California Stops Some Clean Air vehicle mandates

[gbuydos]

Think this will help or hurt EVs??

https://gvwire.com/2025/01/15/calif...gcICjDUztQLMJfq6wMwlbLxAQ&utm_content=rundown

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[StevenC56]

Talk about moving in the wrong direction. Our children and grandchildren are going to pay the price.

 

[Heliian]

The withdrawal comes after the Biden administration recently approved the California Air Resources Board’s mandate phasing out new gas-powered cars by 2035, but had not yet approved other waivers for four diesel vehicle standards that the state has adopted.

So, they're pre-emptively doing this to avoid costly arguments with americas newest leader. The future is being delayed but it'll get here eventually

 

[No Oil HaHa]

I don’t think it will have any impact on personal EVs. Most people’s opinions are already made up about the matter.

I, personally, was pleased by this news. California’s current mandates already have the cleanest burning diesel engines in the country. Give it ten years and let the technology evolve(hopefully) and become cheaper(again, hopefully) for these trucking outfits.

 

[broncoaz]

I understand what California is trying to do, but they are effectively regulating interstate commerce by trying to strictly control emissions on diesel trucks, trains, refrigeration units in transit, and ships that carry international goods transiting CA ports to deliver to the rest of the country. There are 13 other states and DC that follow CA rules, so what they do impacts commerce outside their state boarders as well. For this reason I don’t think their rules would stand up to legal challenges in a non sympathetic federal system. California is smart enough to realize they won’t win this fight right now, so withdrawal of the applications makes sense as they point out in the article.

Looking at what they are trying to do, regulate diesel out of existence, doesn’t make sense. One universal truth we all know on this site is that EV’s are not ideal long haul tow vehicles when time is a factor. Commercial BEV or hydrogen are not developed to the point where they can suitably replace their diesel counterparts.

When I was running the fleet for a construction company our class 8 dump trucks would run almost constantly from 6 am to 5 pm five to six days per week. Having our drivers have to stop and charge for 2-3 hours per day would mean adding another truck and driver to the fleet. The cost of the BEV trucks is roughly double the diesel trucks currently, so $370K per truck and 36 cents per kWh to charge. The diesel trucks cost $185K to buy and use $166K in fuel (5.7 mpg at $3.79) to get to 250K miles, so $351K. BEV would cost $370K to buy and use $180K in electric (assumed 2 kWh/mile) for a total cost of $550K. There would be some powertrain maintenance cost savings on the BEV, but making up a $200K delta isn’t realistic, I’ll assume $50K maintenance savings. Add the fourth truck and the diesel rule would cost one regional construction company about $820K in a four year 250K mile cycle, plus another driver on the books at $100K full burden, so actually $1.22M. In that small company $300K per year is more than 10% of the net profit.

Trains are already diesel electric now, so converting to electric only would be as simple as getting power through the track systems. There are safety concerns there, but also the sheer amount of energy needed is challenging. A 4000 hp locomotive uses about 5 gallons per mile at 137,381 BTU per gallon. Electricity is 3,412 BTU per kWh, so the equivalent of 5000 gallons of diesel to take a a single locomotive train 1000 miles would be 200 megawatts. Many freight trains use multiple locomotives. Aside from delivery challenges of getting the power on the train, we’re going to need significantly more power plants. Maybe trains need to go nuclear.

Ships transiting the ports really should be nuclear powered like our military ships and submarines. The amount of emissions from burning dirty bunk oil is very excessive. Unfortunately there are significant security concerns with anything nuclear, so I’m not optimistic this will happen in my lifetime. I have floated this idea with a buddy who works for the American Bureau of Shipping, he was also not optimistic.

We all want clean air, but the engineering solutions need to keep up with our aspirations. I believe California thinks if they regulate first it will force industry to develop the technology needed to comply, but it seems like the easy solutions and adaptions of ICE technology have reached a point of diminishing returns. The next steps California is pushing are very expensive and disruptive.

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