California Mandates Truck Manufacturers To Sell More Electric Trucks
Recently, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) unanimously approved a new rule mandating truck manufacturers to increase the proportion of electric trucks they sell in the state through 2035.
The rule is modeled after California’s Zero Emission Vehicle program that set sales targets for carbon-free passenger vehicles and has been stopped by the administration.
The Advanced Clean Truck rule will start in 2024 when five to nine percent of truck sales must be zero-emission with increasing numbers until 2035 when 55 percent of sales of light trucks, 75 percent of medium- and heavy-duty trucks and 40 percent of tractor-trailers will have to be zero-emissions.
CARB estimates that the changes will result in having 300,000 electric trucks on the road by 2035 which is 15 percent of the total trucks expected on the road then, rather than 150,000 which would happen without the new regulation.
Other than Rivian and Tesla, truck and engine manufacturers and natural gas companies opposed the rule.
Northeast air quality agencies testified in support of the rule giving a glimpse of how other states may act similarly.
Because the rule imposes stricter regulations on vehicles than the federal government does under the Clean Air Act, California will need a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement the rule.
CARB also plans to propose rules to make government fleets and last mile delivery trucks entirely electric by 2035, and to force companies to purchase zero emission trucks from manufacturers.
