Ireland Owens
Contributor
California state regulators and some truck manufacturers have faced mounting pushback from truck drivers and red states related to its massive push toward statewide electric vehicle (EV) adoption.
After Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in September 2020 to phase out the sale of all new gas-powered vehicles in his state by 2035, the state and several vehicle manufacturers have faced an onslaught of lawsuits related to the new regulations. Now, some truck drivers and red states are attempting to thwart the rules that they allege would slow the supply chain and force the “transition to more expensive and less efficient electric trucks,” according to one trucking group.
The Western Propane Gas Association sued the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in August over its Zero-Emission Forklift rule due to the alleged costs it would impose on California forklift owners and operators. Other trade and trucking organizations criticized CARB’s recently introduced regulations aimed at reducing air pollution.
The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AmFree), a business lobbying group, also filed a lawsuit against CARB and several truck manufacturers on Dec. 16, alleging that California has created a “collusive” partnership with heavy-duty truck manufacturers to gradually eliminate internal combustion engines in the state by 2036. The lawsuit critiques some of California’s vehicle regulations as “coercive,” and alleges that some truck manufacturers have “obtained a cozy cartel arrangement” with CARB, that will ultimately pass the alleged costs of complying with new regulations onto consumers.
“CARB’s typhoon of coercive and disruptive regulations had its intended effect: manufacturers bent the knee,” the lawsuit alleges. “In return for recognizing CARB’s suzerainty, however, manufacturers have obtained a cozy cartel arrangement that ensures them a steady stream of supra-competitive profits, subsidies, and tax credits. By acting in lockstep as an industry, this arrangement ensures that the costs will not be borne by the manufacturers, but will be passed downstream to their customers and then to the rest of the country.” (RELATED: ‘King Coal Ain’t Dead Yet’: Energy ‘Experts’ Proven Wrong Again As Chinese, Indian Coal Use Continues To Skyrocket)
CARB, in July 2023, announced the Clean Truck Partnership — an agreement with several major truck and engine manufacturers aimed at advancing “the development of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) for the commercial trucking industry, which includes flexibility for manufacturers to meet emissions requirements while still reaching the state’s climate and emission reduction goals.” The agreement stipulates that California will provide the truck and engine makers who entered into this agreement more time to come into compliance with the state’s emissions requirements.
“The Agreement purportedly allows truck manufacturers limited relief from California’s intrusive and unlawful regulations for heavy-duty vehicles,” according to the lawsuit. “In return, however, the truck manufacturers have sold out their customers and those that depend on them: They have agreed to phase out sales of internal-combustion vehicles in lockstep with California’s dictates, regardless of what the law says or what their customers want.”
Ahead of AmFree taking legal action this month, Republican Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers filed an antitrust lawsuit in November against several heavy-duty truck manufacturers, alleging that California had “embarked on a mission to eliminate the ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicle and mandate the electrification of our nation’s vehicle fleet.” In his suit, Hilgers argues that the automakers will pass compliance costs onto consumers.
“The U.S. automotive industry is at odds with itself,” according to the lawsuit. “On the one hand, it seeks to pacify the growing all-electric movement; on the other hand, it seeks to prioritize its own economic health. In a world where so-called ‘zero-emission vehicles’ (‘ZEV’) repeatedly cause automakers to sustain billions of dollars in losses and conventional internal combustion engine (‘ICE’) vehicles remain both profitable and in high demand, it seems nearly impossible to achieve both ends. The apparent solution to this problem is to eliminate consumer choice and pass on the costs to consumers.”
CARB’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) regulation requires that manufactures sell only zero-emissions, medium and heavy-duty vehicles in California beginning in 2036. “High priority” and federally owned fleets may purchase either ZEVs, near-ZEVs or a combination of the two until 2035 when only ZEVs will meet the requirements, according to CARB. The California board considers entities that “own, operate, or direct the operation of at least one vehicle in California,” and have at least $50 million in annual gross revenue or have a total of 50 or more vehicles under their operation a “high priority” and subject to the regulations.
