Electric Cars Gain Entry to Carpool Lanes

Greg Hanssen got an electric car because he liked the idea of zooming past gas-guzzlers without a puff of pollution. Now he looks forward to whipping past gridlocked rush-hour traffic.

Starting next month, Hanssen and other drivers of nearly 5,000 electric and natural gas cars will be allowed to skip solo into California’s maze of carpool lanes. These lanes are now generally reserved for cars toting passengers and motorcycles.

Boosters of the rule change see it as a golden opportunity to polish the allure of low-polluting vehicles, which California regulators see as the surest solution to air pollution problems bedeviling the state.

“This is going to be pretty cool,” Hanssen said shortly after he braved lines at a Laguna Hills DMV office on Thursday, the first day for signing up for the program. “I’ll be able to get up to L.A. a whole lot easier. And this sure will make people stuck in traffic more aware of electric cars.”

Right now, such vehicles are few and far between on California highways.

There are 2,300 electric cars in California and a roughly equal number of vehicles in business fleets that run on compressed natural gas. Proponents of the change estimate that the owners of about half of them will bother to pay the $8 fee for stickers that will allow them to drive in carpool lanes.

The hope of low-emission advocates is that the program will help boost demand for the cars, push auto makers to begin mass production and thereby deflate costs. Currently, electric vehicles are leased for $400 or $500 a month, a price tag most consumers refuse to pay.

“It’s a tremendous incentive,” said Jamie Knapp of the California Zero Emission Vehicle Alliance. “This is especially important in regions like Los Angeles where people deal with gridlock on a daily basis.”

Not everyone thinks the aggressive push for alternative fuel vehicles is such a good thing. Opponents of carpool lanes say the effort to let electric cars use them without passengers amounts to another effort by state bureaucrats at social engineering, even as gasoline-powered engines are getting cleaner than ever.

“I think they’re trying to force technology,” said Bill Ward, chairman of Orange County-based Drivers for Highway Safety, which opposed carpool lanes. “The very term alternative fuel tells you it is a fuel that doesn’t work. If it worked, people would use it.”

Supporters of low-emission vehicles insist the technology, though still evolving, is sufficient to attract hordes of drivers if auto makers give it a chance. Though the cars have a range of only 100 to 150 miles, they are zippy performers and run at a fraction of the cost of gasoline cars. Studies show they also produce less than 1% as much pollution as-new model cars with gasoline engines.

“It’s almost like taking the car off the road completely,” said Dave Modisette, California Electric Transportation Coalition executive director. “In terms of pollution, it is as if the car has disappeared.”

Caltrans estimates that the value of carpool lane access can be as much as $5,000 annually in time not spent in commuter traffic.

That sort of cost savings doesn’t matter much to Steve Kirsch, a wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur and unabashed advocate of low-emission vehicles.

Kirsch drives a General Motors EV-1. His wife has a Toyota RAV-4 electric sports utility vehicle. Even his kids, he jests, have toy electric jeeps.

“I usually drive off-hours, but when I’m in traffic this will save me 10 minutes on the drive home,” he said. “Those are 10 extra minutes I can spend with my family.”