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New truck emission rules will expedite the adoption of electric trucks, but stakeholders and lawmakers are sounding the alarm by claiming the federal government is putting the cart before the horse.

By 2032, 25% of new Class 8 sleeper cab tractors must be zero-tailpipe-emission vehicles. For day cabs, that number goes up to 40%, with 60% of light-heavy vocational trucks required to be zero-emission.

Although manufacturers can choose from a variety of zero-emission technologies, electric-battery vehicles likely will be the primary focus. Effectively, the new emission standards create an electric truck mandate.

This comes despite a diverse group of stakeholders warning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that electric trucks are not ready for prime time.

Extreme costs of electric trucks

Several weeks after the EPA’s emission rule was finalized, Ryder published a scathing report that quantified what the trucking industry has been cautioning: Forcing electric truck adoption will devastate the economy.

In its analysis, Ryder found that it will take nearly two electric trucks and more than two truck drivers to match the production output of one diesel truck. When it comes to dollars and cents, that equals hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to replace just one diesel truck.

The bulk of that cost increase is for the truck alone. Ryder calculated a 500% increase in monthly payments for an equivalent electric truck, totaling more than $200,000 a year.

Other significant cost increases come in the form of labor (76% or nearly $71,000), other personnel costs (74% or more than $30,000) and other operating costs (87% or more than $47,000). Other personnel costs include workers comp, paid time off and payroll tax. Other operating costs include insurance and general/administrative expenses. Fleets also will need to invest an additional $8,000 a year for chargers, a cost that doesn’t even exist for diesel trucks.

For a fleet operating in Georgia, operational costs to electrify more than double. Ryder calculated that it costs just under $300,000 a year to operate a diesel truck in Georgia. Replacing just one diesel truck to an equivalent electric truck will cost more than $600,000 a year.

Consequently, shipping costs would skyrocket if trucking companies converted to electric trucks today. Those costs, of course, would be passed down to consumers. In fact, Ryder estimates the costs of electric trucks under current conditions would add up to 1% to overall inflation.

Loans, insurance and sales

In a separate analysis, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association’s Foundation found the sticker price of a new electric truck is only the start.

The initial cost of an electric truck is about $400,000, but after adding the 12% excise tax and assuming a 60-month loan with a 10% down payment and a low 10% interest rate, the total cost of an electric truck is more than $520,000. That’s about $5,500 more per month compared to a traditional diesel truck.

Considering the small number of battery-electric over-the-road trucks currently in operation, there is not a lot of data about insurance costs for those vehicles. However, electric car insurance rates are higher by anywhere from 10% to more than double that of a gas-powered car.

Although there are fewer parts on an electric vehicle, they are more expensive, especially the battery. Furthermore, repairs have to be made by a finite number of qualified technicians. Electric trucks are no different.

Then there is the range. The Volvo VNR Electric, for example, has a mileage range of up to 275 miles. But batteries are suggested to be charged no more than 80%, reducing the range to 220 miles. Cold temperatures can deplete a battery by 40%, so the mileage range can be further reduced to around 130 miles. Knight-Swift is reporting a range of only 165 miles after two years of piloting electric trucks.

Additionally, people are just not buying electric vehicles. More than 5,000 dealerships have signed off on a letter to President Joe Biden expressing concerns over a sales mandate. Electric vehicles represented just 8% of vehicles sold in 2023. New regulations require two-thirds of vehicles sold in 2032 be battery electric.

“It is uncontestable that the combination of fewer tax incentives, a woefully inadequate charging infrastructure and insufficient consumer demand makes the proposed electric vehicle mandate completely unrealistic,” the letter states.

Charging infrastructure

A lot of cost analysis assumes that charging stations will be available when needed, which is anything but a safe assumption.

According to the International Council on Clean Transportation, the U.S. will need about 2.4 million public and workplace chargers by 2030 to meet expected electric car sales, including 900,000 public Level 2 chargers. According to the EPA, there are fewer than 132,000 Level 2 charging stations currently publicly available.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in 2021 allocated $7.5 billion to building out the electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Initially, the Biden administration predicted 500,000 chargers will be added by 2030. The International Council on Clean Transportation said 500,000 chargers are needed by 2027.

In January, the White House claimed it will have those chargers deployed by 2026, four years earlier than anticipated. However, many remain skeptical.

In March, The Washington Post reported that more than two years after the infrastructure bill was signed into law, only seven new charging stations are currently up and running across only four states, totaling fewer than 40 chargers. At the time, nearly half of all states had not issued solicitations for available funding toward new charging stations.

The above issues surrounding the charging infrastructure deal mostly with electric cars. A lack of charging stations for electric trucks likely will be worse if it follows a similar trend.

Making matters worse, a new report found that moving the U.S. fleet to electric trucks will require about $1 trillion in infrastructure investment. According to the Clean Freight Coalition, the trucking industry will need to invest $620 billion in charging infrastructure alone in order to electrify. That includes chargers, site infrastructure and electric service upgrades. Utilities will need to fork over another $370 billion to upgrade their grid networks to meet the demands just of commercial vehicles.

That $1 trillion in investment does not account for the cost of a new electric truck, which Ryder and OOIDA’s Foundation found to be extraordinary. LL