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Truck and bus standards by leveraging EV momentum

(ACEEE blog, 24 Jan 2022) To maximize cuts in harmful emissions, the Biden administration needs to leverage the swift increase in electric vehicles (EVs) as it prepares this month to revise rules limiting the greenhouse gases and other pollutants that trucks and buses can emit.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will soon propose changes to heavy-duty vehicle standards, presenting a major opportunity to reduce emissions from these vehicles. The climate effort is expected to be part of a cruciallarger rule that also will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide (NO_x), a dangerous local pollutant; the combined proposal is now pending in White House review.

The EPA needs to make substantial changes to the existing greenhouse gas (GHG) rules to take advantage of emerging technologies and avert unintended adverse outcomes.

Here’s why: The greenhouse gas standards at issue were set by EPA in 2016 and regulate a range of larger trucks and buses, or heavy-duty vehicles. These rules, known as Phase 2 emissions standards, did not anticipate—and hence do not capitalize on—the strong advances in electric trucks and buses now underway.

The average fuel efficiency and GHG emissions levels they require could be achieved with no EVs at all. As a result, they would allow petroleum-fueled trucks to stop improving, or even worsen, in fuel efficiency as more electric trucks are sold (which is now expected), squandering the emissions reduction benefit of this new technology. The EPA must update the standards at the first opportunity—model year 2027—to avert this outcome and help drive growth in EV sales.

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ACEEE blog, 24 Jan 2022: Truck and bus standards by leveraging EV momentum