Senate Transportation reviews draft miscellaneous motor‑vehicles bill covering EV fees, veterans and permits

Legislative counsel presented the first draft of a miscellaneous motor‑vehicles bill at a Wednesday meeting of the Senate Transportation committee, walking members through a series of mostly technical and clarifying changes that affect electric vehicles, veterans’ designations, identification documents and learner and commercial permits.

Damian Leonard, legislative counsel, said the draft clarifies that the term "pleasure car" will include "plug‑in electric vehicles, battery electric vehicles and plug‑in hybrid electric vehicles" to avoid inadvertently excluding those vehicles from statutes that reference pleasure cars. "The goal here is to avoid inadvertently excluding those vehicles from all of the other statutes that mentioned pleasure cars," Leonard said.

The draft includes a number of specific changes: a clarification that a new…