Hilgers previously filed a lawsuit against California regulators in May, alleging that the ACF rule would “inevitably disrupt the supply chain for all manner of goods” and “impose costs on taxpayers and governments around the country.”
“California’s regulation, which is called Advanced Clean Fleets, masquerades as a rule for in-state conduct,” the lawsuit alleges. “But by leveraging California’s large population and access to international ports on the West Coast, Advanced Clean Fleets exports its ‘in-state’ ban nationwide, creating harms which are certain to reach Plaintiffs’ States.”
The lawsuit was joined by the Nebraska Trucking Association, the Arizona State Legislature and attorneys general from multiple states, including Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming, according to a press release. (RELATED: Biden Rolls Out New ‘Ambitious’ Climate Goals Weeks Before Trump Returns To White House)
The Advanced Clean Fleets “requires certain trucking fleet owners and operators to retire internal-combustion trucks and transition to more expensive and less efficient electric trucks. The rule applies to fleets that are headquartered outside of California if they operate within California,” the Nebraska Trucking Association wrote in a press release. “Given California’s large population and access to ports for international trade, this regulation will have significant nationwide effects on the supply chain.”
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a waiver on Dec. 18 to allow CARB to implement its “Advanced Clean Cars II” regulations, which would gradually eliminate the sale of all new passenger cars, trucks and SUVs sold in California by 2035. California had approximately 1,256,646 light-duty EV registrations in 2023, the most out of any state, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).
The Biden-Harris administration introduced various clean energy policies as part of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, including introducing stringent tailpipe emissions standards in March. The president also vowed to build 500,000 EV charging stations nationwide by 2030, an initiative which has thus far been significantly delayed.
Despite the administration leading a massive push for the adoption of EVs nationwide, several automakers have recently backpedaled their EV goals amid lackluster consumer demand. The steep price tag often associated with EVs has been a deterrent for some consumers, with the average price of electric cars being $55,105 in November, compared to $48,724 for gas-powered vehicles.
President-elect Donald Trump criticized Biden’s EV policies and vowed to repeal them while on the campaign trail, referring to the measures as “insane.” Trump’s transition team is reportedly planning to enact sweeping changes to Biden’s EV policies, including imposing tariffs on battery materials, Reuters reported.
Many American truckers rely on vehicles with internal combustion engines, with diesel, natural gas and gasoline powering 99.9% of all commercial trucks in the U.S. trucking sector, according to the Engine Technology Forum. The average annual vehicle miles traveled for semi-trucks in the U.S. is 62,169, according to the DOE.
Fully electrifying the U.S. commercial truck fleet could cost nearly $1 trillion in infrastructure investment alone, according to a report from Roland Berger released in March by the Clean Freight Coalition. Conventional trucks can travel up to 2,000 miles without refueling, compared to up to 500 miles for current electric semi-trucks, according to a May 2023 report from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. All electric semi-trucks can also take more than an hour to recharge.
A spokesperson for CARB declined to comment. The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce and a spokesperson for Hilgers did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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California is working hard to win the race to the bottom, only a few other blue states are even trying to compete. California is in deep debt ($558 billion in 2022, with New York in second place with $352 billion), and is trying to make things worse on a daily basis. Of course consumers pay these additional costs, the question is how much money disappears during the journey from workers to state and federal coffers. Follow the money.
It looks like New York is going to try to soak the oil companies for billions of dollars.
Story Tip
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/new-york-fine-fossil-fuel-companies-75-billion-under-new-climate-law-2024-12-26/
New York to fine fossil fuel companies $75 billion under new climate law
By Jonathan Allen
December 26, 2024
—————————
If I were an oil company being sued, I would endeavor to make New York State prove that CO2 is causing damage, any damage at all.
On what does New York State base its claim that CO2 is doing anything detrimental?
They don’t have a shred of evidence, so it can’t be based on that.
If I were a fossil fuel company I would just quit those states.
