The US commits to zero-emissions heavy-duty vehicles by 2040

The US Government has just committed the country to a very ambitious plan - to stop selling gas and diesel powered commercial vehicles by 2040. That means in just over 17 years there will be no new school bus, truck, delivery van or a tractor trailer powered by combustion engines.

The US agreed to a target of 30 percent of new commercial vehicles to be zero-emissions by 2030 and then it will have another 10 years to completely cease the production of fuel-powered heavy-duty and medium-duty vehicles.

This is a huge commitment from a country that has around 2 million semi trucks on the roads and 12.5 million buses and commercial vehicles. Latest sales figures show 12,058,515 commercial vehicles were sold in the US in 2021 and since 2016 that figure was always around or above 11 million units.

The Government hopes its EV tax credits will encourage the new commercial vehicle buyers to switch to battery-powered equivalents. The incentive is substantial at $40,000 towards the heavy-duty cars and $7,500 towards light and medium sized commercial vehicles.

The incentives though are just one side of the story. The other side is the charging infrastructure and actual availability of electrified transport. Tesla is just about to deliver its first Semi truck to the customers and the company plans to manufacture 100,000 of the truck by 2024.

The Class 8 fleet in the US is made of over 4 million trucks and every year about 250,000 of them are replaced by a new unit. Lion Electric just began production of its electric school bus and it plans to manufacture 20,000 units per year which is about 4 percent of the entire school bus fleet in the US. The scale of change is hard to imagine.

There will have to be thousands of charging stations dedicated to commercial vehicles in strategic locations with tens of chargers available. The other manufacturers will need to join the effort and start producing electric trucks and other vehicles in tens of thousands within the next few years. And then there is the question what to do with over 12 million vehicles that will no longer serve its purpose.

If the US manages to achieve its goal it will reduce its total of on-road greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent - that’s just from commercial vehicles. This plan signals the biggest economy in the world is serious about making a difference but that difference will come at a cost. For now this is just a commitment, the Memorandum Of Understanding has been signed but it isn’t a law and many things can happen between now and 2040.

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