Meanwhile, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) says the state’s rules may not be the problem.
California’s zero emission regulations are causing truck shortages and rising costs, according to the trucking and heavy-duty vehicle industry.
State officials plan to end traditional combustion truck sales by 2036.
California’s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulation requires manufacturing companies to gradually increase the percentage of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) they sell on the market—such as electric or hydrogen—and reduce the number of gas and diesel trucks.
Anthony Bento, chief legal officer for the California New Car Dealers Association, said dealers in the state have seen dramatic decreases in available trucks for the 2024 model year as a result of the new rules.
“These rules are decreasing product availability, and when there’s less product available, there’s increasing costs,” Bento told The Epoch Times. “The on-the-ground reality is that California consumers and businesses are going to be paying more, because there’s not an adequate supply of new product available that meets customers’ demands.”
California’s goals include reducing tailpipe emissions and requiring the progress and adoption of advanced clean trucks. By the end of the 2024 model year, 5 to 9 percent of sales in California must be ZEVs.
The ACT regulation was adopted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in 2020 and approved by the state Office of Administrative Law in March 2021.
Industry representatives say the rules are forcing businesses to drive out of state to purchase trucks and parts that are non-compliant, leave the state of California, or close up shop altogether. They also say truck business owners are delaying upgrading their fleet so as to not deal with the requirements.
Mark Baatz, owner of Tow Industries in Los Angeles, which supplies trucks to emergency roadside services, told host Siyamak Khorrami on EpochTV’s “California Insider” in an interview published on Dec. 15, that the towing industry doesn’t yet have any available ZEV options.
“In our industry, regardless of cost, there isn’t an electric truck that works for us at this time,” he said. “That next technology hasn’t arrived for us yet.”
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