The California Air Resource Board (CARB) is an unceasing advocate of electrification in California. Yet, it has become apparent that total electrification of the state's vehicle fleet is an impossibility based on the rushed timeline they have developed.
While CARB was developing many of their clean truck initiatives, they asked for business input. What happened? Thousands of hours of business input was mostly ignored by young, unexperienced college-educated staff with little to no freight movement experience.
Under CARB's timeline, by 2035, all drayage trucks, box trucks, and vans operated by fleets must be zero-emissions. By 2036 all new medium and heavy-duty vehicles sold in California must be zero-emissions. And by 2045, the goal is to have all medium and heavy-duty vehicles in operation in the state be zero-emissions.
According to the California Energy Commission (CEC), at the end of 2023 the total population of medium and heavy-duty zero emission vehicles in the state was 3,784. That number includes 853 Class 8 trucks with the remainder being buses and delivery vans.
Those are the CEC's numbers. But the math regarding these Class 7 and 8 trucks conflicts with other California agencies and non-profits. Often lighter duty ZEVs are included in the count, trucks that would not be able to move heavy freight.
It's important to realize there are currently over six million Class 7 and 8 trucks running daily across California roads. The number of electric vehicles available is grossly insufficient to replace those six million-plus trucks currently moving freight in California. Additionally, orders to purchase any of these electric trucks could take more than a year to deliver.
Only in a world of academic blindness and elementary school math does CARB's ultimate solution and time frame appear achievable.
But wait — there's more.
Active charging infrastructure is essential for ZEV success. According to the U.S. Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center, California has 16,496 charging locations with 48,612 charging ports. These numbers fall far short of the potential need for Class 7 and 8 ZEV truck charging.
The available kilowatts to successfully charge vehicles are lacking.
Electrical utilities often are unavailable to provide power to where it is needed.
When you consider all the ZEV fueling options that the California trucking industry is using to reduce emissions you need to look at hydrogen, considered one of the most promising technologies for heavy-duty vehicles.
But one of the major problems with hydrogen is California only has 57 retail hydrogen fueling sites. The only other state that has any hydrogen fueling is Texas — which has one non-retail site.
While hydrogen fuel cell technology at this moment looks to provide that most robust options for over-the-road freight movement, the infrastructure cost of these stations is three to four times as much as a typical gasoline fueling facility.
An interesting truth: China, South Korea, Japan, and Germany all have more hydrogen refueling facilities than the United States. China had 359 Hydrogen refueling stations as of the end of 2023.
Electrification of transportation in Class 1 and 2 vehicles works well when there are charging stations available and the local utility has a reasonable rate for electricity.
The additional power requirements of Class 7 and 8 trucks is difficult to support in a grid system that is often working 125% to 150% over original design. California already postponed the shutdown of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant after decades of public concern for safety partly to support the massive need for more electricity.
All this comes at a cost. California Energy Price Data for September 2024 indicate that the residential price paid for electricity is 101.6% higher than the rest of the country paying $30.94 cents/kWh while the national average is $15.35 cents/kWh.
Commercial electrical rates are even more expensive: $25.10 cents/kWh which is 112.4% higher than the rest of the country. The national average is $11.82 cents/kWh.
With the high purchase price of electrical vehicles of any class and the extremely high cost of electricity, this experiment that CARB has perpetrated on business and the general public should be required to be stopped.
The best electrical technology will work without CARB's input and be valuable to industry and the general public. In any other universe, failure in planning at this level would result in program shut down and staff responsible losing their jobs.
In the unlikely event this happens, I recommend the CARB staff find new jobs as Walmart greeters. This is an honorable job that might teach empathy to those who seem to have no understanding of the burden they have put on California public.
Originally published in the December 2024 issue of the
O&A Marketing News.
© KAL Publications Inc. 2024