San Francisco Toyota Blog

Accelerating the market for clean air vehicles is a cornerstone of California’s long-term strategy to reduce air pollution and green house gas emissions, save consumers money, and solidify the state’s place as a technology hub for clean car manufacturing and development. AB 220 will provide a significant financial incentive to buyers of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles by exempting them from the state sales tax.

AB 220 exempts the purchase of Clean Air Vehicles from the state sales and use tax, saving the consumer 6.5 percent of the purchase price. The average savings to the consumer would be $2973. Vehicles eligible for this tax incentive include all-electric vehicles, compressed natural gas vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell or internal combustion vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and liquefied petroleum gas vehicles.

“Widespread use of clean vehicles is absolutely key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but we need to do more to motivate the public to purchase them,” Ting said.  “Financial incentives are the proven best way to steer consumers to choose clean cars,” he added.

Under the measure, the sales tax and vehicle license fee exemptions would be available to purchasers of the types of vehicles identified in existing law as eligible for free access to High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes.  As an illustration of the point that sales of clean cars are not happening at a quick enough pace, fewer than 10,000 of the 40,000 HOV “stickers” available to plug-in hybrid drivers for the HOV access privilege have been claimed.  The financial incentives provided through the legislation will remain in effect for just one year, January 1, 2014 to January 1, 2015, to coincide with the expiration of the HOV access program for these same vehicles.

In addition, the legislation will contain a directive to the state Department of General Services to allow EVs and plug-in HEVs to park free of charge in state of California parking lots and facilities.

“Taken together, these financial incentives and parking benefits will incentivize the purchase of clean vehicles, and further establish California as a manufacturing hub for clean cars and related technologies.  They will also position our economy to benefit from the green jobs associated with this emerging industry,” Ting said.

Quick facts on Electric Vehicles and Hybrid Electric Vehicles:

• According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, electric vehicle usage emits only a quarter of the pollutants as the average new car—this includes emissions from electricity production used to charge the car.
• All major automakers have plans to introduce electric vehicles by 2015, with some already on the market, such as the Nissan LEAF, Chevy Volt, Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, and Ford Focus Electric.  Those manufactured in California include the CODA Sedan, Fisker Karma, and Tesla Model S Sedan.
• Under the ARB requirements on the “big six” auto makers, a manufacturer that sells 100,000 vehicles a year in California is required to sell at least 1,000 battery-powered electric cars with a 100-mile range per year starting in 2015.
• According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, there are 117,092 electric vehicles registered in the State. *As proposed to be amended

If you’re interested in support of clean cars and is interested in a vehicle such as RAV4 EV, Prius Plug-in, feel free to contact us here at San Francisco Toyota.

San Francisco Toyota is very proud to have received the highest ranking Toyota dealerships with this exclusive President’s Cabinet Award.

President’s Cabinet Award

It is a prestigious honor tied to sales and customer-satisfaction measures and reserved for this group of elite dealers who are meeting the stringent requirements of this award. These dealers are the high-volume dealers who are also doing the best job of taking care of their customers. To be selected, dealers must be a member of Toyota’s “Board of Governors” that includes the nation’s top 60 dealerships as measured by sales volume and among the top 12 dealerships in the Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) performance. The award is bestowed annually.

We would like to thank all of our staff for all their hard work and dedication, we are so proud to have received this award for the first time.  With everyone’s help we will continuously improve and evolve to become an even better dealership for the upcoming years.

Toyota GT 86

With the historic unveiling of the Ferrari LaFerrari and the McLaren P1 heavy-hitting hybrids, sporty production hybrids are finally realistic.

Chief Toyota engineer, Tetsuya Tada, confirmed in an Autocar interview last week that the brand is hard at work playing with Toyota GT-86 variants, which is sold in the U.S. as the Scion FR-S. Chief among them is a hybrid version.

While it’s been long rumored that Toyota was playing with turbo and supercharged versions of its GT-86, “but an electric motor assistance solution is also possible, and would bring benefits that forced induction does not.” Tada said, speaking to Autocar at Geneva last week.

The benefits are clear, when you think about it. A turbo or supercharger can add power, sure, but typically at higher RPMs. A hybrid, on the other hand, could fill out low-end torque with electric motor assistance as well as adding more weight lower in the car.

Toyota has been obsessed with keeping the center of gravity as low as possible in the GT-86. It’s quite excited about the potential to improve upon that weight balance while also adding power.

“Our TRD tuning department has found it easy to take 100kg out of the curb weight, and have developed certain under-body fins and plates that can be employed to alter the dynamic balance of the car, to increase or reduce oversteer at medium and high speeds. They have quite a pronounced effect,” Tada added.

So will the refreshed Scion FR-S have a hybrid powerplant under the hood? Quite possibly. Since Toyota has met and exceeded its sales goals, buyers should expect to see the convertible concept version unveiled at Geneva last week, the FT-86 Open, and a souped-up powertrain added to the mix for 2015.