One of the biggest perks of owning a Tesla is no more

Electric vehicles are no longer allowed to use the carpool lanes in California with just the driver behind the wheel. One of the sweetest perks of owning an electric car expired on Monday, December 1, and the usual $490 fine for riding solo in an HOV lane now applies to EV owners as well.

President Trump's administration has been nixing every subsidy and incentive that it considers giving electric vehicles unfair advantage on the market. After ending the new EV tax credit, the federal government has now refused to provide the necessary authorization that California would need to extend the HOV lane exemption for electric cars.

Can Teslas ride in the HOV lane?

The original permission allowed individual states to decide for themselves if they want to let EV drivers, mostly of Tesla vehicles, take the so-called carpool, diamond, or HOV lanes alone, as long as they had those flashy "Clean Air Vehicle" stickers. The decals' validity, however, lapsed on December 1, and California can't extend it. After a two-month grace period, the California Highway Patrol warns that "you can now be cited for a violation of HOV lane rules even if you have the sticker."

Besides the subsidy and perks crusade, the White House has been moving to dismantle the emission mandates that indirectly help electric vehicles. It wants to abolish California's 2035 ban on combustion engines, as well as neuter emissions' legislation that it considers a nuisance, such as the start-stop systems that cut the engine off at each traffic light.

Letting electric vehicle owners drive in the carpool lane alone, or park anywhere, have been two of the earliest state or federal perks introduced to spearhead wider adoption of the zero emission vehicles. Now that Tesla's market cap is larger than that of most major automakers combined, and charging infrastructure is everywhere, the incentives concocted for early adopters don't make as much sense.

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