How regulations impact truck buying and operation right now (2024)

When it comes to understanding trucking industry zero-emissions regulations: “It’s all about figuring out CARB’s regulations,” said Mari Mantle, regulatory affairs manager at Cummins. It’s a sentiment that practically everyone in the trucking industry can relate to. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has Advanced Clean Truck (ACT)–a regulation aimed at OEM zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) sales; Advanced Clean Fleet (ACF)–a regulation aimed at fleet’s purchasing and operating ZEV; and the often-overlooked CARB Omnibus. Then you can’t forget EPA GHG Phase 3 requirements.

Mantle and Tom Swenson, global regulatory affairs director at Cummins, took us on a deep dive of what’s happening with regulations on both the CARB and EPA fronts and how it’s impacting trucking fleets. Let’s jump right in.

ACT, ACF, GHG: What do the regulations actually require?

Here’s a handy chart shared by Cummins:

This is impacting how trucks are being bought and sold right now

In California, the Advanced Clean Truck regulation require that 5% of Class 7 and 8 OEM truck sales be zero-emissions vehicles in 2024. So, if an OEM sells 100 trucks, five of them have to be, at this point in zero-emissions product offerings, battery electric trucks. (Hydrogen fuel cell trucks will also meet regulations when they’re commercially available.)

“It’s complicating the market today,” Swenson said. “You all have heard the term ‘legacy engine?’ That’s last year’s product. We are limited to a certain percentage that we can sell by CARB Omnibus. Within ACT, they’ve got the ICE sales limits relative to electric sales.”

Since last year’s Cummins 200-milligram diesel engine is already considered a “legacy engine” in CARB’s view, does that mean that Cummins and other engine OEMs are already limited in how many truck engines they can sell in California?

“This year’s ICE-based truck sales in California have been affected,” said Jim Nebergall, executive director of market strategy at Cummins.

The range of impact on the market is between 30-50% according to figures shared by Cummins and other industry leaders. Consider that, from Cummins’s view, California makes up approximately 10% of the U.S. trucking market.

“As Cummins, we’re impacted because OEMs won’t place an engine order on us unless they can actually sell it, and they can only sell it if they have sold enough zero-emissions vehicles. It’s a dynamic real-time calculation to boot,” Swenson added.

This is impacting how trucks are being operated right now

From the fleet perspective, your big focus needs to be on Advanced Clean Fleet (ACF) compliance. Here’s what that means straight from the CARB website:

The proposed Advanced Clean Fleet (ACF) regulation include the following components:

• ZEV Fleet purchase requirements starting in 2024 for three separate categories of fleets: Drayage fleets, High Priority, Federal fleets and, Public fleets and;
• A manufacturer 100% zero emission vehicle sales requirement beginning in 2036.

This means by 2036, fleets can only purchase zero-emissions vehicles in Califorina, but it’s already starting for the different segments identified by CARB, which are:

• Federal, State, and Local Government Agency Fleet Requirements;
• Drayage Truck Requirements; and
• High Priority.

For those fleets thinking: “That’s not me, why should I worry?” Here’s the rub, and I’ll put this in bold:

A High Priority fleet is “if you have 50 trucks or $50 million in revenue and you drive a vehicle into California,” Mantle said. This also applies to a fleet owner or a controlling party whose fleet in combination with other fleets operated under common ownership and control totals 50 or more vehicles in the total fleet, excluding light-duty package delivery vehicles.

For High Priority fleets, here are your requirements:

• Beginning January 1, 2024, fleet owners must comply with the following requirements unless they choose to comply with the ZEV Milestones Option:
• Any vehicle added to the California fleet must be a ZEV. Renewing a vehicle lease for a vehicle that is already in the California fleet shall not be considered as the addition of a vehicle to the California fleet
• Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, ICE vehicles must be removed from the California fleet by Jan. 1 of the calendar year after the minimum useful life mileage threshold was exceeded, or Jan. 1 of the calendar year when the engine model year is 18 years old, whichever occurs first.

ACF notes that the fleet remains in compliance if the following conditions are met:

1. No ICE vehicles were added to the California fleet on or after Jan. 1, 2024; and
2. The fleet has no ICE vehicles in the California fleet that were otherwise required to be removed.

And that’s just High Priority fleets. Here’s the CARB website link where you can find the ACF requirements for all of the segments.

CARB is starting to enforce the regulation

“There is something called the Clean Truck Check that CARB implemented this year, and it has roadside monitoring stations,” Mantle said. “We’ve heard of fleets getting letters from CARB in the mail saying, basically, ‘Your truck is smoking. You need to bring this into compliance.’ So CARB is setting up roadside monitoring stations to check those trucks.”

California today, but it could expand.

For fleets now thinking, “I don’t operate in California, so I’m not going to worry about this. The Cummins regulatory team sees the potential for a number of other states to adopt both CARB Omnibus and Advanced Clean Truck by 2027. Here’s the list:

• Oregon
• Massachusetts
• Washington
• New York
• Vermont
• New Jersey
• Colorado
• New Mexico
• Rhode Island
• Maryland
• Nevada
• Virginia
• North Carolina
• Hawaii
• Washington, D.C.

What are the Advanced Clean Fleet exemptions?

There are a few, and they’re complicated. Here’s where you can find the full list of CARB Advanced Clean Fleet exemptions. While the exemptions fit specific situations, there is one common thread that runs through all of them: you have to submit your “request with supporting information by email.” Don’t read the exemptions and just think that the ACF rules don’t apply to you–you’ll have to get approval from CARB.

Do fleets wait until November to see how this pans out?

“It’s coming to a head now and Cummins and OEMs are working in real time to try to identify solutions to the current product availability challenges,” Swenson said. “At Cummins, we are going to follow the regulation–full stop. We could technically go into emissions debt and sell more legacy products, but we’re not going to do it. We’re going to follow the regulation.”

“We have long product development cycle. By the time we take a product to market, we could be through multiple administration changes,” Nebergall said. “I think the industry wants stability; we want to be certain on regulation nationwide.”

Every fleet can reach out to CARB and associations to explain their application, duty cycles and challenges.