The Big Story 

As the nation’s major truckmakers seek to abandon California’s stricter-than-federal emissions rules, experts are weighing whether this U-turn could allow new players to disrupt the market.

© AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki

“All your competitors just announced their strategy,” Craig Segall, former deputy executive officer and assistant chief counsel of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), told The Hill. 

“How quickly can you ramp up to eat their lunch?” Segall asked. 

This now unmasked strategy — an about-face on compliance with the Golden State’s heavy-duty vehicle standards — came to light this week when four manufacturers sued California regulators over the matter. 

Soon after, the Federal Trade Commission declared that a voluntary “Clean Truck Partnership” between the companies and the state was “unenforceable.” 

Last week’s lawsuit, filed Monday by Daimler Truck, International Motors, PACCAR and the Volvo Group, alleged the federal government had deemed California’s emissions rules “unlawful” in June.

At the time, President Trump signed off on three congressional resolutions revoking a Biden administration waiver that had allowed the state to set these rules. Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, California can create emissions standards that are stricter than federal norms but must acquire a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency to do so.

Segall described Monday’s lawsuit as “an audacious move,” noting in a Thursday op-ed that truckmakers just two years ago supported the Clean Truck Partnership, which he helped negotiate.

He accused companies such as Daimler, which controls 40 percent of the country’s truck market, of “badly letting the trucking industry down.” Meanwhile, he warned, China is accelerating electric truck adoption.

Pointing to the fact that delivery firms such as Amazon have smaller electric trucks operating nationwide, Segall forecast that “giant semitrailers” will make a similar transition soon.

With that in mind, he stressed there is “an interesting opening” for other competitors, such as Chinese electric truck startup Windrose.

Industry veteran Rustam Kocher echoed these sentiments in a recent post on LinkedIn, calling upon Windrose, other Chinese e-truck manufacturers and Tesla Semi to fill in this gap and “let the market-share eating competition commence.”

“This industry is changing, just like the light-duty industry is changing,” Kocher told The Hill.

Read more here, from The Hill’s Sharon Udasin.

Welcome to The Hill’s Energy & Environment newsletter, I’m Rachel Frazin — keeping you up to speed on the policies impacting everything from oil and gas to new supply chains.

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