The nation’s heaviest clean air mandate for trucks was approved Thursday by the California Air Resources Board.

As a result, the board ordered the manufacturer heavy duty and heavy duty commercial trucks to begin selling the zero-emission version in 2024, with 100,000 sold in California in 2030 and 300,000 in 2035.

“This is a brave step we took today,” said air board member Judy Mitchell, adding it was a daunting challenge, given the public investment that would be needed for buyer incentives and charging infrastructure.

This mandate is intended to cut air pollution and push the country towards an ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gases – 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% below by 2050.

Environmentalists, health advocates, supporters of climate action, and others voiced their strong support at online hearings Thursday before the vote. Likewise, electric truck and bus makers.

“California is once again leading the country in the struggle to make our air cleaner, becoming the first place in the world to mandate zero emissions trucks by 2045,” Governor Newsom said in a statement. “Communities and colored children are often forced to breathe the most polluted air, and today’s sounds make us closer to a healthier future for all our children.”

Representatives of traditional manufacturers, 95% of products supported by diesel fuel, oppose the mandate and suggest that it is not possible to meet the air board timeline.

The mandate is “flawed,” said Jed Mandel, president of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Assn., An industry group. “There is no filling infrastructure, there are insufficient incentive funds” for buyers and trucks without emissions “more expensive than traditional fuel trucks,” he said.

When approving a mandate, the council pushed the infrastructure and incentive funding questions into the future.

Mandel suggested the program be delayed for two years, until 2026, to allow more time to install truck-specific filling systems and for policy considerations to encourage the purchase of these vehicles: state incentives for buyers and mandates for fleet operators to purchase a specified percentage of trucks without emission.

The air board will conduct a detailed survey of fleet operators with more than 50 trucks doing business in California to help determine what additional policies are needed to increase demand. The mandate for picking up trucks starts from pickups that can transport three-quarters of a ton to semi-loaded trucks weighing 80,000 pounds. The air board said that about 75,000 such trucks are sold every year.

Dawn Fenton, head of government relations for the Volvo Group, said the company is committed to moving quickly to the truck market without emissions but “we doubt the market’s readiness to absorb the volume proposed in this regulation.”

Supporters of the mandate argue that California cannot meet its greenhouse gas goals if diesel trucks are ultimately not removed.

“The faster we move, the faster the sky will be clean and public health will improve,” said Andrea Vidaurre, policy analyst at the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, based in the Jurupa Valley near Riverside.

He stressed that roads, ports, distribution centers and rail yards tend to limit low-income areas, thereby increasing health risks for people who live there.

Diesel trucks contribute nitrogen oxides, particles, and other pollutants that are proven to cause lung damage, asthma, and cancer, among other serious health problems.

Several other states, mostly in the Northeast, plan to adopt the air council’s mandate, known as the Advanced Clean Trucks initiative. “There is clearly a national interest” in reducing pollution, said Katy Dykes, commissioner in the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environment, said Thursday.

Transportation is the largest contributor to greenhouse gases in the state, pumping more than one third of the total produced by humans. Industrial and electricity resources are the second and third.

Electric and hydrogen battery cell trucks do not produce vehicle emissions, even if the original energy source is non-renewable electricity generation, they still have a carbon footprint. That is why the country also aims for 60% of electricity to be produced by the sun, wind and other zero-carbon sources by 2030 and 100% by 2045.

Like the credit system used by California to require manufacturers to sell vehicles without emissions in California, the truck’s mandate is based on the credit market. Basically, manufacturers who sell a certain percentage of vehicles without emissions in California get credit that can be sold to manufacturers that don’t sell enough. The state plans to have 4,000 emission free trucks operating in 2024, 100,000 in 2030, and 300,000 in 2035.

The state states that 50% of medium duty trucks and 30% of large rigs sold each year will be zero-emissions by 2030.

Medium-duty electric trucks – mainly, large vans and box trucks without semi-trailers – are expected to succeed faster than semi-electric trucks because the range requirements for their hauling work are lower and they can be charged to an overnight depot.

Many new players are competing in this segment, including Rivian and Chanje. Calstart, the clean transportation industry group, said 169 different zero-emission commercial models will be available by the end of this year, compared with 95 in 2019. Amazon has invested in Michigan-based Rivian and said it plans to buy 100,000 electric shipping vans from the company over the next few years.

All major truck manufacturers are developing electric trucks, which are powered by batteries or hydrogen electric fuel cells. That includes the Freightliner Daimler, Volvo, Navistar International brands as well as Paccar Peterbilt and Kenworth.

Toyota and Kenworth have started a pilot program in the Port of Los Angeles, partly funded by California taxpayers, with 10 fuel cell trucks. A new company called Nikola began operations this month at a plant in Arizona to build fuel cell semi-trucks. Tesla announced an electric semi truck in 2017, but plans for making it remain on ice.

Start-ups will benefit, but traditional manufacturers “will have difficulty dealing with this,” Antti Lindstrom, commercial truck market analyst at IHS Markit, told The Times.

While alternative energy trucks might make financial sense for fleet owners based on long-term ownership costs, he said, the upfront costs of such trucks are much higher: $ 125,000 for diesel semi-truck trailers is a rough industry rule. more than $ 200,000 for zero emission equivalents, depending on the range and underlying technology.

The lack of charging infrastructure today and the lack of incentives for buyers is a serious problem, Lindstrom said. And even if they are dealt with, with the country in a serious budget crisis, “who will pay for it?”

Building truck filling infrastructure is very important, said air council member Barbara Riordan. He chose the mandate but noted that truck manufacturers such as Volvo, receiving state grants for the electric truck pilot program, complained about the lack of charging stations. The state needs to “make sure we don’t create problems that we cannot overcome,” Reardon said.

Board members barely mentioned the California budget shortfall, which reached around $ 54 billion, largely due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.