CO2 causes plants to grow. Some of those plants are eaten by people, most of whom are vile, amoral creatures who don’t care enough about Mother Earth. Other plants are eaten by other mammals and termites, most of whom fart copiously with gases that are making the world wither on the vine.
In short, CO2 supports all life, and life is bad because living creatures have lousy morals. If there were no CO2, the earth would be as barren as the moon, and as impeccably moral.
Who could complain about that?
Do cement trucks, garbage trucks, and firetrucks get a free pass to keep their Diesel engines?
Hybrids perhaps….
How about all the heavy machinery used in agriculture, forestry, mining?
I thought they – the UK govt – were banning that sort of thing – starting with the farmers.
Will be replaced by oxen and politicians will deem it to be progress.
No, too much “global warming potential” — methane!
The UK is going to ‘battery’ tanks too. Consider any tankist in such a tank as DEAD.
The EV Battle Tank is one of the more loonie ideas put forward by the CO2-phobes.
With current technology, it will never happen.
What’s troubling is the Military is taking this stupid concept and running with it, instead of laughing and scoffing at the idea of battery-powered battle tanks being a viable option. I guess it gets kind of awkward questioning the higher-ups, so they salute and carry on as best they can.
Is China or Russia working on producing a battery-powered battle tank? I hope they are that stupid!
I think that the policy in Wokeachusetts- recognizes that some machinery as you mention- might be difficult to electrify- so their solution is that whatever can’t be electrified will be compensated for by carbon credits- and one way to get carbon credits is push all forest owners into abandoning forestry- instead, locking up their forests with carbon credit scammers! Meanwhile, the state complains about a housing shortage- failing to realize that to build housing you need wood. Of course a major reason for the housing shortage is that the state is friendly to illegal aliens- and it’s now spending about a billion dollars/year taking care of those aliens. Of course because of the housing shortage- real estate values are shooting up- and I think that’s just fine since my home makes up most of my net worth- what with a very small social security check- having spent half a century as an honest forestry consultant who didn’t rip off landowners (which would have been very easy- like stealing candy from a baby) – while the state forestry folks, who accomplished a lot less than I did, have huge retirement benefits. Wokeachusetts is just as bad if not worse than Kalifornia- maybe worse since it’s been pushing the climate hoax so hard.
Most are not so honest, I fear.
And road works?
The logic — such as it is — behind this lawsuit would prohibit the production of food that was raised, harvested, delivered, cooked, or refrigerated with fossil fuels. In other words, we’d be limited to homegrown fruits and raw vegetables, and maybe raw shellfish if you happen to live within digging and schlepping distance of a fertile estuary. If you can nab a rabbit with a wooden spear now and then, more power to you.
No logs, either, unless they’re cut with stone axes. No mining, unless it’s done with wooden tools, or fingernails. No metal of any kind, unless you can smelt it with charcoal — made from stone-axed logs.
We’d be happily back in the Stone Age. Gawd — what great days they were, eh?
After a couple hundred million Americans starve, we wouldn’t have to agonize about overpopulation anymore. Or colonialism, unless the countries not on board with this retrograde agenda turn the tables and colonize us.
“Hey, those dumb round-eyes had it comin’ to ’em. Tough luck.”
I saw an article today saying Consumer Reports rated the Ford F150 Hybrid,the worst new automobile when it comes to maintenance.
No
No free pass buses, trains, air planes, freight trucks that haul shipping containers from the ports?
Heck, no! Cement, garbage, and fire trucks are the worst! Cement is out in any event, because making it in the first place is too energy-intensive.
Garbage will be abolished in due time. In The World of the Future, everything will be recycled. If we can get to “zero emissions” by force of law, why not zero garbage? In the meantime, we can just throw garbage out our windows and let rats “recycle” it.
As for fire trucks? Let’s just revert to horse-drawn wooden tankers. Just making enough wood-spoke wheels for ’em could be a massive job creation program.
