The California Air Resources Board held its first public hearing on rules that would ban the sale of any new fossil-fueled trucks by 2040. It received criticism from both environmentalists and trucking companies.
are on the state’s roads, and nearly all of them are buses. About 300 are zero-emission commercial trucks, and less than 90 are electric semi-trucks. The rule would add about 510,000 carbon- free medium and heavy-duty vehicles to roads and highways in 2035, increasing to 1.2 million in 2045 and nearly 1.6 million in 2050.
Some board members questioned whether the California Public Utilities Commission was prepared to build out the necessary infrastructure and power grid improvements under the proposed timeline. “I’m having the same whiplash experience that so many fleets have been talking about —the challenges they’re having and getting hooked up to the infrastructure,” he said. “Why are we hearing from these fleets —some of them are saying that they’re not even being given a timeline for when the infrastructure will be in place.”
Many truck drivers at the hearing called the proposal unfair due to the high costs of purchasing an electric truck compared to that of a traditional diesel truck. The proposal has different deadlines for phasing in new sales of electric models, varying based on the size and type of truck, until all are electric by 2042. In addition, the requirements for converting fleets would not apply to smaller companies that operate less than 50 trucks, unless they were using a larger company’s trucks.They could keep their trucks as long as they want under the proposal, although their new purchases would have to be zero-emission by 2040.
“There’s a difference in the amount of pollution that is emitted between a plumbing company that has 50 vans, for example, and a hauling company that has 50 tractor trucks,” he said. “In order to account for this, a fleet of tractor trucks should have a compliance threshold of 10 rather than 50 just to account for the extremely disproportionate impact that they have.”