What Prius can drive in alone in carpool lane ?

What state(s) are you interested in?

In my state, the answer has always been "None", ever since the very first Prius was available. Our original HOV lanes were very well used without issuing special HOV stickers to any SOVs.

California still lists the 2017-22 Prius Prime.

 

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In Ontario, Canada, any vehicle with "GV" license plates can ride in the HOV lanes. These are all exclusively EV or PHEV, including the Prime. So I'd guess depending on your state, the Prime may or may not be eligible, but doubtful on the regular Prius.

 

It is simple in Mississippi, there are no HOV lanes in the state.

 

It's a limited number of stickers good for 3 years. They're usually all allocated by the end of January. There isn't a sticker waiting for you, it's on a first come first serve basis. When I purchased my 06 Honda hybrid; I mailed in my application after X-mas and got one of the last remaining stickers for 2007. Got a bump in trade-in value; when I sold the car. Dealership didn't realize it's only good for 3 years - they're color coded.

Things may have changed, due to the car shortages - but they were tougher to get than "hens teeth". I didn't bother to apply for one on my Prime, because of the previous hassles. I work off shifts and wouldn't use it that often.

 

The state of California (The rip you off state) has on its DMV website what vehicles can.

 

It looks like the last sticker color is yellow, and became available a year ago. I'm not seeing any clue whether or not a batch was held over to this year. Everything now expires September 30, 2025, absent new legislation.

Current Clean Air Vehicle Decal | California Air Resources Board

Link already posted at #2 above.

 

I am thinking HEV hybrids were kicked off free HOV nationally a few years back.
So you would need a Plug-In Hybrid or BEV.

Northern Virginia we have recently completed a multi-year conversion to HOT-3 lanes, so I am not sure Virginia has a significant "free HOV" incentive anymore for buying green vehicles, after 20 years of hybrid and/or plug-in free HOV.

Believe Virginia was the first to offer free HOV for hybrids around 2001, before Ca, but people here got pissed fairly quickly to have the hybrids hogging up HOV, so we always had limited availability. But we had a license plate (not sticker) system, so anyone with a HOV plate was grandfathered into the program permanently as long as they kept their HOV plates on qualifying green cars. But as of last month the grandfathered HOV plates do not do you much good, I am thinking.

 

^ The Feds always had restrictions on what the states could do with HOV lanes built with federal money. SOVs were allowed in only because, and while, those lanes were under-utilized with real HOVs, such as the carpools I participated in for many years. Once those lanes exceeded certain congestion metrics, then those non-HOVs needed to be kicked out.

Also, the Feds always had a deadline on when the others had to be kicked out. That deadline was repeatedly pushed back, I just haven't looked to see the latest revision.

States that built those lanes entirely with their own state money, not federal assistance, had no such restrictions.

In my region, the I-5 HOV lanes well used by real carpools. And hybrid adoption was quite rapid here, so it was obvious that allowing them into the HOV lanes would quickly cause overwhelming congestion, delaying transit buses and defeating one of the purposes of carpools, so we never allowed them in. The HOV lanes added elsewhere were not so quickly populated with carpools. Because it would have been too confusing to allow hybrids and BEVs into just some HOV lanes, not all of them, these other areas were converted to HOT lanes: HOV or Toll.

 

Here in NY only the Prime. Honestly tho I don’t care for the HOV lane anymore. It used to be a privilege but now it is congested and it is not easy to get on and off, requires lots of planning. It is a stupid concept honestly and has always been somewhat inconvenient to use. Overrated (just bought a 23 regular prius so have to justify lol)

 

Would love to see photos of your 2023 when you can!

 

Speaking as someone who regularly used the HOV lanes for their intended purpose for a decade and a half -- Carpooling!, before Prius -- I loved them. With just a painted line separation from the other lanes, it was easy entrance or exit at any point. Are your HOV lanes separated with few entrance and exit points?

I had a Prius only my last few years of commuting, solo, to a different workplace than those carpooling years. I didn't feel the least bit slighted for not having special HOV lane access for a hybrid, something my state never did. Though bicycle commute days were preferable in good weather, thanks to having dedicated bike trail available for most of the route.

 

yeah there are few entry and exit points, all far apart. They are not at every exit on the highway so you have to plan it ahead and know the route. You can get a big ticket if you just drive over the line and cops would love yo ticket a prius for that lol.

until this year or so here priuses had HOV access by default but now it is limited to phevs and evs. Good riddence i hardly use it anymore anyway. I used it way back when evs and phevs were nonexistent and back then it felt like a privilege but now? forget it

 

Crossing the single solid line into and out of the HOV lane, is perfectly legal anywhere over here, for those who can legally be in the HOV lane.

The non-HOV 'cheater' who pulled in a ways ahead of me, to zip around stopped traffic in the main line, spotted a waiting cop slightly too late. Rather than pass the cop, he stopped, and had to wait about 20 seconds for the jam to creep ahead and let him get back to where he belonged, forcing me and several trailing carpoolers to also stop. The cop appeared to see it all. After the cheater got back, allowing we carpoolers to proceed, I saw in my rearview mirror that the cop did go after him.

The HOT lanes on other highways here do have double solid lines, which are not supposed to be crossed, to prevent SOVs from ducking in and out to evade the overhead toll pass readers. There are periodic entrance - exit points marked with dashed lines.

 

Yep, need more traffic cams to do automatic enforcement of HOV lanes. That's the only thing that will stop them from jumping in and out of the lane.
Most of LA basin HOV lanes has a concrete barrier and designated entry and exit points; but here in North Cal it's mostly open. A catch me; if you can attitude for the most egregious.

 

I don't live in a place with them, but occasionally I go to the big city where HOV lanes exist. But we have to pay for them.

The last time I used something like an HOV lane we were in a terrible, stop-n-go, traffic jam for miles on end. I missed the first chance to get into the special paid lane. There are two along I-70 going to Denver. We noticed the few cars that went into this lane were speeding by. So when we got to the other enterance I pulled in. But almost immediately we found ourselves behind someone who was going almost the exact same speed as the traffic jam. We must have averaged 20mph in the 65mph lane. The worst thing was THERE WAS NO ONE IN FRONT OF HIM!! So we paid something like $8 to basically make the same time as we would have if we hadn't entered the lane.

 

coming down to florida for the first time in 3 years, it looks like they made some improvements to the toll lanes south of the beltway.
we didn't take it, but traffic was much lighter than pre covid

 

Virginia had (has?) a very successful HOV-3 car pool system on I95 called "Slugging" where you go to a spot to get a ride into DC.
Unfort COVID has really changed things re: ridership. So many gov jobs working from home now.