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[Richard230]

The latest news from California's Air Resources Board is a proposal to require all new diesel and gasoline-powered medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks that operate in California to be zero-emission vehicles by 2040, according to an article written by Nadia Lopes and published by CalMatters, which was in my newspaper today.  Some interesting statements in the article, included one by Chris Shimoda, Senior VP of the CA Trucking Association, who said:"We're flying blind into some pretty major questions about the practicality of actually implementing this rule." The Air Board did not include cost estimates for trucking companies, only saying that they would save money in the long run. About 1.6 million heavy-duty trucks would be affected by the regulation, according to their report.

The provisions requiring turnover of existing fleets would apply only to federal agencies and so-called "high-priority fleets", which are owned or operated by companies with 50 or more trucks or $50 million or more in annual revenue. Included are trucks weighing 10,001 pounds or more and package delivery vehicles of 8,500 or more, including USPS, FedEx, UPS and Amazon fleets. Half of all new trucks purchased by state and local governments would be zero-emission in 2024, increasing to 100% by 2027. The new rule would not apply to emergency vehicles, such as ambulances (and police vehicles?).

The article ends with this comment by Shimoda: "These charging stations are going to be a huge, huge, power draw." "To put it in context, the Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on a (49'er football) game day uses around 300 to 350 kilowatts of power. A charging station needed for a big rig is going to be like 30 times larger."

[TheRan]

require all new diesel and gasoline-powered medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks that operate in California to be zero-emission vehicles

Perhaps I'm just dumb but how does that make any sense?

[DonTom]

Perhaps I'm just dumb but how does that make any sense?

This is one way.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[TheRan]

Perhaps I'm just dumb but how does that make any sense?

This is one way.


-Don-  Reno, NV

But that's not diesel or gasoline powered.

[Richard230]

require all new diesel and gasoline-powered medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks that operate in California to be zero-emission vehicles

Perhaps I'm just dumb but how does that make any sense?

Politically it feels so good - especially if you don't plan to be in office when the poop hits the fan in the form of rising prices blamed on the cost of truck transportation and power outages during very hot weather due to stress on the state's grid.     One other little issue is that these rules only apply to truck transport within the state. So how many long-haul EV trucks will be transporting anything from the other 48 states? 

So far the Board has not proposed rules for motorcycles, although they say those are coming.  I wonder what they plan to do about diesel trains, which haul a huge amount of cargo? Can you imagine what it would take to power a locomotive only with electricity, or what it would cost to electrify tens of thousands of miles of rail road track within the state?   

[TheRan]

I'm not talking about the politics or logic at all, I literally just don't understand how a diesel or gasoline powered vehicle could ever be considered zero emissions. Maybe I've missed some miraculous discovery that can convert the emissions to something non-harmful, or maybe there's another meaning to the term that I'm unaware of.

[DonTom]

But that's not diesel or gasoline powered.

IMO, it was just poor writting, not uncommon. It's saying (IMO) that all the new trucks cannot have tailpipes.  IOW, no more gas or diesel trucks.


You're right that it didn't make sense the way it was written. But I read what it means, not what it says.


-Don-  Reno, NV

[Richard230]

But that's not diesel or gasoline powered.

IMO, it was just poor writting, not uncommon. It's saying (IMO) that all the new trucks cannot have tailpipes.  IOW, no more gas or diesel trucks.


You're right that it didn't make sense the way it was written. But I read what it means, not what it says.


-Don-  Reno, NV

That is a good point. I didn't look at the article as if it was trying to convert gas and diesel powered truck to EVs, but like the requirements for autos, not allow any big trucks to be sold after 2040 that are not zero emissions. The old trucks would still be allowed to be driven by small trucking companies, but the big operators would not be allowed to drive their trucks in CA after certain dates. At least that is the way I interpreted the article. Perhaps more information regarding this proposal will be forthcoming in the future.

[TheRan]

The way it uses the word "new" implies to me that it only applies to vehicles purchased after the date, anything bought prior to that would still be allowed on the road. That's how it will be here in the UK by 2035 (I think), you won't be able to buy a new gas vehicle but you'll be able to buy used ones and keep driving anything already owned. Or I could be completely wrong and the "new" was also a mistake.

[Richard230]

The way it uses the word "new" implies to me that it only applies to vehicles purchased after the date, anything bought prior to that would still be allowed on the road. That's how it will be here in the UK by 2035 (I think), you won't be able to buy a new gas vehicle but you'll be able to buy used ones and keep driving anything already owned. Or I could be completely wrong and the "new" was also a mistake.

That is the way the rules are for private autos. But the way the article was written didn't make it clear that was the case with the trucking proposal. It sounded like big transportation companies would have to only drive EV's after certain dates if they wanted to do business in California, but smaller companies and individual truck drivers could continue to drive their existing diesel trucks (as long as they could still afford the fuel, which around here is $7.00 a gallon right now) until they finally wore out.

However, these are just proposed rules and have not yet been formally approved. There will be a hearing by the Air Board in November when the rules, which could be modified after receiving public comments, will be adopted, according to a TV news report last night. I am sure that more details of the rules will be published soon. The author of the CalMatters article might have been confused by the language of the rules. It is likely that she reviewed an "executive summary" of the proposed regulations and not the entire document, which tend to be filled with a lot of scientific details.

[carldev]

It is possible (with a large amount of energy) to take CO2 from the air and convert it back into hydrocarbons.  If done using solar or wind it is effectively zero emission. This has been talked about for commercial aircraft as they likely will never be able to run on batteries.   

-Carl

[Richard230]

It is possible (with a large amount of energy) to take CO2 from the air and convert it back into hydrocarbons.  If done using solar or wind it is effectively zero emission. This has been talked about for commercial aircraft as they likely will never be able to run on batteries.   

-Carl

The problem with that idea for the Western United States is that we can barely keep up with electrical power demands with all of our solar, wind and geothermal plants going full blast. Right now there just isn't any excess zero-emissions power (at least not in California) left over to deal with capturing CO2.    When the power draw gets too high during hot spells, they have to turn on standby natural gas generators at great cost and that just add to the pollution.