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Any of you, my loyal fans, who live in, or have been to, an urban area of at least middling size are familiar with the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) dedicated lanes (aka Carpool lanes) during high volume traffic times (or, ALL day, EVERY day, even weekends for those of you insane enough to live in L.A.).
Here in VA, we have HOV2 and HOV3, depending on the road and the expected volume (for instance, I95/I395 from the bottom of Prince William Co. to the DC side of the 14th street bridge has HOV3, I66 from Gainesville to the DC side of the Teddy Roosevelt has HOV2 (with inside the Capitol Beltway being exclusively HOV2)). Currently, these lanes allow cars with a minimum of two or three, depending on the 2/3 designation, motorcycles, and single drivers in cars bearing the Clean Fuel license plates, easily identified by the green earth logo on them (these are issued to vehicles either burning alternative fuels or hybrids, or pure electrics).
Starting 1 July of this year, the Clean Fuel designator will no longer qualify for inclusion on this list. I'm curious how many Prius drivers will be paying the fine (sure, there are a few Camry, Accord, Civic, and Escape hybrids around, but the vast majority are the Prius) during that first week. The announcement was made back in 2005, and hybrid vehicles purchased after 1 July 2006 could not get CF tags and are already excluded.
I'm curious what Toyota and Honda's sales numbers for their hybrid models in VA look like, from before and after July of last year. I suspect a lot of people were paying that premium for access to those fast moving HOV lanes (because you sure as hell won't make up the 5k+ premium in fuel savings anytime in the near future).
Here in VA, we have HOV2 and HOV3, depending on the road and the expected volume (for instance, I95/I395 from the bottom of Prince William Co. to the DC side of the 14th street bridge has HOV3, I66 from Gainesville to the DC side of the Teddy Roosevelt has HOV2 (with inside the Capitol Beltway being exclusively HOV2)). Currently, these lanes allow cars with a minimum of two or three, depending on the 2/3 designation, motorcycles, and single drivers in cars bearing the Clean Fuel license plates, easily identified by the green earth logo on them (these are issued to vehicles either burning alternative fuels or hybrids, or pure electrics).
Starting 1 July of this year, the Clean Fuel designator will no longer qualify for inclusion on this list. I'm curious how many Prius drivers will be paying the fine (sure, there are a few Camry, Accord, Civic, and Escape hybrids around, but the vast majority are the Prius) during that first week. The announcement was made back in 2005, and hybrid vehicles purchased after 1 July 2006 could not get CF tags and are already excluded.
I'm curious what Toyota and Honda's sales numbers for their hybrid models in VA look like, from before and after July of last year. I suspect a lot of people were paying that premium for access to those fast moving HOV lanes (because you sure as hell won't make up the 5k+ premium in fuel savings anytime in the near future).
