page_title: Plug-in electric vehicles in California
section_title: HOV access
hierarchical_section_title: Plug-in electric vehicles in California / Government incentives / HOV access
caption_attribution_description: English: Several BMW i3 electric cars at Crissy Field, San Francisco. The model with the range-extender option displays California's HOV green sticker. The all-electric model displays the white stickers
context_page_description: The stock of plug-in electric vehicles in California is the largest in the United States, with cumulative sales of almost 670,000 plug-in cars by the end of 2019. California is the largest U.S. car market with about 10% of all new car sales in the country, but has accounted for almost half of all plug-in cars sold in the American market since 2011. Since November 2016, China is the only country market that exceeds California in terms of cumulative plug-in electric car sales.
  California's plug-in car market share reached 4.8% in 2017, while the national share was 1.1%. Also in 2017, the state's plug-in segment market share surpassed the take-rate of conventional hybrids for the first time. The plug-in market share rose to 7.8% in 2018, again ahead of conventional hybrids, and for the first time sales of all-electric cars outsold conventional hybrids. The plug-in market share slightly declined in 2019 to 7.7%, while the take-rate of conventional hybrids rose to 5.5%.
context_section_description: In California a vehicle that meets specified emissions standards may be issued Clean Air Vehicle (CAV) decals that allow the vehicle to be operated by a single occupant in California's high-occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV), or carpool or diamond lanes. Battery electric vehicles and initially, the first 40,000 applicants that purchase or lease a plug-in hybrid meeting California's Enhanced Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emission Vehicle (Enhanced AT PZEV) or Transitional Zero-Emission Vehicle (TZEV) requirements, are entitled to a clean air sticker that allows the vehicle to be operated by a single occupant in California's carpool or high-occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV). The white access sticker is reserved for zero-emissions vehicles, while plug-in hybrids use the green sticker.
  Initially, the green and white clean air sticker were set to expire on January 1, 2015, but in 2013 the expiration date for both stickers was extended to January 1, 2019. All-electric vehicles are classified as Federal Inherently Low Emission Vehicles (ILEVs), and as zero emissions vehicles are entitled to an unlimited number of white CAV stickers. The number of green stickers available has been increased several times. In September 2016, the limit imposed to the Green Clean Air Vehicle Decal was removed.
  The number of green clean air stickers issued grew from about 10,900 in March 2013 to 28,739 by the end of 2013. As a result, by mid March 2014 the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended the program allowing new car dealers to purchase and install green CAV stickers on eligible vehicles before they are sold. The DMV decided to reserve all remaining green stickers from the original 40,000 limit for individual consumer applications. As of 9 May 2014, the initial 40,000 green stickers were issued.
  The San Francisco Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission opposed the 2014 bill to expand the green stickers on the grounds that they "are concerned about further erosion of HOV lane capacity to vehicles that are neither reducing the number of trips on the road nor paying a toll. With congestion levels shooting up again, especially in the prosperous South Bay of the region where the purchase of such vehicles is more likely, we do not believe it is appropriate to give access to the region’s HOV lanes or express lanes away for free."
  The green sticker limit was increased by 15,000 beginning July 1, 2014, through the budget trailer bill SB 853. In September 2014 Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill AB 2013 that raised the cap for the green stickers from 55,000 to 70,000 new plug-in hybrids.  As of June 2015, a total of 68,343 green stickers had been issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). In June 2015, the bill AB 95 was approved by the State Legislature raising the upper limit from 70,000 to 85,000 green stickers. By December 2015, the 85,000 limited was reached. The DMV continued to accept applications without payment to establish a queue for requesters should an additional amount of green decals be authorized. In September 2016, the budget trailer bill SB-838, effective from September 13, 2016, removed the limit imposed to the Green Clean Air Vehicle Decal.
  Research performed by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation in 2015 found that access to HOV lanes has a significant impact on plug-in car sales. Researchers linked automobile sales to a sample of more than 7,000 of the 8,057 census tracts in California for the study, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco. They looked at the number of plug-in car sales and the miles of carpool lanes within a 30 mi (48 km) radius of each census tract. The study concluded that the ability to use potentially time-saving HOV lanes prompted the purchase of more than 24,000 plug-in electric cars and hybrids in the four urban areas from 2010 to 2013, or about 40% of the total of such vehicles. The UCLA researcher concluded that without the policy giving plug-in vehicles access to HOV lanes, total plug-in sales in the same study areas would have been only 36,6
caption: Several BMW i3s with California's HOV lane access stickers. The i3 with range-extender has the green sticker while the pure electric i3 displays the white sticker.
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