Tens of thousands of electric trucks could be on California roads within a decade’s time if state air officials and clean-air advocates get their way this week.
The California Air Resources Board, or CARB, is set to vote on a plan Thursday to require manufacturers to produce more electric trucks, which could put 100,000 zero-emission trucks on roads by 2030 and around produce 300,000 by 2035. The rule would be the first of its kind in the country
“We’re sending the market signals that zero-emission trucks are going to be required in California,” said Craig Duehring in April. He’s a manager within the Mobile Source Control Division of CARB.
The agency updated a draft plan on electric trucks in late April and is scheduled to vote on the plan Thursday. If adopted, they’ll ask manufacturers to create more zero-emission trucks — from full-size pick-up trucks to cement trucks to semi-trucks. The proposal is part of the state’s climate goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
“This is putting us on a path to having 100% of trucks being zero emission by the 2045 time frame where feasible,” said Tony Brazil in April. He’s the branch chief for CARB’s heavy duty diesel implementation division.
The trucking industry questions the proposal over how fast it could build trucks and how businesses will purchase them, especially with the pandemic and a potential recession.
The projections about the future electric truck fleet are in some cases nearly double a previous CARB proposal from 2019, where only about eight percent of trucks would be required to go electric, said Paul Cort, staff attorney with the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice. Cort said the plan was not aggressive enough.
“The rule was fairly gentle and had a slow start; it exempted trucks like pickup trucks until 2027,” Cort said in April.
If the plan succeeds, Cort says, there could be 4,000 zero-emission trucks on California roads by 2024. That’s a big deal for places like the Inland Empire which gets anywhere between 20- 25,000 trucks running through the region each day, says Anthony Victoria of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice.
“I think it's a step in the right direction,” he said. “But I think we have to continue to do more. I mean, I think the rule could be stronger.”
Environmental advocates also say the new standard, if adopted, could have public health benefits.
“[The] result will be that people who live near freeways or live in areas that are in the shadows of ports … won't have to be exposed to super toxic diesel pollution,” said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, which is one of the largest environmental groups in the state.
If the rule passes environmental groups hope CARB introduces plans to hold the world of trucking accountable to the proposed changes.
“You'll need supporting rules to make sure that certain kinds of companies are as they're shifting out of their trucks,” said Phillips.
The California Trucking Association declined to comment for this story, but Chris Shimoda, Vice President of Government Affairs, said the group will comment after a decision is made. Last April, he told CapRadio that the previous plan was already ambitious.
He says it also may be unrealistic for the trucking industry to go electric so quickly, given that it’s taken decades for passenger car sales to rise. The state has a goal of 5 million zero emission cars on roads by 2030, and as of February just over 700,000 had been sold since 2011.
“There are probably less than 100 commercial electric vehicles in existence today operating in smaller scale pilot and demonstration projects,” Shimoda said. “What we're really looking for is, I think, a small scale success rather than a large scale failure.”
For the proposal to work, Shimoda says the trucking industry is “going to need state support, by way of incentives to buy what's going to be initially a more expensive truck.”
He also says the industry is concerned there won’t be enough charging infrastructure and whether building the new system is realistic in a state facing less funding because of the pandemic.
“We are in month one of assessing what the true impacts to the economy over the longer term are going to be from the pandemic and with the initial timeline for the vehicles,” he said.
Clean air advocates hope CARB votes in favor of the updated rule because they say transportation is the biggest cause of air pollution in the state.
“This [rule] is projected to save over 900 lives and avoid over almost $9 billion in health costs over the course of the program,” said Will Barrett, clean air advocacy director for the American Lung Association in California.
Will says Californians can expect another big truck emissions rule to be released this week. It would set more stringent standards for diesel engines.
“What we're arguing for is that California needs to move to a 90% cleaner standard for heavy duty trucks that are not electric,” he said.
The American Lung Association's latest ‘State of the Air’ report revealed that Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia, Los Angeles and San Francisco have some of the worst particle pollution in the entire country. The particles that come from sources like trucks, cars and factories get stuck in lungs and can cause asthma attacks and even lung cancer.
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