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Dive Brief:
- Trucking groups have denounced the Environmental Protection Agency’s heavy-duty truck emissions standards, released last week, as impossible for the industry to achieve on current timelines.
- The phase three greenhouse gas emissions standards affect the 2027 to 2032 models and are 40 percent stronger than previous federal emissions regulations, according to the EPA.
- Clean Freight Coalition Executive Director Jim Mullen said the rules “require the adoption of zero-emission commercial vehicles at a rate that is not possible due to the limits of today’s technology.”
Dive Insight:
The Clean Freight Coalition, which includes the American Trucking Associations, American Truck Dealers and other trucking groups, launched last year to push back on emissions standards that industry stakeholders say are unrealistic.
The coalition set road spikes ahead of federal standards by commissioning a Roland Berger study that found the infrastructure needs for fully electrifying trucks could reach $1 trillion.
Mullen, the former acting head of the Federal Auto Safety Administration, noted the reduced range and capacity of electric vehicles and said they are “in their infancy and just now being tested.”
“Today, these vehicles fail to meet the operational requirements of many car transport applications, reduce the payload of trucks and thus require more trucks to carry the same volume of cargo, and lack sufficient charging and alternative power infrastructure to support their adoption Mullen said. in a statement.
The coalition has advocated instead focusing on electrifying medium-duty trucks first, given the use cases the industry has already begun to explore.
Less than 1 percent of commercial vehicle sales in the U.S. are zero-emission vehicles, said American Truck Dealers President Laura Perrotta he said in a statement.
Perrotta said the EPA rule “will have an unprecedented negative impact on American commercial trucking, large swaths of American businesses, customers and consumers, and potential overall emissions and the environment.”
However, industry opposition to the new rules is not unanimous. Before emission standards were issued, Cummins joined Ford, BorgWarner and other manufacturers in the Heavy-duty Leadership Group asking EPA to advance the regulations without delay.
“Phase 3 will provide the regulatory certainty needed to drive investment across the industry to deliver the next generation of coking technologies,” Shelley Knust, Cummins’ vice president of product compliance and regulatory affairs, said in a statement in February.