New Green Sticker Limit

call me selfish, but I hope they stop at 40K. HOV lanes are congested as is...

 

Yes I was looking at the proposed bill yesterday via Google...but I did not think they were saying 85000 green, I was thinking that may be green + white...but I ain't a lawyer...

 

To a certain degree I actually also hope they stop at 40k. I like the definition of them as "Transitional EVs", meaning they were meant to help transition the market from hybrids to electric vehicles. As much as I am happy with my PiP, the whole 11 miles electricity is kind of a joke. I would like to see Toyota attempt to make an EV to compete against the Nissan Leaf (RAV4 EV doesn't count as it's just a compliance car).

At the same time, the technology still has quite a bit of advancing to go through, and battery prices need to come down a bit more to get to the point where car makers can make a profit and consumers can be happy with the prices of the EVs. It seems these cars are not quite to the point where they can do well on their own without incentives, so maybe more incentives are necessary. We'll find out soon enough.

 

It is highly unlikely that Toyota will produce another pure EV anytime soon. They are publicly anti-EV and have already replaced that Rav4 with a hydrogen compliance car.

 

Yup, which means the remainder of the RAV4 EVs and the FCV will be the only Toyota vehicles to get HOV Stickers. It's a shame in my opinion, but that's Toyota's choice to focus on FCV's instead of EV's to get their ZEV credits.

Toyota's website mentions $30 of hydrogen will power their FCV for about 300 miles. A Prius Liftback or C goes 400 miles on about $30, so I don't find that to be very impressive.

Also the difference between the original 85000 yellow stickers the first time around was that there were very few white stickers at the time. Currently I believe the White Stickers are into the mid 30k, which means combined Green + White Stickers might already be in the 70k area. By putting a limit of 85k for Green + White that would reduce the number of White Stickers available, which I don't think they want to do. And increasing the number by too much more would eventually run into the issue of HOV lane overcrowding. So I see the chances as low.

 

I personally do not care for pure EV's unless electricity gets cheaper. I bought it because of the HOV access as I have a 80+ mile commute each day. I don't even plug it in at home now as the cost to charge VS. gas is about a wash so what's the point!!?? I regularly use the 210 and the HOV lanes are sometimes a joke in rush hours. It's slower than regular lanes in certain sections. If they increase the sticker allocation, it kinda defeats the purpose for those who bought because of HOV.

 

I would think that the primary beneficiaries, Toyota and GM, will lobby for this bill to pass.

 

vajratir,

What are you averaging on gas mileage? My charging is at the lowest SCE tier, about .12 kWH. Others have done the computations to compare gas and electricity prices, and tried to come up with a break-even figure. But that involves loss between the wall and the car when charging, etc. That's too complicated for me. With gas over $4 gallon, I figure I'm money ahead with every mile I travel on either EV only or with the battery assisting the ICE in order to maximize mpg.
As for the 210 fwy, I agree. There is a stretch through Pasadena where you lose whatever gains you made, and God help you if you have to get over to continue on the 210 rather than the 134 fwy at the junction.

 

sadly my friend :
#1. Any 5 seater Ev with a paltry 100 miles would be MORE than Leaf competition
#2. Toyota has stupidly bet the farm on their / wet dream / over-priced hydrogen hoax vehicle. That's why they're lobbying hard to asure any future hydrogen cars developed get 3x the Carb credits as a 100mile Ev. Toyota will NOT build or aggressively compete in the EV market.
.

 

AB2013 passed the Assembly Transportation Committee yesterday 14-0.

That seems like an unusually large vote (there are 16 members) and it's moving fast.

I'm not in favor of it; I don't think plug-ins need the incentive any more. But it looks like there's some muscle behind it, and it's hard to figure out who would oppose it. Tesla, maybe.

 

With 30k+ white stickers now and the 40k green stickers, this is about 70k+ stickers. Since the white stickers are still growing, the combined will reach and exceed the 85k stickers in the yellow sticker days.

If in addition to that, the green sticker limit is also extended to 85k, would this create a problem with the federal HOV lane funding rules? Maybe, at that time, they might just throw all the cars with green stickers out of the HOV lanes, leaving just the cars with white stickers inside.

 

I'm afraid that CA holds the future of PHEV/EV in its hands, and right now the CA HOV incentive is driving PHEV sales (42% in CA alone for 2013 PHEV). So we need more green stickers! Gotta have more cow bell!!!
I also calculated about 80% of CA PHEV owners have purchased green stickers thru Dec_2013, and the % with green stickers have increased in the last couple months.

 

The obvious are probably the ones pushing for it: Toyota, Ford, and Chevy (along with BMW for the i3rex). There's more competition this time around, Toyota doesn't have the majority of the stickers this time around.

 

I don't see what the advantage of hydrogen over electricity is. Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis of water. So you are actually using electricity, but deducting conversion losses, and you still have to consider where the electricity came from. Another technique involves "steam methane reforming", but that produces a lot of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Maybe fueling speed?

 

In general there doesn't seem to be much advantage to hydrogen. The only thing I'm seeing that is currently concerning to me is the inability of lithium batteries to be quickly charged when it's very cold. ie. even a Tesla may take as long as two hours to recharge to 80% even on a supercharger if the pack is cold when you start.

 

If the additional stickers also included a provision for increased EV range, I would be all for it. Maybe recommend at least 40 miles EPA range. The current EV range on affordable EV's is not adequate for a single car household IMO.

Only the BMW i3 REx will qualify and if GM tweaked SoC on the Volt a little, it would qualify as well. We don't want to keep the current 4 kWh minimum battery size requirement for a green decal or whatever it is that let's the pitiful 11 EV miles from a PiP to qualify. It's ridiculous as the upcoming Ferrari and Porsche PHEV super cars would also qualify.


iPhone ?

 

...I have deja vu on this, don't we already know this from some prior threads?
I am thinking the new PiP needs to meet 10 miles all EV (or something like that) to qualify, whereas the current model does 6 or so.

 

I charge it at work so I average about 65mpg. I always get to tier 3 at home so my cost to charge at home would be $.31/kwh I think. However, With a full charge, I don't get the advertised 15-18 miles range as the screen says. It's probably more closer to 10-12 miles. So for 12 EV miles, I need to pay about $1. But for $4/gallon, I get 52-55 mpg. It just doesn't make any financial sense. Unless you're driving a Prius for environmental reasons, there's no point to charge it at home. And I'm not one of those people.