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A rough year for electric vehicle adoption just got a little rougher for owners in some parts of the US. Starting next month, EVs will no longer be able to ride in the fast lane in California, after the US federal government and Congress failed to reauthorize a popular program that has given hybrid and electric vehicles access to state carpool lanes—and worked to promote the sale of electrics for more than 25 years.
Under the program, California drivers with qualifying electric, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could purchase $27 stickers that gave them access to several highway carpool lanes, plus discounts on a number of toll roads and bridges—even if a driver was alone in their car. Over 1 million decals have been issued to California drivers since the program’s start in 1999, and hundreds of thousands of vehicles have decals today.
However, those decals will no longer be valid after September 30, the California Department of Motor Vehicles said in a press release. Drivers who currently have stickers—even those who purchased them recently—won’t receive refunds, the department confirmed.
California isn’t alone. Another pilot project that gave some New York state electric-vehicle drivers access to carpool lanes will also end. Over 48,000 New Yorkers had received decals through that Clean Pass program.
The programs are ending because they were not reauthorized by the president and Congress, says Walter McClure, a spokesperson for the New York Department of Motor Vehicles. The White House did not respond to WIRED’s questions about why President Donald Trump chose not to reauthorize the program.
The end of the decal program is yet another knock back for US electric vehicles, which are facing long-term slower-than-projected sales in the country following a cut in government support for the newer car tech. EV-curious buyers have rushed to purchase new and used electric vehicles before tax credits, worth up to $7,500, end this month. But analysts expect that US sales will once again slow after the credit expires, even as the rest of the world continues its transition to EVs. Just a year ago, many analysts projected that between a quarter and a half of new US cars sold in 2030 would be electric; since then, those projections have been cut by half.
But while the California program’s end will likely frustrate plenty of EV drivers, it might not make a meaningful dent in the state’s transition to new-energy vehicles. The state has raced ahead of the rest of the country in EV adoption; 22 percent of new light-duty vehicles sold in the state so far this year have been battery-electric, plug-in hybrid, or hydrogen-powered, according to state data. Compare that to the projected 8 percent of new electrified vehicle sales for the rest of the country, and the reason for the program closure might become clearer—it seems the state’s carpool lanes were getting crowded.
The decal program “worked nicely as a bundle with monetary incentives,” says Gil Tal, the director of the Electric Vehicle Research Center at UC Davis, who has studied the effectiveness of the decal program over the past decade. “It was another reason to buy an electric car.”
