Federal cuts, state response<\/p>\n
When it comes\u00a0to\u00a0electrifying\u00a0heavy-duty vehicles, the\u00a0upfront\u00a0price gap is the core problem.\u00a0Our research<\/a> has found that the average battery electric tractor-trailer in the United States sells for roughly 2.4 times the price of a diesel one. Battery electric vehicle (BEV) prices have come down for some vehicle classes, but they remain\u00a0stubbornly high <\/a>for\u00a0the workhorses\u00a0California most needs to electrify:\u00a0Class 8 tractor-trailers, used\u00a0for everything\u00a0from freight delivery to construction.\u00a0Hauling heavy payloads takes bigger batteries, and bigger batteries cost more.\u00a0The arrival of<\/a> the Tesla Semi at a retail price of $290,000 may signal a coming shift, but there is still a sizeable cost differential with diesel\u00a0models<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0fleets need help bridging the gap.<\/p>\n Until recently, federal incentives were helping to close the cost gap\u00a0between diesel trucks and BEVs.\u00a0Inflation Reduction Act\u00a0tax credits\u00a0offered up to $40,000 in\u00a0purchase rebates<\/a> for Class 4 vehicles and above before they were prematurely canceled at the end of September. That leaves state-level programs like California\u2019s Clean Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) to do the heavy lifting. Since 2009, HVIP has awarded more than $1 billion in purchase rebates on a first-come, first-serve basis. Fleets are still sitting on more than $570\u00a0million\u00a0in unredeemed vouchers<\/a>\u00a0from the latest funding round, which\u00a0must be redeemed within the next\u00a018 months\u2014and 77% of those vouchers\u00a0are\u00a0earmarked for\u00a0Class 8 BEVs.<\/p>\n To\u00a0keep momentum on the heavy-duty side, California\u00a0now\u00a0plans to\u00a0deploy\u00a0$1 billion<\/a>\u00a0through a new\u00a0Clean\u00a0Fuel Reward\u00a0(CFR) program<\/a>, funded by Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credits from residential charging of electric vehicles. These point-of-sale rebates will help narrow the total cost of ownership<\/a> (TCO)\u00a0gap between battery electric and diesel trucks. TCO is\u00a0a key metric for fleet operators\u2019\u00a0purchasing\u00a0decisions\u00a0that considers purchase price, infrastructure costs, operating costs, and resale value\u00a0over a 3\u20135-year period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal cuts, state response When it comes\u00a0to\u00a0electrifying\u00a0heavy-duty vehicles, the\u00a0upfront\u00a0price gap is the core problem.\u00a0Our research has found that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-414505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}