No pumps allowed, and no hoses with metal nozzles because they require fossil fuels to create. Tossing water on the fire with wooden pails schlepped by bucket brigades is all we can manage — unless you want to recklessly and immorally hasten the Heat Death of the Universe. A couple of burnt buildings is a small price to pay to prevent that.
Be smart, build a new port and roads outside California and just leave them alone with their own mess. Anything can happen between now and 2035, the only certainty is that it will be a 1 trillion failure.
Trying to electrify the trucking industry is a huge mistake.
Newsom’s virtue signalling will be very bad for California.
Newsom sees himself as the next U.S. president.
Now I’m curious- how far can a typical 18 wheeler go on diesel vs. how far on only batteries?
See second last paragraph of paper, Joseph.
thanks- no wonder truckers are angry
I used to drive long haul. A 2006 Freightliner Columbia with 200 gallons of fuel capacity could reliably go about 740 miles.
The problem with that is, all the left coast states feel the way CA does. They just haven’t gone quite as nutso. But give them time.
Put the port in Idaho.
Put it in Ensenada or Tijuana with a road to Texas.
Bingo!
There already is a relatively new port on Mexico’s Pacific coast that has rail line to Kansas City.
Ships will have a hard time reaching Idaho. Your bold font has sapped your brain.
Lewiston is already a seaport. Why do you think the leftists want to remove the dams and shipping locks from the Columbia River and Snake River?
I think that all “green” spending should be done by the state and paid for with a sales tax that is charged on every transaction within the state as well as sales to other states. That way real people could see the real cost and move to Nevada or Texas.
No more borrowing (selling bonds) or using federal money to pay for the spending while hiding the true cost.
States like Wokeachusetts- which already have a large sales tax- shouldn’t add your suggested climate cost to the existing sales tax. It should be a separate sales tax- noted on every transaction- in big bold letters, CLIMATE TAX.
These people are stupid, this will never work.
Not to mention the number of truck fires we’ll suddenly see.
As here, in France…
Just another example of the “stupid” of California policy that has not been carefully or methodically thought out as to the ramifications assuming this mandate ever gets executed and implemented. I cannot see how this will ever take-off given the impractically of EV vehicles. If truckers and trucking companies refuse to comply, what then? I suppose all this cargo will simply sit on the dock, container ships will remain off shore, dock workers will become idled, suppliers will not see their merchandise and consumers will see shortages and likely higher prices. I see no reason as a trucker to invest in an EV truck. The upfront costs alone outweigh any benefit.
The energy density of batteries is far smaller than diesel, so a much greater amount of work must be done to haul them around on the truck. This is an energy loss that cannot generate any revenue which the trucking company must absorb and then pass on to customers in the form of higher freight costs.
Lithium-Ion batteries have about 0.5 MJ/kg energy density versus 43 MJ/kg for diesel fuel. EV’s can be more energy efficient as electric motors are very efficient, but considering all the losses along the way from generation to consumption of power, electricity is less efficient than people (politicians) think. Crude oil to diesel fuel is ~90% energy efficient. Diesel engines are 45% energy efficient. Total efficiency is 40%. NG power generation is 60% thermally efficient with at least 7% transmission losses (depending on distance), then there are losses in converting AC to DC for charging, and battery losses too. The true efficiency difference is much closer than thought. And you can’t recharge vehicle on intermittent power supplies, so wind/solar are less viable than needed. (Understatement!)
We need to let California have enough rope to hang itself then throw the dead body away and start afresh with a new and enlightened government. Nothing like hard reality to show people how to vote.
California’s GDP is bigger than, say, Canada or Mexico. Follow Trump’s lead and slap a 25% duty on everything crossing the state border. That can be used to fix the immigration problem, phentanyl problem, CO2 emissions problems….whatever….
/s
Newsom claims that California is the 5th largest economy in the world (if it was a separate country). Aside from his obvious innumeracy, India also claims to the 5th largest economy in the world. One of them is wrong.
5th largest economy in the world
I ask periodically, but I’ve never gotten a good explanation of exactly what that means.
