California’s Air Resources Board or as it is referred to, CARB has been pushing to clean up emissions for diesel-powered heavy trucks in the USA’s most populous state for years.
California is vital in so many ways in the USA because a significant quantity of goods that enter the US from foreign countries every year arrive in ports in the Golden State . They cross the ocean in diesel-powered ships, are unloaded by diesel-powered cranes, are shunted around the receiving yards, then are hauled to inland transportation hubs by diesel-powered tractors before being distributed across the nation by other diesel-powered trucks. In addition, virtually all the rubbish trucks, cement mixers, dump trucks, school buses, and construction equipment in the Golden State are powered by diesel engines.
Simply put the diesel engine is the workhorse of the American economy, as it is here in Australia. But … the pollution that pours out of the exhaust pipes of diesel trucks has been proven to be poisonous to humans.
However the rush to zero emission trucks in some states including New York has aroused some protest from truck industry groups and truck dealers.
Some New York truck operators are asking state lawmakers to pump the brakes on new industry regulations that kick in next year.
These drivers said state legislators in the New York State capital of Albany hav set unattainable goals that they lack the support and resources to achieve. All of this revolves around the state’s advanced clean truck regulations, that were adopted in 2021 and require a percentage of 2025 trucks sold in New York to be “zero-emission vehicles.”
Putting aside the carbon dioxide created when the fuel is burned, diesels emit more nitrogen oxides and far more fine particulates that petrol -powered vehicles. Those fine particulates are so small they can pass directly into the human bloodstream in the lungs. They are then transported throughout the body and accumulate in hearts, brains, livers, kidneys, and other organs.
People who get cancer always want to know what caused it. It isn’t a stretch to imagine that treating the air we breathe as a sewer where the detritus from industrial activity gets dumped may be part of the problem.
California’s CARB has enacted new rules that require the sale of more battery-powered heavy trucks. Several other US states have adopted those rules as well, including New York.
Initially heavy truck manufacturers pushed back against the rules, but in July 2023, they all signed on to what is known as the Clean Truck Partnership. The four principle members of the agreement include Daimler Truck North America, International Motors (formerly Navistar), Paccar, and Volvo Group North America, as well as the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association. Those four manufacturers are responsible for more than 99 per cent of all heavy trucks (over 15 tonnes) sold in America.
New York State has adopted its own clean truck rules that closely follow the CARB model and in a 2021 press release, the sate governor said that the new Advanced Clean Trucks rule requires manufacturers of trucks over four tonnes to sell an increasing number of zero-emission vehicles in New York State.
The regulation complements New York’s legislation that established a goal for 100 per cent of medium and heavy duty trucks in the State be zero-emission by 2045. The regulation will also result in substantial reduction in particulates, nitrogen oxides, and toxic pollutant emissions in disadvantaged communities that have been disproportionally impacted by diesel truck pollution.
That was three years ago and now the regulations will begin to bite in earnest on 1 January next year, just two months away. However truck dealers in New York say they are not ready and won’t be for some time
“Depending on the classification of the truck, somewhere between every one in every four to eight vehicles have to be zero-emission before you can get a waiver to sell the current diesel trucks,” said Dan Penksa, the vice president of a major Kenworth dealership in New York State Northeast.
“Dealers across the state will simply not survive the impact of the current ACT timeline,”added Kendra Hems, president of the Trucking Association of New York.
“Not only does that affect the livelihood of hundreds of workers across the country, but it will significantly disrupt the supply chain. Without intervention, the ACT regulations will drive up costs and limit the trucking industry’s ability to deliver New Yorkers goods as efficiently and quickly as possible, ” Hems said.
Dan Penksa said while his team is able to sell electric trucks, there currently isn’t a market for them because of the cost, range, and infrastructure issues.
“In today’s world, [an electric] prime mover trailer only travels about 320 km (200 miles) on a full charge. Diesel prime movers will travel 1000km ( 600 miles) a day,” he added.
Panska claims a truck carrying groceries from across New York state from the city of Rochester to Albany can make the round trip of about 730km in about 10 hours. In an electric truck, he says that a driver can get to about Utica, a distance of about 220km, before it needed to recharge.
“He’d have to sit there for six to eight hours to charge the battery, at that time, these guys only get 10 hours of service. So, then he has to sleep overnight there, drive it to Albany, unload his load, and then do it all over again on the way home,”the truck dealer said.
Hems points out that currently there isn’t a single charging station for battery-powered heavy-duty trucks anywhere on the New York Thruway.
“If you can’t charge them, what are you going to do with them? You’re asking these people to buy these trucks, there’s no chargers out there, you can’t go more than 320km, so I’m not quite sure how the consumer is going to get their products,” Penksa says.
There is some evidence that these complaints are having an effect with NY authorities.
“We obviously work to really push the industry in a direction where we need them to be but we’re also flexible and we build in flexibilities to these rules that we have to make sure that we’re hearing from industry and adapting,” said Sean Mahar, the interim commissioner of the state’s department of environmental conservation.
He says the state is looking at a three-year compliance timeline for the industry to adapt.
“That’s where we will extend out that time frame to 2029 in order to provide that greater flexibility for engine manufacturers to come into compliance,” Mahar said
