New Jersey’s proposal to ramp up the use of electric trucks by stimulating the construction and installation of more medium- and heavy-duty (MHD) charging stations ran into concerns Friday over the way the rules would provide greater assistance for chargers serving the public than those for private fleets.

Two speakers at a New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) hearing said that given the urgency to cut carbon emissions and the need to rapidly jump-start the uptake of electric vehicles, especially MHD trucks, the state should more equally support all chargers, regardless of whether they serve public or private interests.

New Jersey is looking to jump-start electric truck use by creating a network of chargers geographically distributed around the state, cutting truckers’ range anxiety and addressing fairness and environmental justice concerns. The discussion touched on the sensitive issues of how much government support clean energy projects receive and the benefits that should go to private interests in the projects.

The BPU proposal envisions private developers and investors installing, owning and operating EV service equipment and marketing the sites to customers. Electric distribution companies (EDCs) would be responsible for wiring and providing the backbone infrastructure necessary.

Part of the BPU’s proposal would allow EDCs to prepare the infrastructure for a charger installation and charge ratepayers for doing so if the site is accessible to or serves the public. But the developers of chargers for private fleets would generally have to pick up that cost themselves.

Zachary Kahn, senior policy adviser for Tesla, which is close to putting a heavy-duty truck on the market, said the BPU should adjust the proposal to “support make-ready funding for all medium- and heavy-duty vehicle chargers,” regardless of whether they are in a private depot or accessible to the public.

“Private actors that are investing in medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks are already making a significant financial commitment to reducing emissions from their fleets due to the upfront costs of electrification,” he said. “These entities already have significant skin in the game and should not be punished, or not be dinged, for wanting to put their charging infrastructure in in a nonpublic location.”

He added that because heavy-duty trucks, “by their very nature,” often operate in disadvantaged and urban communities, EDC support for private fleets would still provide a public benefit because those areas suffer some of the worst emission volumes.

Zachary Fabish, an attorney for the Sierra Club, told the board that it was “problematic” to distinguish between publicly and privately accessible chargers. The benefits of electrifying the truck fleet include the improvement in the air quality to area communities, the mitigation of climate change effects and the potentially “downward pressure on rates” as the use of the grid increases, he said.

“None of those things depend on whether or not the fleet or the chargers are public or private,” he said. “From the perspective of maximizing benefits of the public and doing everything we can to electrify as quickly as we can to address not only public health crises, but the very significant climate crisis, the distinction …. just really doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Slow EV Truck Uptake

The hearing was the last of seven forums held to solicit public input that the BPU will now fashion into a final set of rules on which to vote. With trucking emissions accounting for 40% of the state’s carbon emissions, a sizable portion of which comes from trucks, the BPU’s charger proposal is an important element of Gov. Phil Murphy’s effort to transition the state from diesel vehicles to EVs. Murphy wants the state to reach 100% clean energy by 2050, and the state’s 2019 master plan assumes that 75% of medium-duty trucks and 50% of heavy-duty trucks will be electric by 2050.

So far, however, progress has been slow. The Port of New York and New Jersey, where much of the focus in reducing truck emissions has landed in recent years, has only a dozen or so electric trucks, most of them yard tractors that move containers around inside the port. Truckers say there are few, if any, large EVs traveling the highways.

Truckers in New Jersey, like those around the nation, cite the lack of MHD charging sites as a key obstacle to greater use of electric trucks. Other barriers include the short range of existing electric trucks — only up to about 250 miles — and the high cost of the vehicles. (See Port NY-NJ Cites ‘Hurdles’ to Employing EV Trucks.)

The question of who should fund the installation of chargers, and how, was also a topic of contention at an August hearing on the MHD proposal.

Maura Caroselli, assistant deputy rate counsel, told the board that placing the burden for charger development on ratepayers would unfairly burden low-income residents, who spend a far greater share of their income on utilities. That would hit a sector that already bears the brunt of the emissions, she said.

“Ratepayers in this situation should only bear the costs of the projects where utility expertise is required,” she said. “Charging ratepayers for medium- and heavy-duty EVs through rates is the most regressive way to charge folks.”

The government could provide incentives to partner and build relationships “with companies, such as Amazon; such as Walmart; any large company that’s driving these trucks through overburdened communities every day,” she said. “We should look to collaborate and partner with them to find a solution, because they’ve got the incentive to do it. They probably have the resources to do it.”

At the same hearing, Moises Luque, CEO at transportation company Supreme Green Team, of East Brunswick, N.J. said government incentives are key for small companies such as his.

“The upfront costs of electric vehicles are very, very high,” said Luque, who said is company is transitioning to electric trucks. “For the ones that I was looking at, the cost was about $260,000 per vehicle. For a small business owner, that is a lot of money.

“Secondly, I have to think about charging my electric vehicles,” he added. At present, he added, “I have to rely on public charging stations, which currently are not fit for big commercial vehicles. They’re located in Walmarts and malls and commercial areas, but the spaces are small and not commercial vehicle-friendly.” Setting up his own charging station, he said, would cost as much as $50,000, on top of which he would have to find land on which to put it.

Mandating EV Truck Sales

The hearing Friday also underscored the sensitivity of another Murphy administration policy designed to encourage and accelerate the uptake of MHD electric trucks: a set of rules based on California’s Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) measure. The rules would require manufacturers to meet increasing sales targets for MHD electric trucks in the state after 2025, a strategy that would be achieved through a system of credits and deficits based on the manufacturer’s sales of diesel and electric trucks in the state. (See NJ Outlines Plan to Boost EV Truck Sales.)

Although the ACT and the charger infrastructure rules are unrelated — the ACT was promulgated by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) — several speakers at the BPU’s hearing cited their impact if they are adopted.

Timothy Blubaugh, executive vice president with the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, characterized the effort to introduce electric trucks into the New Jersey market as a three-legged stool that requires support from each leg to work. Those legs are the availability of EV trucks on the market; the willingness of trucking fleets to purchase the vehicles; and sufficient infrastructure to charge or refuel them, he said.

The ACT addresses “only one leg of the stool, and therefore it will not establish the market,” he said. Significant incentives are needed to ensure that fleets see the trucks as financially viable, he said, adding that establishing the infrastructure — the second leg — will be “complicated, expensive and time-intensive.”

“The infrastructure must be installed at terminals where trucks are parked, and it will require new maintenance and operational investments by the fleet,” he said. “Since it may take 24 to 48 months from concept to having a charging station in place, a fleet must have the infrastructure in place before receiving its first exam and plan to expand it before purchasing more.”

The best way to develop the use of EVs is to initially focus on a few “beachhead” sectors, such as parcel delivery and “intra-city pickup and delivery,” in which fleets can profitably operate, he said.

Environmental groups have recently stepped up their efforts to push for the adoption of the ACT. The Natural Resources Defense Council said wrote in an op-ed for NJ Spotlight News that ACT “is one of the best tools we have to address emissions from trucks and buses.” The Sierra Club New Jersey chapter also wrote an op-ed for the site calling on Gov. Murphy to adopt the rules so that “our communities can breathe cleaner air and our state can address our most polluting sector.”