Implications

As mentioned earlier, the Advanced Clean Fleets is not a regulation yet. Still, CARB’s thinking is very clear : accelerate the transition of trucks and buses to zero emitting as soon as possible. This is easier said than done, of course, and will require massive public and private spending to establish the required infrastructure and to purchase the trucks.  

Here’s a part of the assessment by the City of Long Beach, as expressed in a memorandum published in May, 2021.

While we embrace the State’s aggressive approach to reach zero emissions, Staff remains cautious because of the significant investment of resources that will be required while the level of grant or other financial support is unclear.


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Based on a preliminary estimate, the impact of the regulations, not including potential grant funding, are as follows:
• Approximately $1.5 million a year to City fleet costs beginning in FY 24, of which approximately 34 percent, or $500,000 a year, would be General Fund. This is an unfunded cost to replace the required trucks.
• Approximately $10 million in one-time costs for heavy-duty charging stations, of which $5 million would be General Fund. These are very preliminary ballpark numbers. It is unknown how much of those costs could be grant-funded; hopefully, grant funding will be significant.

A clarification if you have been thinking of electric trucks throughout this article – fuel cell vehicles are also expected to play an increasing role in this transition, and getting getting green hydrogen economically and at scale is also not a trivial issue to be addressed.