California truck buyers snapped up $84 million in state-offered clean vehicle purchase incentives within hours of their release last week, evidence of the state’s acceleration toward zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.

The California Air Resources Board opened its Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) to new requests on June 8. The program will offer $165 million this year to California-based businesses for the purchase of new zero-emission and near-zero-emission vehicles.

CARB is offering the funds in two phases. The first round of $84 million was released on June 8. That same day, the program announced it had received requests for all of the first wave of funding, covering incentives for more than 900 vehicles.

The remaining funds, up to $83 million, will be released on Aug. 10 at 10 a.m. But Class 8 trucks performing drayage operations as well as vehicles purchased by a public agency may apply for the incentive during the pause.

The HVIP incentive is available for vehicles ranging in size from Class 2B to Class 8, including tractors, straight trucks, delivery vans, garbage trucks and buses.

For tractors, for example, the program offers an incentive of $120,000 for six different models of battery electric vehicles. For heavy-duty buses, an incentive of up to $240,000 is available for certain models of battery-electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

HVIP is administered by CALSTART, a national clean-transportation consortium.

CARB launched HVIP in 2009. The program provided more than $400 million in incentives through the end of last year for the purchase of more than 7,000 vehicles. The incentive shaves an average of 20% off the cost of a clean vehicle, according to the program’s website.

Clean Truck Regulation

The latest round of incentives comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom in September issued an executive order that set a goal of having all medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in the state be zero-emission by 2045 “for all operations where feasible,” with a similar goal for drayage trucks by 2035. Drayage trucks are heavy-duty vehicles that transport shipping containers that arrive at ports.

Last year, CARB adopted what it called a first-in-the-world rule requiring truck manufacturers to move from diesel trucks and vans to electric zero-emission trucks starting in 2024. The Advanced Clean Truck regulation will require every new truck sold in California to be zero-emission by 2045.

“This requirement to shift to zero-emission trucks, along with the ongoing shift to electric cars, will help California meet its climate goals and federal air quality standards, especially in the Los Angeles region and the San Joaquin Valley — areas that suffer the highest levels of air pollution in the nation,” CARB said in a news release at the time.

This year, CARB is following up on its Advanced Clean Truck rule with a proposed Advanced Clean Fleets regulation.

The proposed rule would phase in zero-emission trucks and buses from 2023 to 2045 for state and local government fleets, drayage trucks serving ports and railyards, and federal agency and private fleets deemed “high priority.”

The Advanced Clean Fleets regulation would apply to on‐road vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 8,500 pounds and off‐road yard tractors. A first hearing on the proposed regulation is expected in December.

In addition to the CARB regulations, 15 states and the District of Columbia signed a memorandum of understanding last year to support rapid expansion of the zero-emission truck market. The memorandum sets targets for the sales of zero-emission trucks: 30% by 2030 and 100% by 2050.

Olympic Dreams

CARB is not alone in pursuing clean-truck initiatives in California.

The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and the Transportation Electrification Partnership (TEP) have set a target for 40% of drayage trucks serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to be zero emissions by 2028. The groups set the target in consultation with both ports, according to Michelle Kinman, senior director of transportation at LACI.

TEP is a regional public-private collaboration that formed with the goal of improving air quality by the time the Summer Olympics come to L.A. in 2028.

Thus far, TEP members have tried out zero-emission equipment in demonstration and pilot projects at the ports. That sets the stage for a significant increase in zero-emission deployments starting in 2022 and 2023, Kinman said.

The groups are also focused on finding funding for charging infrastructure for heavy-duty, battery-electric trucks along the Interstate 710 corridor and elsewhere in the region.

“Given the lengthy timelines for the permitting and interconnection of charging infrastructure, it is imperative to work now to install ample infrastructure in strategic locations to ensure that fleet owners and operators will have the confidence to make the transition to electric trucks,” Kinman told NetZero Insider.

Tom Ashley, vice president of policy and market development for Greenlots, discussed the LACI and TEP target for zero-emission drayage trucks last week during the annual meeting of the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners (WCPSC). Greenlots, a provider of electric vehicle charging technology, is a LACI partner.

“We’re talking not just selling a certain amount of vehicles, but in 2028, 40% of the [on-road drayage] vehicles in operation are zero-emission,” Ashley said during a session on electric vehicles. “So very aggressive, and I think we’re going to be seeing more and more of that type of activity in other regions.”

Ashley said three factors are driving the transition to electric trucks: climate, air quality and economics. CARB, through regulation, has been a primary driver of the move toward zero-emission trucks in California, related to a combination of emissions and air quality, he said.

And regions that don’t meet air-quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency risk losing out on an array of federal funding, Ashley said.

“We’re really seeing the biggest fleets out there — including particularly the fleets that operate, yes, in California but also in a lot of other geographies — really start to ramp up their transition to either electrification specifically or zero emissions a little bit more broadly,” Ashley said.