Last year, California became the first state Ban on the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035kind of policy towards the future and also kind of policy maybe it happened a long time ago, except nationally. On Friday, New York Times report that California is green now light to do something similar with heavy trucks, to find a way to make half of heavy truck sales all-electric by 2035.
In case you lost it:
California has been given permission by the federal government to do so through the Environmental Protection Agency, which is required because California’s rule would go beyond federal mandates. In a way, the heavy-duty truck industry — not just tractors but also cement mixers, dump trucks, garbage trucks and the like — should have foreseen this, since California originally passed this regulation in 2020. They could be forgiven for not thinking every government twitch was real, but now the Biden administration has given California the blessing to move forward. with it, which the state has been waiting for.
From NYT:
When it goes into effect next year, the rule will involve the sale of trucks of various sizes, from delivery trucks to large rigs. By 2035, 55% of delivery vans and vans, 75% of buses and larger vans, and 40% of tractors and other large rigs sold in the state will be fully electric.
Prices for electric trucks start at around $100,000 and can reach high six figures. Buyers, including delivery and construction companies, may be able to get some help from last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which over the next decade will provide a tax credit of up to $40,000 to people Buy an all-electric truck.
Some manufacturers have positioned themselves to comply. Volvo, which makes tractor-trailer trucks, has set a target that 50% of its truck sales will be all-electric by 2030.
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The NYT also notes that opposition to the rule is coming from the usual camps, which are Republicans and some in the trucking industry; the former group argues that it is government overreach to dictate what types of vehicles manufacturers can make and sell, while the latter group says that 2035 is simply too soon. Every side is steeling for a legal battle that may ultimately end up at the Supreme Court. Also, truckers, or at least independent ones, aren’t too thrilled, because their costs are going to go up in the short-term. (Major trucking companies, it sounds like, are already pricing all of this in for the long-term.)
“A lot of the California truck rules that have been adopted and enacted recently are starting to push truck drivers out of the state,” said Jay Grimes, director of federal affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents truckers. “Drivers don’t want to work in California anymore. They’re skeptical of the rapid timeline on this transition to electric trucks. Can a trucker get a charge that will take them on a highway for two or three days? Is the technology ready for prime time?”
For decades now, California has been at the forefront of emissions rules, given a waiver decades ago by the EPA to do their own thing on emissions and not, originally, to combat global warming or anything, but to prevent smog. The fact that California’s goals are becoming increasingly important and urgent in an age of climate change is no more a daunting task than a fuller realization of what the problem is: smog is bad and must be addressed , and climate change is even worse.
