The average medium- or heavy-duty electric truck purchased in New Jersey in 2040 will cost $25,000 less over its lifetime than a comparable diesel vehicle, according to a new report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Fuel and maintenance cost savings totaling about $36,000 over the lifetime of the average electric medium- to heavy-duty truck will make up for the purchase price premium over a diesel vehicle, according to the report, New Jersey Clean Trucks Program.

Seeking to rebut the perception that EV trucks are prohibitively more expensive than diesel and gas vehicles, the NRDC argues that EV trucks will yield health benefits quickly and significant savings after a few years. The report models the environmental and health benefits and cost impact of three different scenarios of state EV truck policies. Based on the report, the NRDC argues that “accelerating the deployment of zero emission trucks and buses would dramatically lower pollution.”

Modeled on California’s Advanced Clean Trucks regulation, New Jersey’s ACT — if approved by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) — would require manufacturers to meet an escalating series of electric truck sales targets, starting in 2025. Manufacturers would be required to increase their sales of zero- or near-zero emissions vehicles to 55% of class 2b and 3 truck sales by 2035, 75% of Class 4 to 8 trucks and 40% of truck tractor sales by 2035. (See: NJ Electric Truck Rules Face Many Questions).

Environmental groups embrace the ACT rules. Hayley Berliner, clean energy associate for Environment New Jersey, said the NRDC’s report “certainly shows the importance of the Advanced Clean Truck rule, and the remarkable public health and environmental benefits,” she said.

The NRDC, along with Environment New Jersey and other environmental groups, wants the DEP to approve the rules by the end of the year so that trucks made in 2025 are covered. Any delay to the enactment of the rules beyond the end of 2021 would mean the first trucks covered by the rules will be those made in 2026, says the NRDC and other environmental groups.

Cost vs. Environmental Impact

Opponents say that electric vehicles are too expensive and the number of models available is too small to be attractive without sizable government incentives. They say that substantial cuts in emissions can be achieved with cleaner, more modern diesel engines, which cost much less than EV trucks.

The NRDC report agrees that the expense of EV trucks will outweigh the savings over the next few years. The lifetime expenses for a truck bought in 2025 — including the cost of chargers, charger maintenance and the initial vehicle purchase — will be about $45,000 more for the average medium- to heavy-duty EV truck than a regular truck, the report concludes. That compares to $40,000 in savings the EV will provide on fuel and maintenance at that time, the report says.

But with EV costs expected to fall as volumes increase, the maintenance and fuel savings will outweigh the higher purchase price of an EV.

The report also endorses the Heavy-Duty Omnibus Rules adopted by California in 2020, which mandate the use of newer trucks that emit less nitrogen oxide (NOx), as part of the strategy to cut greenhouse emissions. Both the ACT and Heavy-Duty Omnibus Rule are “pretty integral key pieces to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector,” Kathy Harris, clean vehicles and fuels advocate for NRDC, said in an interview. She said New Jersey has yet to advance the Heavy-Duty Omnibus Rule, and electric vehicles are the priority for NRDC in cutting greenhouse gases.

“It’s pretty clear that that while, yes, we need to get old diesel (vehicles) off the road, moving to new diesel (trucks) is not the solution,” she said. Cleaner diesel trucks are “still going to perpetuate those issues that are associated with diesel currently, which is not good air quality and potential health impacts from those vehicles.”

The DEP appears close to deciding on ACT. “We are working on an adoption document” for ACT, Peg Hanna, the DEP’s assistant director for air monitoring and mobile source programs, told a conference Wednesday on electric school buses. She said that the department is also “closely monitoring” another California rule, the Advanced Clean Fleets rule, which would “impose requirements on fleet owners to actually purchase these electric trucks and buses that the manufacturers are being required to sell.”

At the May hearing, representatives of the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, a national trade group, said they opposed the rules because the cost of compliance would be too high for trucking companies.

“We agree that the future of trucking and heavy-duty vehicles needs to be much cleaner, if not carbon free,” said Ray Cantor, a vice president at NJBIA, in an interview with NetZero Insider Thursday. “However, at this point in time, the technology for heavy-duty vehicles is just not there [and the trucks] are just not affordable.”

Cantor said the organization would like to see more consideration of trucks powered by alternative fuels, such as liquified natural gas.

Tightening Government Measures for EV Trucks

Truckers have been slow to embrace EV trucks in New Jersey. Trucking advocates say that aside from the expense, the vehicle range (about 150 miles) is too small to make them a viable alternative, especially for the large Class 8 tractor trucks that haul containers — and the state has too few charging stations to alleviate that fear.

The Diesel Technology Forum, which advocates for the use of diesel engines, argues that adopting the ACT would limit the choices of truckers in how they respond to climate change. Allen Schaeffer, the organization’s executive director argued, in a recent op-ed that 55% of trucks on New Jersey roads have engines that are newer than 2011 and armed with technology that makes them “near zero emissions.” The state should transition the 52% of older trucks to near-zero technology, he argued, saying that with 55% of New Jersey’s electricity powered by natural gas, the power for most electric vehicles will come from gas-fueled electricity anyway.

“Let’s consider what we can do now rather than just hope what the future might be,” Schaeffer wrote. “Even if the most optimistic of all policy, funding, technology and infrastructure scenarios fall into place, the time frame for zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles to make up a majority percentage of the commercial trucks on New Jersey roads and streets is going to be measured in decades, not years.”

What Policy to Adopt

The NRDC’s report tries to evaluate what can be achieved and the impact on New Jersey’s emissions, resident health and economic situation under three scenarios with varying levels of aggressiveness in promoting electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

One way it does so is to look at the “societal benefits” of each. The calculation of societal benefits includes: the monetized value of climate and public health benefits resulting from fewer hospital visits and deaths from pollution; the net cost savings to fleets from operating zero-emission trucks; and savings to all residential and commercial electricity customers due to lower electric rates made possible by the additional electricity sales for electric vehicle charging.

The three scenarios are:

• Adopting ACT only: by adopting the ACT, 34% of the state’s in-use medium- and heavy-duty-trucks would become EVs by 2040 and 59% would be EVs by 2050, the report says. That would yield annual net societal benefits totaling about $1.1 billion (in constant 2020 dollars) through 2050, and a 43% reduction in nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. The annual cost savings to New Jersey trucking fleets in 2050 would be $446 million, and annual savings in the bills of electric utility customers in the state could reach an estimated $70 million, the report says.
• Adopting ACT and the Heavy-Duty Omnibus Rule: The omnibus rule requires a 75% reduction in NOx emissions from diesel trucks sold between model year 2025 and 2026, and a 90% reduction for trucks sold beginning in the 2027 model year. Under that scenario all gas and diesel trucks would become low-NOx vehicles by 2044. Annual societal benefits would be about $1.1 billion.
• Adopting ACT, the omnibus rule and other state measures to accelerate an increase in EV sales and ensure that virtually all new trucks are EVs by 2040. That would yield societal benefits of about $2.1 billion. The annual fleet savings would be $843 million and electric customer annual bill savings increase to an estimated $81 million, the report says.

In the first scenario, 34% of the state’s trucking fleet would be EVs by 2040, and the same would happen under the second scenario, although in addition many vehicles would become low NOx vehicles. In the third scenario, 52% of the fleet would be EV by 2040 and 96% would be EVs by 2050, the report says.