year in California, 25.3% of the new vehicles sold were electric, according to the California Energy Commission.
In some counties, the number is even higher.
In Santa Clara County, 43.8% of new passenger vehicles purchased last year were “zero emission” — basically electric or plug-in hybrid. In Marin County, it was 40.1%; Alameda County 37.7%; Contra Costa County 32.7%; San Mateo County 25.3% and San Francisco 35.6%. It was 31% in Orange County, and 26.5% in Los Angeles County.
The top-selling car in California for the past three years has been the Tesla Model Y, according to data from the California New Car Dealers Association, surpassing the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla and other traditional gasoline-powered vehicles that once led sales.
Nobody knows whether the HOV sticker change will increase traffic, or reduce it. It depends on whether more people carpool, work from home, take transit or other alternatives, or just decide to sit in the slow lanes during rush hour.
“EVs are kind of the norm now in California,” Stringer said. “I think this was inevitable.”