Big trucks running on batteries? It will never happen…never, ever.
What if? Drive for eight hours, charge for eight hours.
So, you’re going to invest in a large piece of equipment that can only be used 1/2 of the time? So the overhead cost doubles?
OK for a fleet that only works 12 hours a day… postal delivery vehicles, school busses, daytime delivery fleets…
More like drive for 4 hours, charge for 10.
Already happening see https://www.edisonmotors.ca/
No,
they are powered by a Scania 9L – 350kw diesel engine, with an electrical transmission … ( a Hybrid ); read the spec sheet !!
Won’t happen, California’s economy and lifestyle would crash. It won’t be felt immediately except for auto/truck sales but that’s huge, almost two million cars and light trucks were sold in CA in 2023. California would welcome in a Cuba style auto economy and with cars lasting easily over 200K miles it would take a long time.
There’s a preview coming with RV sales. Beginning in January, apparently, no new gas and diesel fueled RVs can be registered in California.
And to think all this will have zip, zero, nada effect on global temperature averages.
That’s going to inconvenience a lot of homeless people.
Is this the same California that is having difficulty generating a distributing load to meet existing demand?
It will be interesting to see how things progress with trucks needing their huge 3 tonne batteries recharged.
Real life, Hotel California or Escape from LA.
That’s where the likes of Newsom show their true colors in that the zero emissions mandate is more virtue signalling than a real effort at implementing an EV infrastructure. The latter requires a thorough understanding of logistics, engineering and science, which seems to be an anathema of the political class. The first order of business is finding out what is needed to make such a plan possible, then adjusting the plan to meet reality.
California will need thousands of Terawatt hour generation and distribution capacity to replace only their passenger vehicle public transit systems.
With the intrastate trucking electric mandate, California is holding the the main West coast shipping ports for ransom.
This was always about the money, never about the environment. Look for cancellation of CARB EPA exceptions, Interstate Commerce intervention, and DOJ investigation as California tries to take over petroleum and energy company assets for “emergency” use and “climate reparations.”
Where will these EV trucks get their charge? California is already stretching their grid to prevent blackouts. I think I have there solution: Put wind chargers on the EV trucks so they can charge while delivering goods. I think Gov. Newsom will see the advantage of this and mandate as well.
A there are hundreds of miles of desert between the coast and the rest of the country.
And many people who don’t want to see that desert industrialized.
If Oregon and Washington State are successful in joining California in banning ICE eighteen wheelers, then all US west coast ports would be off limits to ICE over-the-road transportation.
Assuming that diesel locomotives are also banned in these three states, and that eighteen-wheeler EV trucks never do come to fruition, then transporting containerized cargo from each west coast port out into the hinterlands would have to be done using an electrified rail system.
Such an electrified rail system might extend only to a west coast state eastern border. At which point the containers are transferred either to long-haul ICE-powered trucks or to rail cars pulled by diesel locomotives.
Or maybe west coast port operations are either drastically reduced or else shut down altogether and America’s trade with Pacific Rim nations passes through Canadian and Mexican ports and then is transported to its destination in the US using conventional ICE-powered trucks and trains.
But not to California, to Oregon, or to Washington State unless that trade is reloaded onto non-ICE forms of transportation once it reaches the state border.
This is all preposterous nonsense, naturally. However, I see no signs that voters in the three west coast states will replace their current political leadership with honest sensible people who aren’t constantly lying through their teeth on a daily basis.
Long distance electrification of railroads has been done for well over 100 years, but the main obstacle has been and still is the high cost of the infrastructure. A 1991-92 study of electrifying the freight railroads showed that half of the cost was in increasing the clearances of overpasses on railroad right of way.
As several others have pointed out, electrification also requires a reliable source of electric power which California seems to be intent on destroying.
A complex project is one which lists tens of thousands of project activities, each of which in turn contains some number of individual tasks, and with each task having some number of physical and documentary items associated with it which must be transported, installed, or otherwise delivered to the project’s customers.
