As rmay stated, in my home state of Wisconsin, there IS NO E.V. designation with our Department of Motor Vehicles.
That also means that there is no way of tracking them. Which can be a bad thing. I have been at transportation conferences where the presenter would say something like that there are no EVs in the state, and then I have to point out that I drove there in one.
We have no way of tracking EVs, so the state won't say, "Hey, we have 1000 EVs on the road, let's install Charging Stations in public!"
As for smog/emissions/registration...
My motorcycle was exempt from emissions testing, due to age.
The Citicar was exempt from testing due to age (absolutely ZERO problems registering.)
The Metro had to go to emissions testing. Of course it has no engine or exhaust, but there was no "exempt because it's an EV" box on the form at the DMV test station.
I was eventually able to find the right people to talk to, and brought the car into the special testing station, many miles away.
They quickly gave me an exemption and thought it was a really cool project. They also notified me that "officially" I had broken Federal Law by "modifying the emissions system". They didn't bust me for it or anything, but did let me know that, technically, removing the exhaust pipe or catalytic converter breaks federal law.
An EV with a cat and exhaust? Sounds like something government would design. (Hey, wait a minute, I think I just accidentally ripped on the Chevy Volt!
)
Also, whenever I tell people about what I had to do for emissions testing, without fail, people jokingly say to just bolt on a muffler and take it to the poor fools at the DMV.
That would not work. There simply would not be the pollutants going through to register properly. The attendant would simply keep fiddling with it, eventually get the manager, he would fiddle with it. Look under your car, see that you were trying to pull something, and you would get in trouble.
Also, most emission testing now uses a cable going to your OBDII jack. Many EVs have the car's computer completely removed. Even if it is still there, it will give error codes like crazy. Not what you want either.
The law on registration varies from state to state (and provence to provence as well, I would imagine.)
Learn the law of your state, and stick to it as best you can. Where there really is trouble with it, stick with the SPIRIT of the law as best you can, and don't get in trouble by messing with the letter of the law.
For example, there are places where you may have to do emissions testing just once, right after buying a car. Often EV converters will meet the letter of the law by registering and testing the car with the running gasoline engine. Once that's done, the car is converted to electric, still meeting the spirit of the law ( no emissions.)
Once the mainstream EVs get to market, it should help solve a lot of problems for the rest of us with oddball or converted vehicles.
In the mean time, lets hope that this thing in Ontario turns out OK.
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