Has anyone received a CA Green HOV Sticker yet?

Their numbers have been off for quite some time. I received sticker number 296xx in late December (dealership submitted paperwork, stickers mailed to dealership), but then the official numbers came out that as of Dec 31st 28,739 Green HOV Stickers had been issued.

 

Yap. That's why I have been saying for some time that the last physical sticker # will be > 40,000. We will know in a few more weeks.

 

Or, they haven't been sending them out in order. It depends on whether or not they are counting stickers preordered by dealerships as stickers handed out or not. If they don't count them in the numbers published, then that would make total sense why these numbers are slightly off, but something tells me there are more than 1500 preordered by dealerships, so you're right only time will tell! I think we've beaten around this bush enough. Regardless they are running out soon enough.

 

I rec'd sticker 28,xxx in late January. It came from my dealership.

 

So your location is California not New Mexico? Or did you buy from California with stickers?

 

California is my home. I'm here temporarily in NM.

 

Ahh okay, I was like how the heck did you get CA stickers in another state lol.

 

You both got your HOV stickers from your dealership. :: koff ::
Like most of my clients since September. Once we could order them on cars that were here and incoming, it made loads more sense to make things easier on DMV being able to batch process the HOVs and of course, to make sure you left me with them in hand. In some cases, I didn't yet have them but knew they were coming and was able to mail them soon afterwards.
I think DMV's heart was in the right place. It helped them be more efficient, with us needing to provide the VIN# and a check for $80 to get 10 at a time. That versus trying to open 10 different envelopes, cash 10 checks that they'd have to account for, and then check a 2-page form for errors, ie license plate & buyer's name verification etc.
It's also nice now that they are running out to have the ability to drive away with stickers for this car. This isn't like a department store or shop where you can just return a shirt if it doesn't match the pants. If you buy or lease the car, you have no way to be sure you'll get an HOV sticker at this point. And, you can't just return the car if the DMV returns your check with a "sorry", we're sold out letter.
I sold 299 PlugIns last year, but already have 112 sold this year, just 3 months into the year. It's started to spike immediately in the last 10 days, will continue to do so, and then once the green decals and gone, it will drop like Tesla stock after another one catches fire!!

 

Greenleaf, what I was trying to express to you is that DMV reporting and the reality of what's happening real-time isn't the same.

 

I'm sure there are dealerships that are selling off non-HOV-stickered inventory pretty cheap. I know I will have to resort to going back to that when the stickers are gone. I have been blowing these out super cheap, even WITH stickers for the past few months.

And, there are also some dealerships selling cars with HOVs assigned to them already at over MSRP. I haven't sold anything at over MSRP but if the market of over MSRP cars works for a dealership, regardless of the dealer's location, then they will do it. You might not like it, but there's also been a stunning amount of cars sold at a loss to keep them moving to keep the factory happy. Recouping that loss to turn a few deals into good ones isn't reprehensible behavior. You guys made out like crazy when they started dumping 1000 cars every allocation onto the region and I was selling them 1000-1500-1800 under cost. There was much opportunity to do this for months. I'm not gonna listen to someone who is picking a small window of time where a dealer might ask for MSRP for a hot car tell me that it's wrong. espcially when there's not even 2-3% markup IN that car!

 

Three words explain it all: supply and demand.

 

To what extent does it consider gouging?

 

It's not wrong for you or any other dealership to do that, it makes total sense and anyone wise enough to follow what's going on with that specific model would do the same, and as your job it would be silly not to take advantage of the situation. I'm just pointing out it's a side effect of the government program, and further shows that people are willing to pay a nice premium for carpool lane access.

By this point in time, with the amount of incentives going on over the past few months, if anyone is looking to buy right when the HOV Stickers are running out then it's their own fault and should be expected to pay more due to low supply with high demand.

Economics 101, low supply and high demand will result in higher prices.

 

Gouging is a store owner drastically hiking prices on necessities (food, water, flashlights, etc) during a disaster such as earthquake, hurricane, tornado and the like. Nobody HAS to buy a new car at a given time, from a given dealer.

 

My latest graph shows that the rate spiked sharply after March 1. I believe that was due to dealers ramping up their orders.

That said, DMV's numbers (actually on the CARB website) are a little funny. The rate went down from March 12 to 21, even though the dealer program was still running for more than half those days, and then spiked again from the 21st to the 28th.

If the numbers are accurate and the rate after the 28th slows down to the pre-dealer program rate, the stickers could last until May. If they aren't, they could be exhausted right now. We should find out tomorrow, as updates have been posted on the last two Fridays.

The aim of the program was to encourage car buyers to buy plug-ins early on. As set up, it should have rewarded the first 40,000 early adopters - the customers.

Issuing stickers through the dealers was more efficient, and it was reasonable as long as there were plenty of stickers left. It stopped being good public policy when the supply became tight and dealers grabbed stickers for every VIN they could put down, even if the vehicle was still on the assembly line.

You might argue issuing stickers through the dealer or the buyer is the same thing. But a stickered plug-in sitting on a dealer's lot isn't serving any public purpose. It's the act of putting it on the road that helps the environment. And the dealer can't do that - only the buyer can.

Any day or week now, we'll shift into a situation where some of those first 40,000 buyers will be left out - the ones who buy a plug-in that's not dealer stickered. Some of the buyers past 40,000 will pay the dealers' premium and get a sticker. And the dealers will reap a windfall.

That isn't fair and it wasn't the aim of the program.

That's why IMO the DMV pulled the plug on the dealers - to partially restore the correct aim of the stickers. And if they want to finish that task, when they hit 40,000 they'll void all the stickers not on a sold, registered vehicle, and reissue them to bona fide plug-in owners.

 

+1
LOL. You can almost hear the dealers crying foul. But it's not going to happen.

 

We didn't ramp up orders, tho. I want that to be clear. We were told on March 17th, St Patricks day, that the program that permitted dealerships to pre-order stickers ended right then and there. This came out quite late in the day. And, anything that wasn't postmarked that very day wasn't going to be honored.
It didn't give anyone time to "ramp up" anything. They were suspended same-day.
If you had not already requested them by the 16th, your forms and checks were going back.

See below.
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Green HOV Sticker Advance Purchase​

Program Suspended​

DMV's program allowing new car dealers to purchase and install green HOV stickers on eligible vehicles before they are sold has been suspended. Not exactly the green news we wanted to share on St. Patrick's Day!

Existing law authorizes the DMV to issue no more than 40,000 green stickers, and this limit will soon be reached, so DMV has reserved all remaining green stickers for individual consumer applications. AB 2013 (Muratsuchi) was recently introduced and if it becomes law, will increase the number of green stickers that the DMV is authorized to issue.

DMV's announcement does NOT affect white HOV stickers and dealers may still obtain these in advance for eligible vehicles in their inventory.
Finally, CARB's Clean Vehicle Rebate Program may also be suspended sometime before July 1st, because funding is running short.

 

I hope we get some end of quarter plug-in sales data in CA, I want to calc how many % plug-ins sold in Ca and the % with stickers.

 

Dianne, I'm sure you didn't. You didn't need to, because you were on top of this from Day 1 last September, like you are on top of pretty much everything.

Other dealers were too, because the issue rate jumped in September.

Then it really jumped at the beginning of March. I think that was due to the dealers who weren't clueful (like my Volt dealer ) finally getting on the bandwagon.

Just a (hopefully intelligent) guess.

That might explain why the rate dropped down to the pre-September rate from March 12 to 21. Maybe DMV stopped issuing dealer stickers while they decided what to do.