e-Golf Forum and Electric Vehicle News

The white hov sticker is going to expire at the end of this year,2018.
Apparently, whoever leased 2016 golf now have to lease a new electric car to apply for
the red sticker. Is this fair? I now have to get another car when I have 6 months
left on my lease. Couldn't I just apply for a new red stick with my 2016 car?

If this is true, why would anyone buy a electric car since every new sticker
has an expiration date?

Please correct me if i am wrong.

The entire EV program expires in 2025 statewide, unless that gets changed by state lawmakers.

People will still buy electric cars, and by 2025 I'm willing to wager a lot more electric cars will be sold than today...stickers or not. There are more reasons to buy an EV than a "use HOV lanes free" sticker. ("HOV" does not mean "EV")

Depends on when the sticker was issued to the car. If you leased a 2016, but the sticker was issued after 1/1/17 or later, you can apply for the red sticker. If the sticker was issued before 1/1/17, the HOV privilege will expire 12/31/18.



See above. Even back in 2016, the stickers were set to expire 12/31/18. An extension was never guaranteed. Dealers typically don't know (or wouldn't say) this when trying to sell you a car.



Every new electric car bought today and moving forward will have between 3-4 years of HOV privilege at most with the entire program to end 9/30/25. The idea is that the sticker is an incentive, not a lifetime privilege. Doing so would make the HOV lanes completely pointless.

Moral of the story is if stickers are important, don't make a purchasing decision or lease beyond the expiration date. The sticker program is designed to increase EV sales, not benefit consumers. But this is now likely a moot point as I suspect the program will be greatly restricted or cancelled altogether in 2022 when the reds expire.

Personally, the stickers do me little benefit. Helps on the 101 going from Redwood City to Palo Alto, but once you're south of Mountain View, even the HOV lanes are clogged solid. This is the whole reason they changed the rules - too many people are in the HOV lane, defeating the purpose. Will be interesting to see if stickers expiring helps the matter. Personally, I'm skeptical and glad I'm in Santa Cruz and not Gilroy or Morgan Hill. Driving the coast takes a bit extra, but at least it's pretty and you're not crawling at 15 mph.

I've seen HOV lanes as clogged and useless in San Diego County, Orange County, Lost Angeles County and San Bernadino County. My HOV sticker will be gone by year end, 2018. It hasn't proven to be of much value to me, here in L.A. county. Interstate 405 and Interstate 5 are over subcribed for HOV usage.... many have multiple passengers, few are the BEV users or PHEV users in those lanes, in Southern California. I guess all it did is make me feel entitled, for 3 years. I rarely used it for it's intended function.

I have a question about those stickers.

I bought a used 2016 SEL, which was originally leased in (May 2017) which has the white stickers. Now, I would have bought this vehicle with or without the HOV access because I love this car, however I'm seeing some ambiguity surrounding whether or not I'll be able to apply for the red sticker.

If I were the original lessee I know there would be no issue, the original sticker wasn't issued before 2017. However, if I transfer the white stickers to my name will they still be eligible for switching to red stickers?

If I can get this benefit I'd definitely like it, as it cuts a bunch of time off my South Bay expressway commute each day, but I'm not going to be ruined If I can't do it.

My wife and I leased a 500e & egolf in 2015.
We then leased a 500e & egolf in 2018.
We even sized our solar array to zero our entire electricity usage.

But the thought of an EV with no HOV access will make us rethink our 2021 replacement decision. I suspect a return to gas for at least one of the vehicles.
The days of the $100-150/month EV lease appear to be gone. So even taking into account fuel and servicing costs, ICE appears to be the cheaper option.
Even the CA EV $2,500 will no longer be an option for us, limit two.

Living in the Bay Area a cheap EV with HOV was an easy choice.
No cheap + no HOV, NO EV


Barry

The DMV will be mailing a pre-filled application for Red stickers to all registered and eligible White sticker holders. Eligibility is any White sticker issued after 1/1/2017. It doesn't matter when the vehicle was leased or purchased, only when the stickers were issued. If you haven't filled the REG-1000 form to transfer the stickers to your name, you should do that. There is a chance that DMV will update their HOV records when the vehicle was registered in your name, but I wouldn't count on it. If you don't get that pre-filled application at the registered address by the end of October, I would check the DMV's HOV sticker web page at that time to see if they specify the correct procedure for you to apply.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/decal