Just the electrification of California’s railroad right-of-way infrastructure would be a highly complex and highly expensive proposition. If we move on to the larger goal of decarbonizing California’s economy, we are looking at millions of individual project activities containing many more millions of project tasks, and in turn containing many, many millions more physical and documentary items.
Getting to where California wants to go with decarbonization of its economy is impossible.
But this doesn’t mean that for some period of time before the whole scam collapses of its own dead weight, we won’t be seeing some number of totally absurd things happening along the way.
For example, we might see EV trains employing battery-powered EV locomotives which need fifty battery-carrying EV tender cars to pull fifty cargo-hauling railcars from the Port of Los Angeles to the Nevada border — one EV tender car for each cargo-carrying railcar.
Upon arriving at the California-Nevada border, the cargo-carrying railcars are detached and then redistributed to conventional ICE-powered trains as needed for reaching their next destination.
The EV tender cars are dropped off at a recharging facilty. Fully charged EV tender cars plus inbound cargo-carrying railcars are attached to the EV locomotive, and then the EV train departs the border transfer facility and returns to Los Angeles.
It’s my prediction that before this Net Zero thing is all over, we will be witnessing some number of absurdities such as an EV train which requires one battery tender car for each cargo-carrying railcar.
The only need for a battery on an electric locomotive is to provide power when traversing gaps in the overhead wire (AKA catenary). Equipping locomotives with batteries could dramatically lower the cost of RR electrification by eliminating the need for clearance improvements.
FWIW, American locomotives are almost all diesel electric.
That’s a point. On thinking further about this, it’s probable that railroad engineering technologists are already looking at how to rework a legacy diesel-electric locomotive to use an overhead trolley system for feeding power directly into the electric motor components on the electric side of the diesel-electric combo.
It’s also possible that legacy locomotives would keep their existing diesel-electric configurations while adding a trolley system to the locomotive’s onboard power distribution system. The crew would be allowed to restart their diesel on approach to a gap in the overhead trolley system, then shut it down after that gap has been passed.
If one is willing to spend the money, it would be possible to use nuclear as a source of electricity and process heat for extracting CO2 from seawater and then synthesizing liquid carbon fuels as new sources of gasoline and diesel at some point in the distant future when Peak Oil finally arrives.
What would be the economics fifty or seventy-five years from now of creating an overhead trolley system for the railroads fed by nuclear power plants, versus the economics of using nuclear power plants as a source of electricity and process heat for producing synthetic diesel from ocean-sourced CO2?
It’s probably cheaper to build new locomotives from the ground up, noting that a lot of the components will be common with existing diesel electrics.
Estimated cost for electrifying the freight railroads in southern California was $4billion in 1992 – expect at least double that now. We would need maybe a 2X price differential between diesel fuel cost and electric energy cost to make economic sense.
One other thing. Diesel locomotives can be moved to where needed, the fixed assets for electrification cannot be moved easily.
This is coming from someone who thinks RR electrification is a good idea.
If there are any good harbors on Mexico’s Pacific coast, I’d be investing there.
Manzanillo, Mazatlan
Sounds like a potential Mexico partnership Trump would excel at creating. Mexico expands its Pacific ports and we work with them to build a highway from the port to I-10 in Texas. Just bypass California entirely. Expand US Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico ports and build LNG transport facilities. Give tax credits for any long shore men moving from Ca to a job at a port in another state. Take Cal’s port business away, including their workers.
Please also add a lane to I-10 from El Paso east.
Might be more worthwhile to pursue British Columbia ports. Especially if Trudeau is out, and a more favorable Canadian administration takes over.
That way no worries about the cartels in Mexico.
Merge the Estados Unidos de Mexico with the United States of America.
All this nonsense was promoted on an expectation of President Harris.
Boycott CA.
Do not deliver where ideological regulations eliminate practical and commonsense choices.
The BATTERY EV semi- is an oxymoron.
