Better charge your batteries, California’s new law paves the way for electric trucking.
According to an article published by The New York Times, the state has been granted permission to require that over half of all “heavy vehicles” sold within its borders must be electric by the year 2035. These “heavy vehicles” include semi trucks, as well as buses and other commercial vehicles.
California is well-known for its environmental efforts. By setting a target of more than 50% of heavy vehicles sold being electric within the next 14 years, California aims to significantly decrease its reliance on fossil fuels and encourage alternatives. According to the report from The New York Times, this law was originally proposed in 2020, but needed a waiver from the EPA.
(Tesla’s Electric Semi, photo from Motor Trend)
According to Yahoo, a mere 2% of heavy vehicles sold in 2022 in the United States were fully electric. Instead, the majority of trucks rely on engines fueled by diesel. Transitioning to electric vehicles on a larger scale would theoretically result in cleaner and quieter streets, but not everyone sees it as a practical solution.
In the comments of Yahoo‘s article, one user wrote, “Here is whats going to happen. EV trucks will never be practical, simple physics, so no one will buy them. The state of California cannot regulate vehicles registered in other states. Under the omnibus vehicle control act of 1938 they must treat a vehicle registered in say Arizona as it is registered in Arizona which means they cannot prevent it from operating in California. So ALL the trucking companies in California will move to other states taking all the hundreds of millions in fees and taxes with them.”
Another added, “BUT, no one is mentioning the fact that a tractor-trailers load capacity will be reduced by almost 15% due to the increased weight of the required new form of batteries. So more trips, i.e. time and man-hours will be required to transport products.”
What do you think? Vote below to let us know:
