California adopts Advanced Clean Truck Regulation
26 June 2020
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has adopted the Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) regulation, which requires truck manufacturers to transition from diesel trucks and vans to electric zero-emission trucks beginning in 2024. The rule requires that by 2045, every new truck sold in California be zero-emission.
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The adopted rule is meant to enforce a large-scale transition of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles from Class 2b to Class 8. Manufacturers who certify Class 2b-8 chassis or complete vehicles with combustion engines will be required to sell zero-emission trucks as an increasing percentage of their annual California sales from 2024 to 2035. By 2035, zero-emission truck/chassis sales would need to be 55% of Class 2b-3 truck sales, 75% of Class 4-8 straight truck sales, and 40% of truck tractor sales.
Manufactures earn compliance credits for selling zero emission vehicles (ZEV), and partial credits for selling near-zero emission vehicles (NZEV). ZEVs are vehicles with no tailpipe emissions. NZEVs are defined as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with a minimum all-electric range.
Manufacturers with less than 500 annual state sales are exempt from the ZEV mandate. The companies currently above the sales threshold are Daimler (Freightliner, Thomas Built Buses, Western Star), Paccar (Kenworth, Peterbilt), Navistar (International, IC Bus), Ford, GM (Chevrolet, GMC), Fiat Chrysler (Dodge), Nissan, Isuzu, Toyota (Hino), and Volvo Group.
In the coming months, CARB will also consider two complementary regulations for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. The first sets low NOx emission standards that result in a 90% reduction in NOx emissions compared to today’s diesel engines. This action is expected to be largely harmonized with the US EPA Cleaner Trucks Initiative. There is also a proposed requirement for larger California fleets to transition to electric trucks year over year.
Source: CARB