The California Air Assets Board (CARB) lately voted to finalize its Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule, a set of rules that requires new medium- and heavy-duty autos offered or registered within the state to be zero-emission by 2036, and requires all vehicles to be zero-emission by 2042.

The rule is a complement to CARB’s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT, in fact) rule, which was adopted in 2020. ACT works from the provision facet, requiring that producers provide electrical vehicles, whereas ACF addresses the demand facet, requiring that industrial fleet operators purchase a sure variety of electrical vehicles.

CARB’s vote to approve the brand new measure was unanimous, and so was the reward from EV advocates. The Sierra Club referred to as approval of the brand new rule “a serious victory for public well being and environmental justice advocates.” InsideEVs stated, “We are able to solely hope the world is watching and others will observe swimsuit.”

Not everyone seems to be happy, nevertheless. Trucking companies and commerce teams are rising as robust anti-electrification voices. As former Daimler exec and electrical truck advocate Rustam Kocher lately advised Charged, “This business could be very, very old-school, very, very conservative. You’ll see pushback from them till TCO turns into optimistic working the autos.”

Andrew Boyle, First Vice Chair of the American Trucking Associations (ATA) lately made a speech in entrance of the US Congress, which contained a number of incorrect statements about EVs. The ATA is a member of the recently-formed Clean Freight Coalition, which lobbies in opposition to clear freight regulation.

ATA President and CEO Chris Spear lately spoke in opposition to CARB’s approval of the ACF: “Fleets are simply starting to know what it takes to efficiently function these vehicles, however what they’ve discovered to date is they’re considerably dearer, charging and refueling infrastructure is nonexistent, and ZEVs will not be essentially a one-for-one alternative—which means extra vehicles shall be wanted on California roads to maneuver the identical quantity of freight.”

Eric Sauer, CEO of the California Trucking Affiliation, foresees dire outcomes from the ACF regulation: “The one impact ACF implementation may have is that it’s going to assure a whole dismantling of our state’s trucking business and have a detrimental impact on items motion and the complete provide chain.”

Sauer cited the dearth of charging infrastructure, the provision of electrical vehicles, the added weight batteries will add to thevehicles, the environmental impression of battery manufacturing, and the detrimental impression on smaller trucking firms that lack the assets to impress their fleets within the time required.

The issues these gents cite are actual, however removed from insurmountable.

California’s Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Undertaking (HVIP) offers point-of-sale vouchers to make EVs extra reasonably priced. In response to Southern California-based Tom’s Truck Center, with a BEV voucher valued between $120,000 and $186,000, a buyer should buy an EV for about the identical buy value as a diesel truck.

Heavy-duty charging infrastructure is at present meager, however quite a lot of firms are working to satisfy the anticipated demand (and sure, California gives incentives for infrastructure too). Daimler Truck is constructing a heavy-duty charging community, and truck cease chain Pilot is working with Volvo so as to add charging for Class 8 EVs to its websites. In the meantime, firms like Zeem Solutions, WattEV and Terawatt are exploring new enterprise fashions for the heavy-duty charging area.

As for batteries, CATL says it should quickly supply a battery with specific energy of 500 Wh/kg—double that of a Tesla Mannequin Y—and as Michael Barnard lately wrote in CleanTechnica, CATL, the world’s largest battery-maker (not like one other well-known EV firm, which nonetheless has a Class 8 EV in service with Pepsico) has a historical past of delivering what it guarantees on time.

Lastly, the ACF guidelines embrace a plethora of exceptions (“loopholes” to EV advocates), together with exemptions if zero-emission vehicles aren’t accessible, or if infrastructure set up may delay implementation. Timelines are totally different for various organizations. “Excessive-priority” entities like state and native governments and enormous industrial operators should comply earlier, however smaller operators and fewer EV-friendly purposes reminiscent of long-haul trucking may have extra time. Carriers with 10 or fewer autos, or businesses in sure designated counties, shall be exempt from the ZEV buy requirement till 2027.

The truth is, so quite a few are the exemptions and carve-outs that CARB estimates that, of the 1.8 million medium- and heavy-duty autos now working in California, 532,000 shall be topic to ACF fleet necessities. The regulation focuses on the highest-polluting truck courses. It would apply to an estimated 67% of Class 7-8 tractors, 52% of Class 4-8 vocational vehicles, and 12% of Class 2b-3 vehicles.

Sources: Electrek, Commercial Carrier Journal, CleanTechnica