Yes, you read that correctly, folks. If you don’t live in one of the eight states, including California or New York, with extremely strict environmental regulations, it is illegal for you to buy many of the allegedly environmentally friendly cars.

As Lawrence Ulrich writes:

Not only can’t you buy one, but the government says it’s currently illegal for automakers to sell these green cars outside of the special states. Under terms of the Clean Air Act—in the kind of delicious irony only our government can pull off—anyone (dealer, consumer, automaker) involved in an out-of-bounds PZEV [Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle] sale could be subject to civil fines of up to $27,500. Volvo sent its dealers a memo alerting them to this fact, noting that its greenest S40 and V50 models were only for the special states.

As always, government regulations have the opposite of their intended effect.