Does California’s new electric truck incentive program unfairly favor smaller fleets?

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently relaunched the California Clean Fuel Reward (CCFR) program, introducing a new version of an incentive program designed to encourage adoption of medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks.

Under the redesigned program, which has $250 million in funding available for this year, eligible buyers of new battery-electric Class 2b to Class 8 trucks can receive rebates of $7,500-$120,000 per vehicle at the point of sale.

However, as Clean Trucking’s Jay Traugott reports, not all in the trucking industry are happy with the new rules. Depending on how one navigates California’s complex array of incentives and tax breaks, fleets operating more than 20 vehicles may be at a disadvantage compared to smaller fleets.

CCFR is intended to complement—not replace—the state’s existing commercial vehicle incentive programs, including the Clean Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP). But under the new rules, fleets with more than 20 trucks cannot combine CCFR funding with HVIP vouchers for Class 8 vehicle purchases. Smaller fleets can stack the incentives, but larger fleets must choose one program or the other.

Clean Trucking spoke with an industry source familiar with CARB’s policies, who questioned whether prioritizing smaller fleets is the most effective strategy, arguing that larger fleets may be better able to deal with the challenges of fleet electrification.

The source believes that larger fleets are better positioned to adopt emerging technology because they often have more capital, additional vehicles, and greater capacity to deal with downtime.

“The people who should be getting the most robust incentives are larger fleets, not smaller,” said the source. “Smaller fleets are least likely to own their own land, have open lines of credit with financial institutions, and have reserve vehicles in case of breakdowns.”

Asked for comment by Clean Trucking, CARB said that the rules are designed to address the greater financial challenges faced by smaller operators, and referred to enhanced HVIP voucher amounts for qualifying small fleets and the new Innovative Small e-Fleets (ISEF) pilot program, which supports alternative ownership models such as all-inclusive leasing, truck-as-a-service arrangements, and peer-to-peer truck sharing.

CARB rejected the idea that funding has been redirected away from larger fleets, pointing out that fleets can receive up to $120,000 per Class 8 truck through either HVIP or CCFR incentives. That amount is calculated to help achieve three-year TCO parity with a new diesel truck.

One thing is certain: determining what combination of incentives will deliver the most benefit for your fleet is no simple task. That’s why many fleets, large and small, choose to go with one of the turnkey electrification providers, which have experts on staff to thrash through the thicket of available incentive programs.

Source: Clean Trucking