Local Laws that promote driving hybrid, electric or ngv

I drive a prius in California and our state is currently considering allowing us to drive in the carpool lane with only one person.

I'm wondering are there other City or State laws that create incentives for Prius owners?

I've heard of certain cities that allow you to park at their meters for free, but I haven't seen anything published on that... Can someone recommend a good website that lists all of the local incentives?

Thanks,

J. R.

The Prius is its own incentive. And considering the demand, I'm surprised that any state or locality would give away perks to promote something that needs no promotion.

Plus, in a few years there will be so many hybrids on the road that those perks will apply to just about everybody.

I think a hybrid only lane would be great. I could get better mpg by not having to tailgate the guy in front of me so I don't get cut off and can coast longer.

Here is a great site for researching this type of incentive, along with others:


http://www.dsireusa.org/


They provide info on all 50 states.

Virginia allows hybrid vehicles to use the High Occupancy Vehicle lanes with only the driver if the vehicle has a special Virginia sticker. They will not let out-of-state hybrids enjoy the same privilege.

(Maryland Prius Owner)

I've heard from several sources that the benighted idiots in the Oregon legislature are concerned that the Prius, because of its fuel efficiency, will not consume as much gasoline and therefor not contribute enough "gas tax" per mile to pay what the legislators consider its "fair share" of road tax. So, they are proposing a surtax on the Prius to make up the difference.
This is not only unbelievably stupid, its illogical. We should tax what we want less of and subsidize what we want more of. The legislators obviously haven't thought about the Prius' extraordinarily low emissions, its use of recyclable materials and overal beneficial effect on the environment. How about taxing "carbon" or "waste"?

Virginia's HOV Exemption is granted by special license plate, not by a sticker. The rational for not granting this privledge to drivers from other states is that those states don't grant Virginia drivers the same exemption (i.e. I can't take my prius into the HOV lanes in Maryland as the single occupant without violating Maryland law).

I highly encourage Maryland hybrid owners to contact your law makers, and change your laws.

Actually, there is some logic in what Oregon is saying. When everyone starts driving Prius and Insights, where are they going to get the money to pay for road repair? We need road taxes by weight and miles driven, and pollution taxes by the pound of emissions.

Once a year everyone should have their car weighed, their emissions tested, and their odometer reading recorded. Road taxes and pollution taxes should then be assessed accordingly, but separately.

They are only allowing a certain number of permits for the HOV lane with single person.

Ideally, they'd make up the money in decreased health care costs for the millions of people who now have asthma. And once everyone drives a fuel-efficient hybrid, the Federal government won't be spending $87 billion rebuilding far-away, oil producing countries (plus whatever they just added on this last month). In case you're wondering, the total amount spent on Federal grants to the states in 2002, as allocated by the Department of Transportation, was $42.66 billion.

Furthermore, decreased dependence on foreign oil will EASILY close that trade defecit we keep hearing so much about. Thus, the Oregon state legislature is a group of shortsighted morons; probably the same pack of morons who ran that state into the ground 3 years ago.

No one ever worries that the War On Drugs will leave drug dealers, crack whores and DEA agents unemployed. And I've yet to see undertakers picketing doctors offices for cutting into their business. This is just ridiculous.

I agree, we need to do more. Maryland does not even have a hybrid HOV lane privilege yet. We need that first and then reciprocity.

Yes, but Marylanders do not pay any Sales Tax when buying a Prius. That's a pretty significant incentive, and one for everyone in the state, not just for people in HOV Land.

bottom line... not enough local and state incentives

thanks for all insight. I'm checking out the one site recommended, but overall, I'm bummed out that there aren't more incentives.... hopefully that will change soon.

Re: bottom line... not enough local and state incentives

Federal tax incentives: For year 2003, I believe you could deduct $1500 for driving a car that meets a certain emission standard, which the Prius and other hybrids do. I believe Congress is considering a bill that would increase that to $5000. Anyone else know about this?

I was actually thinking of running for some kind of public office at some point in the future. So do you think that my logical nature would be, um, incompatible with government? : ) In which case, you might hear about a politician attacking his colleagues with a stapler a few years from now.

Whoa, that's really too good to be true. I wonder how likely that is with Big Oil in the White House. It certainly seems like something McCain would champion though, so maybe there's hope yet.

All I could find was The Clean Efficient Automobiles Resulting From Advanced Car Technologies (CLEAR ACT) Act of 2003 (S.505, H.R.1054). Looks like the breaks would have been determined based on a combination of a vehicle's weight and % of power drawn from the 2 halves of the hybrid system. There's an additional bonus for % increased fuel efficiency over the 2002 model.

You make it sound like Maryland is singling out Virginia drivers. The truth of the matter is that no one can drive in the Maryland HOV lanes as a single occupant unless it is on a motorcycle or in a fully electric vehicle.

This is a nice incentive, but Maryland's excise tax exemption is over the end of June.

The only remaining Maryland incentive is that hybrids are exempt from emissions testing.

Another Oregon incentive for qualifying "alternative fuel" vehicle owners is exemption from emissions testing. Nice, except that the owners must still pay the testing fee. :roll: But, we do get a $1,500 tax credit on top of the Federal deduction.

I found this document -

http://www.fypower.com/pdf/Gas_Incentives.pdf

- listing Incentives for Zero and Near-Zero Emission Vehicles, with summaries and contacts. They are Federal and California programs, some extremely local, and some for all-electric vehicles only. Some are real eye-openers, especially for this Yankee transplanted to Texas where it's not polite to discourage oil consumption but it's not P.C. to encourage it either so nobody does anything and we're dying from ozone and particulate matter and I used to be able to say a sentence this long in one breath.
-Gary
Tideland Pearl #5