Red CAV sticker for used cars with white CAV stickers

RonDawg said:

Someone on a different (non-EV) forum has a used Leaf and he just got his red stickers, even though his car won't qualify after the end of the year.

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Why wouldn't it qualify? If has never had stickers before or if it had white stickers that were first issued in 2017 or 2018, then it qualifies for the Red carpool lane stickers.

For example, I bought a 2013 Leaf last year that never had carpool lane stickers on it, I applied for the stickers last year, so the first year the stickers were issued to my VIN was 2017, which means that my vehicle is eligible to receive the Red stickers.

Valdemar said:

This sucks, I have always assumed I will be able to renew the stickers when the time comes if the program was till in effect. I got my stickers back in 2011. At least I'm not relying on being able to solo-access HOV daily, but it surely is nice to have that option every now and then.

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Well, you can blame the popularity of plugin vehicles for this, the reality is that the carpool lanes are getting over crowded in many areas, causing the average speed of the carpool lanes to drop below federally mandated levels. And if they stay below the federally mandated levels for too long, the state risks loosing all federal funds for the roads.

So something has to be done to reduce congestion to get the average speed of the carpool lanes back up to federally mandated levels. They have already tried building out carpool lanes in areas that don't really need them which has ended up just adding more congestion to the regular lanes. They have also tried converting some like on the 110 into "Express Lanes" that charge a toll unless you are a carpool and have a Fastrack device, thus that lane no longer counts as a carpool lane when calculating average speeds. They have tried in many areas to make the carpool lanes have open egress and ingress, which has indeed helped and dramatically reduced the number of accidents in these areas. But overall it still isn't enough, so they need to reduce the number of vehicles in the carpool lanes and setting a time limit on carpool lane stickers will either do this or ensure that more people buy new EVs more often. Time will tell which way things go, but overall it is going to dramatically reduce the value of used vehicles that have previously had carpool lane stickers.

Please note I am not saying I agree with this approach, only that I understand that there were a lot of factors that went into deciding to take it. If it were up to me, plug-in hybrids, CNG, only electric vehicles and may fuel cell vehicles after they find ways to generate the hydrogen in a clean manner, as right now it isn't pretty.

I do not understand setting an income limit to where if you make more than a certain level you can only get the carpool lane sticker OR the rebate.

Just a note I got a letter from the DMV in the mail a couple days ago with a prefilled out form to request my new red stickers, I just need to get a money order for $22 to send to them.