Electric Vehicles

Let’s start this one with some good news: the transition toward clean freight is picking up speed. Over the past few years, we’ve started to see more and more zero-emission commercial trucks, delivery vans, and buses hit the road. The much-needed evolution of our on-road freight system to one that’s cleaner and more equitable is gaining momentum — and not a moment too soon.

Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MHDVs), like the big rigs on our highways and the vans that deliver our packages, make up just over 1 in 10 of the vehicles on our roads, but are responsible for over half of ozone-forming nitrogen oxide pollution and lung-damaging fine particulate pollution from on-road vehicles. They are also disproportionately responsible for climate-warming emissions, representing around 30 percent of greenhouse gas pollution from vehicles on our roads and highways. Zero-emission trucks and buses eliminate tailpipe emissions and significantly reduce life-cycle pollution.

One indicator of this progress is the growing share of zero-emission truck and bus registrations. This tells us which fleets are deploying electric vehicles, which types of these vehicles are being deployed, and where. Information like this is vital to understanding how the market is developing, but I think it’s equally important to investigate the why as well — this way, we can better understand what’s working and what’s not. After all, these trucks aren’t going to electrify themselves (although this does kind of sound like a superhero blockbuster plot). Such a paradigm shift within our nation’s $400 billion on-road freight industry demands both regulatory forces and economic upsides to be successful and lasting.