The growing appeal of green politics at taxpayer expense. It’s simply welfare for the rich.
At the end of so-called National Drive Electric Week, California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. yesterday signed half a dozen bills to increase subsidies for California’s electric vehicle market. California currently – pun intended – accounts for 40% of the nation’s plug-in electric vehicle sales. Earlier this month the former Spanish territory passed 100,000 plug-in electric vehicles sold. This is largely – or entirely – because of lavish local and federal taxpayer subsidies, as well as single occupant access to HOV lanes – high occupancy vehicle – that plug-ins provide for the relatively wealthy owners of the EVs.
Legislation Brown signed last year, as well as an executive order he issued in 2012 pro-creed a target of 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road in California by 2025 (allegedly, since it doesn’t account for how the juice is generated). The announcement came ahead of Brown’s scheduled appearance this week at the United Nations summit meeting on climate change.
The Governor signed the following bills:
- AB 1721 by Assembly member Eric F. Linder (R-Corona): Grants free or reduced-rates in high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes to clean air vehicles.
- AB 2013 by Assembly member Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance): Increases to 70,000 the number of advanced technology partial zero-emission vehicles that may be allowed in high-occupancy vehicle lanes, regardless of occupancy level.
- AB 2090 by Assembly member Paul Fong (D-San Jose): Repeals the level of service requirements on HOT lanes for the San Diego Association of Governments and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, and directs them to work with the California Department of Transportation to develop appropriate performance measures.
- AB 2565 by Assembly member Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance): Requires commercial and residential property owners to approve installation of an electric vehicle charging station by renters, so long as the station meets requirements.
SB 1275 by Senator Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles): Creates the Charge Ahead California Initiative, which provides incentives to increase the availability of zero emission vehicles in low-income communities. - SB 1298 by Senator Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina): Makes the pilot projects for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s operation of HOT lanes on State Highway Routes 10 and 110 permanent.
Nissan has an owner’s blog – NissanLeafDrivers.com.
In a related development also prompted by EV week, Nissan said, “We are currently at around 61,000 sales in the United States since the launch of Leaf four years ago. It is number one in the market (and) number one in the world. It is a natural fit for an opportunity like this to come out and be at this event and set a Guinness World Record on largest number of electric vehicles in a parade at any given time,” said Toby Perry, director, Nissan EV marketing.
