I was just driving home in the rain (in my Grand Cherokee, since the Jag seldom sees the rain), and I happened upon what may be the answer for Jaguar EVs.
The vehicle in front was a dark colored Jeep Wrangler with a Massachusetts EV registration plate.
I was thinking that I was not aware that Jeep actually made an EV when I noticed the Jeep had an exhaust pipe.
Then it pulled into a gas station in front of me.
So, if Jeeps can do it, why not a gas guzzler 8 cylinder F-Type with an EV plate - solves the whole re-engineering problem and still sounds great!!

 

Could be a plug in hybrid. My wife has a Range Rover Sport plug in hybrid. It qualifies for many of the EV perks. Her commute is far below the EV range, so she'll use pure EV most days.

 

Sadly, I don't think EV Convertibles are going to be a thing.

 

....Could be a REGULAR air-breathing jeep, whose driver cleverly snagged an EV-plate to stick on his car. Hehehehe.

 

So, I did some checking and it seems there really are 2023 hybrid Wranglers and in MA they do carry EV plates.
So despite many hybrids actually being "light hybrids" with very limited battery mileage, they still get a MA EV plate and the benefits therof.
The supposed rationale is that when first responders encounter a damaged vehicle the EV plate alerts them to the risk of battery fire.

 

Yeah... That disappoints me. I can see it being exploited and taken advantage of already...

Just like Mike my neighbor. He gets the "Handicap" card to hang in the windshield of his F150 Deluxe w/ Lariano Blackout Winter package because of his club-footed mom... then he reaps the "handicap" rewards of parking up front of every Home Depot each morning, loading tons of carpentry tools in the bed, and in the Co-driver's seat where his disabled mom only sits twice a year on Holiday drives to her sister's house.

GGrrrrrr.

I still have lots of objections to the EV path makers are choosing. "Out in the rugged" means you have a portable tank on the back and you hike-it to the nearest cheap station when you lose your fuel---it's part of the outdoors preparedness, part of the pride.
How do you rough it with a EV out of charge, a few miles from.... from what? Bubba's gas stop won't have a charge-up-to-go unit. Bubba's brother will charge you hefty money towing (and damaging) your new EV jeep out of the rough and down the road.
And why must the vehicle look so "futuristic" when it's claiming to be ready for rugged adventures? Does that identity really work for Jeep, Landrover, Mercedes outback suvs?

 

This is a huge peeve of mine, too. By the law, you are only to use the placard when the person who qualifies it is in the vehicle. The police can bust you for misusing it, but it's just not enforced.

When I worked for a bank downtown, we campaigned for a short term spot to be created right in front of our ATM so people could drive up, get out of the car, use the ATM and go. What we found is we just created another handicap spot. The first day the spot was available (and every day thereafter), a car with a handicap placard parked in the spot all day long. Apparently, with a handicap placard, you are allowed to park in any metered spot for as long as you want for free. I then walked up and down the street for eight blocks and found that there were only two cars in all that distance that did not have handicap placards. The metered parking was for two hours max, but the placards exempted them from that rule.

It's for this reason that parking lots have to have so many more handicap spots than they need. By the DMV records, there are way more people that need the spots than actually do. There are doctors who will sign off on the need for a placard with no cause, just so people can park for free. When I talked to the local law enforcement about it, the priority of enforcing this was somewhere below enforcing Jaywalking on Mackinac Island. There was something about it being a hassle because not all disabilities are readily apparent and if you hassles someone who has a lung condition, for example, they could get sued.

Back to your main point, I have seen plug in hybrids abuse the system. How many of the up close parking spots for EVs are being used by plug in hybrids, not because they need a charge, but because they want the 'reserved' parking? How many are bought just to get the HOV lane sticker?

 

Kudos, eeeek! Bonuses like 'nearest parking spots to the store' are the wrong incentives to provide for a culture that already abuses that thing called "Privileges" way too much.

We have to face it, "helping" the climate and "being energy kind" required WAY more than these makers just creating an electric (or alternate fuel) car for folks to buy. Cars don't burn up fuels----people do. A "helpful" car will need to be based on some indepth thinking about shaping people's behavior, rewarding them with crude basic benefits of some kind to prevent them from 'turning off' the eco-feature that's been put in the car, minimizing how much people can abuse or exploit the climate-saving benefits of the vehicle in ways that cause OTHER people to have to lose their resources (such as valuable time, ease of life, wear-n-tear on property....all these things are fragile 'energy resources' too)

Car makers not only need to think of a better design stance for thes (so far homely) electric vehicles bodies, and not just think of more ambitious and in-depth power source, they also need to think "Wyley coyote clever" about the owner/user of the car.

 

Speaking as someone whos found this forum when I was looking for a way to disable the ECO stop/start on my car, I think that there are strides that are being make that improve how even a person like me drives. I read an article that when city busses were switched to electric, the busses would fall short of the projected range daily. It was determined that the bus drivers were still driving the busses like gas vehicles and they needed to be retrained to not just mash the accelerator pedal. In my wife's car, there is a fun graphic that shows your energy use and it has retrained bother her and me as to how we drive her car. She gets no joke half again as much range by just making small adjustments to her driving habits.

The real issue, IMO, here in America is our love of our cars for everything, and it's not entirely our fault.Our country is huge and spread out and relatively young. It didn't need to have all the cities clumped together so closely as in Europe. When I was in Europe, I did not rent a car. I took the high speed trains and taxis everywhere. It was fantastic. We just don't have the infrastructure for that here. If I want to go to LA, it's either fly or drive. The whole high speed train between LA and SF was implemented and managed in such a bad way that it had no hope of getting off the ground. I could take Amtrack, but that's slow and expensive if you want a decent experience.

Anyway, I find it funny that when I drive my 575 hp car on I-5, I get better fuel economy than most of the other cars on the road with my CC set at about 80 mph.

 

EV problem solved.
Hybrid conversion kit, sold on Amazon for less than $10 delivered.
Hipcat wins again!
You're welcome,
David