California electric vehicle drivers will lose carpool lane privileges • Hacker News Board

Re: California electric vehicle drivers will lose carpool lane privileges

#31

Post by lurking_swe » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 7:31 PM UTC

tanaros wrote: post #25

kelnos wrote: post #23

Good. I always found that weird. To me, the carpool lane is there to encourage drivers to put more people in their cars in order to reduce traffic. Allowing a single-rider EV to use the carpool lane doesn't do that. It just felt like a ham-fisted way to incentivize EV purchases, when there are better ways to do that.

It makes sense if you view the HOV lane primarily as a way to reduce emissions, not traffic. This is also why e.g. single-rider motorcycles are often allowed to use HOV lanes as well.

buying an EV does not actually reduce emissions like magic, unless the owner drives that car for a looooong time. Like 10-15+ years.

Manufacturing an EV car uses a lot more emissions than an ICE car initially, due to the huge battery.

If the goal is to reduce emissions overall, then target incentives appropriately:

- tax deduction at purchase

- tax deduction for drivers of old (10 yr+) EV vehicles.

This incentivizes EV purchase AND driving that vehicle for a long time. In contrast, allowing EV drivers to use a carpool lane does no such thing IMO.

Re: California electric vehicle drivers will lose carpool lane privileges

#32

Post by altairprime » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 9:48 PM UTC

thorncorona wrote: post #29

altairprime wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in California, 20k miles of driving at 30mpg (so, highway only, which is of course unrealistically high) is $600 in gasoline taxes per year, with California state and local taxes at $0.612/gal; meanwhile, the EV registration gas tax makeup fee is $118/yr, which is equivalent to 192 gallons per year of tax, which at 30mpg is merely 6k miles, not 20k. California average miles driven is estimated at 11k. So: the EV…

If anything drivers are subsidizing trucks

That is also happening, yes! Lots of problems coexisting to our general detriment in that regard.

Re: California electric vehicle drivers will lose carpool lane privileges

#33

Post by chrismeller » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 10:53 PM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #13

paxys wrote: post #7

I don't understand what the federal clean air program has to do with anything? California can make whatever rules about their carpool lanes they want.

The Clean Air Vehicle (CAV) program requires federal approval under Section 166 of Title 23 of the U.S. Code. The federal government is notnot be extending the program, which means the underlying authority for the program expires. California passed legislation to extend the program, but this extension is contingent on federal approval, which was not granted.

I was wondering the same thing, so thanks for the explanation. Disappointing that the article didn’t bother to explain it.

From Section 166 it looks like the state can also convert an HOV lane to an HOT lane and set the toll amount. The contrarian in me wants to believe there’s some ridiculous loophole in there…

Re: California electric vehicle drivers will lose carpool lane privileges

#34

Post by red369 » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 1:48 AM UTC

slaw wrote: post #22

red369 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic, but prompted by your 911 comment. I had a couple of friends buy cars at the same time - one bought a new Subaru, and the other a used 997 Porsche 911. The 911 cost more, but not a large difference in price. In that part of the world, the Subaru (and almost all new cars) loses 40% in the first year in depreciation, and continues to drop off at 10% - 15% per year. The 911 has more expensive maintenance and i…

40% depreciation in the first year is a myth. Show me one year old vehicle you can buy for 40% off.

It seems that I was talking about a place with one of the highest depreciation rates (1) in the world, so what I said may not be widely applicable at all. I didn't realise it varied so much by country. I should have remembered that New Zealand has unusual prices because it gets a lot of used car imports from places like Japan and Singapore who get rid of their cars quickly.

1) https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/89145417/new-zealand-h...

This is an old study which points to New Zealand having quick depreciation in the first year. Looking around briefly, I think depreciation reduced substantially since COVID, and I think those numbers in that study may have been too high anyway (the study found over 50% in the first year). I'm interested in what happened, so I'll try and find what the reality is when I get a chance.

Re: California electric vehicle drivers will lose carpool lane privileges

#35

Post by tanaros » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 5:33 AM UTC

lurking_swe wrote: post #31

tanaros wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense if you view the HOV lane primarily as a way to reduce emissions, not traffic. This is also why e.g. single-rider motorcycles are often allowed to use HOV lanes as well.

buying an EV does not actually reduce emissions like magic, unless the owner drives that car for a looooong time. Like 10-15+ years. Manufacturing an EV car uses a lot more emissions than an ICE car initially, due to the huge battery. If the goal is to reduce emissions overall, then target incentives appropriately: - tax deduction at purchase - tax deduction for drivers of old (10 yr+) EV vehicles. This incentivizes…

> buying an EV does not actually reduce emissions like magic, unless the owner drives that car for a looooong time. Like 10-15+ years.

I find this timeframe surprising. I did some quick searches and there are models like GREET that suggest the break-even point is much sooner than that in the US. It is difficult to know for certain, of course, as there are many variables.

Regardless, it is of course better to incentivize long-term ownership as well. I think of HOV access as similar to a tax deduction on purchase. It’s a cheap way to provide a carrot for initial EV adoption.