Nikola, for example, offers over $300,000 in government rebates, an attempt to bribe owner-drivers to buy an EV truck with a puny 300 mile range, and then, a 90 minute recharge time, assuming the charging station and the electricity is available. The penetration of intermittent renewable energy beyond 20% will guarantee that electricity is NOT available. CA already imports 1/3rd of its electricity and it is getting less and less stable.
Not to say I’m in favor of BEV anything but any and all changes is cost of any vehicle is always paid for by the purchaser.
They will try to pass the cost on to the customers, however that will be difficult if only one company tries to convert to solely electric. Competition from sane companies will make passing on the cost difficult. That’s why CA is trying to form a cartel, in order to force all companies to make the same switch.
‘That’s why CA is trying to form a cartel, in order to force all companies to make the same switch.’
The necessity of forming a strong ‘cartel’ is why the Left needs to control the entirety of the Federal government to achieve its aims.
Absent that, CA and other states, where the Left can effectively pass the entire ‘progressive’ legislative truckload at any time, are prevented from actually doing so because they’ll suffer an immediate and catastrophic exodus (influx) of productive (parasitical) citizens to (from) other states.
Here in MT we have seen a large number of CA transplants over the past 50+ yrs.
Some that I’ve gotten to know have told of some horrible conditions behind their
move. This has greatly increased over the past 5-10 yrs. We hope they leave these
ideals behind them at the border but a few I’ve met by chance are hopelessly gone
to the green blob. Battery powered freight won’t end well.
In the photo at the top of the article, the trucks appear to be operating on the wrong side of the road for California.
Also, can the plaintiffs identify any business that would not “pass along” the costs of compliance to the customers?
No one ever claimed that AI was actually smart.
I live in CA and this is an obscene policy. It is bad enough that lefties demand this for conventional vehicles but there is no way this will work for large commercial vehicles. We can only hope that Trump’s administration can some how take a blow-torch to these policies.
The weight of the battery is going to reduce the payload of the truck. In the USA, the total weight of the truck plus load is limited to 80,000 lbs. The truck usually weighs about 35,000 lbs empty so the payload can be 45,000 lbs. Adding 11,000 lbs for the battery and reducing the payload by 11,000 lbs gives 46,000 lbs for the truck and 34,000 lbs for the payload. This is a reduction in efficiency of 24%. In other words, more EV trucks will be required to move the same amount of goods. More damage to the roads which will be paid by gasoline and diesel taxes but not by EVs.
I don’t know what to do about California, Californians seem to be content to sit on their backside and let their criminal government steamroll them. I don’t understand. What California deserves is to be blockaded both nationally and internationally, no products or services coming into or going out of California. That would be difficult but they deserve to hurt until they wise up. The easier option would be for the federal government to fine California double or triple what ever fines or penalties they give others. Newsom sucks and everybody who supports him sucks.
Many of us in California pretty much automatically vote against the incumbents (mainly Democrats). We also pretty much vote against stupid initiatives and referenda. Problem is, we need more of the population of California to wake up and realize that the Democrats in power are not working to the advantage of Californians. Its happening, slowly.
I feel for you but this madness has to stop.
I believe that Amazon and other retailers have been working on plan b to bypass the insanity on the US West coast. Since about 2017 Amazon has been working with Chinese companies to built custom sized containers (53 feet, from memory) that can be transferred to smaller “feeder” ships that can deliver to smaller ports, like Houston. Amazon logistics is quite an operation.
Teamsters and longshoremen strikes may slow things down briefly, but betting against Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Idea, et al. logistics operations is probably not a good bet.
Not just the US West Coast. Canadian ports aren’t in rational places, either.
China’s expansion of the Panama Canal will be put to good use as more freight goes through it to bypass the Leftist Coast. Idaho should do major improvements at the Port of Lewiston and continue to fight every effort to remove the 8 dams and locks on the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
Nicaragua is looking into cutting a canal across.
Seems to me the smart thing to do would be to build freight transfer stations just outside the Californian border and dump all the Californian freight there. Let them come and get it while the rest of the USA gets on with real life.