New Advanced Clean Truck Rule Facing Stiff Opposition

Eric Olson - Profile Correspondent - April 2025

At the beginning of 2025, the New York State government began requiring truck dealerships to sell a percentage of zero-emission vehicles, or ZEVs, for trucks weighing 8,500 lbs. or more, with those percentages required to grow at a steady rate for the next decade.

Among the various types of ZEVs currently registered in a handful of states across the country are battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), more commonly referred to as EVs.

The high-minded intention of the New York Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) rule is, of course, to reduce harmful greenhouse gases and air pollution, while also promoting the green transportation industry, improving air quality and lowering the operating expenses of businesses that use trucks.

So far, only five other states have enacted rules similar to New York's ACT: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington State, Oregon and California, the latter of which was the basis for New York's initiative, adopted in 2021.

The Empire State's trucking industry was given until this past New Year's Day to comply with the mandate.

However, as a result of the ACT rule, the Trucking Association of New York (TANY), a lobbying group made up of dealers, trucking companies and industry supporters, has been working furiously to get Gov. Kathy Hochul and other leaders in Albany to hit the pause button on what it considers to be a piece of legislation that is both onerous and erroneously reasoned.

"Supporters of the ACT rule argue that delaying implementation will slow emissions reductions, harm public health and worsen environmental injustice," TANY said in a recent e-mail to its members. "They point to transportation as the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in New York and claim that reducing diesel truck usage will lower pollution levels, particularly in disadvantaged communities that bear the brunt of transportation-related emissions."

The trucking association, though, said that the reality is the state has done almost nothing to make ACT compliance workable for most truck OEMs, dealers or vehicle owners.

While TANY supports reducing emissions and advancing clean transportation, it explained that the ACT rule, as written, is "unrealistic and counterproductive."

"Even if zero-emission vehicle technology were fully developed, New York does not have the infrastructure to support widespread adoption," the group reminded its members.

Among the key issues concerning TANY are:

• New York State currently has no heavy-duty public charging stations.

• The state's "unrealistic" sales requirements.

• The exorbitant costs of class 8 electric vehicles.

• Electric grid capacity problems.

• Worries that the charging process itself takes too long.

As a result, since last year, TANY and its supporters have been calling for the state "to delay their own compliance — in the form of an enforcement exemption for municipal vehicles — because the ACT requirements are unattainable."

Pushing ACT forward prematurely will not only fail to reduce emissions, New York's trucking advocates believe, but it also will drive costs higher, limit truck availability, disrupt the supply chain and put jobs at risk.

TANY said it is more than willing to work with the state to set more practical objectives for implementing ACT.

Widespread Electric Truck Use May Not Happen Any Time Soon

Sean Gallivan is the owner, president and CEO of S.M. Gallivan, a trucking and construction firm based in Cohoes, N.Y., just north of Albany. He also is a well-respected business professional and has an influential voice within TANY.

His diversified company specializes in truck transportation, the manufacturing of landscape supplies, wood waste recycling, concrete and asphalt crushing and the commerce of agricultural commodities.

When asked March 6 where things stood on the clean trucks rule following continuing talks between TANY and state officials, he said a delay in enforcing ACT's provisions is under discussion.

"Dealerships are required to purchase a zero-emission vehicle within the same class before selling a truck to end users like us," he said. "However, the New York State Senate and Assembly have just proposed legislation to postpone implementation and enforcement, and this has not passed yet."

Gallivan believes the timeline for putting the ACT into effect should align with infrastructure development and technological advancements. While reducing emissions is an important goal, he said, "widespread adoption of ZEV trucks will likely require at least 10-15 years for infrastructure improvements and vehicle advancements to make them a viable option for heavy-hauling businesses."

He also noted that his firm and the logistics companies it works with support the responsible adoption of ZEVs, "provided the technology and infrastructure can adequately support our businesses."

But Gallivan added that at present, ZEVs "remain cost-prohibitive, have range and hauling limitations and lack the necessary charging infrastructure."

He added that the zero-emissions technology primarily supports light-duty vehicles and last-mile logistics, such as delivery services. However, for operations beyond a 75-mi. radius or those requiring heavy loads, current ZEV capabilities are not yet viable.

ACT's requirement that a certain percentage of new trucks must be zero-emission vehicles, to be increased each year through model year 2035, along with the ratio of ZEV to diesel truck sales, Gallivan admits, will be "extremely difficult" to achieve under present conditions.

"Our utility provider, National Grid, estimated that installing just one charging station would cost around $750,000, with a possible three-year timeline for providing power," he said. "To comply with the regulations, we would need multiple charging stations by 2026, adding to the financial and logistical challenges."

In addition, while a reduction in harmful emissions is the end goal, the current approach may unintentionally prevent the adoption of newer, cleaner-burning diesel trucks and keep older, higher-emission vehicles on New York's roadways, according to Gallivan.

Do ACT Supporters Fully Understand Its Likely Impact?

The economic and implementation effects of the ACT rule also deeply concern David Holzwarth, director of truck sales of Syracuse-based Tracey Road Equipment. A company employee for 35 years, the past 18 in his current position, he is highly respected by other trucking professionals for his knowledge of the industry.

Tracey Road is one of the state's largest distributors of trucks and construction equipment, including the Daimler-owned Freightliner and Western Star lineup of commercial trucks. The dealership supplies vehicles across the United States, with a focus on the Northeast, and is known for its top-notch sales, service and parts operations.

From his position on the front line of selling trucks while under pressure to adhere to the ACT rules, Holzwarth said that its supporters — made up of state and political leaders, as well as environmental groups — did not seem to grasp the ramifications of the mandate on the trucking industry when the regulations were passed four years ago.

In fact, he said the planned rollout "did not make anybody's radar until sometime late in 2023 when we at the dealership started telling our customers about [ACT] and they all looked at us like we were crazy. They thought, ‘This is stupid, it's never going to happen.'

"Fast forward to today, and here we are more than two months into it and I'm $67.5 million behind in truck sales from where I would have been in a normal year," he said. "That's 450 trucks at an average price of $150,000 per. These are retail dollars, not necessarily cost or profitability, but if it keeps going, we could have to cut somewhere in the vicinity of 30 percent of [Tracey Road's] sales force. The dealership will survive with service and parts for quite some time, but the sales process is going to take a hit."

He added that the ACT's backers have likely figured if it is possible to easily charge electric cars, the same should be true for powering EV trucks that haul freight long distances.

"I believe they really didn't understand, number one, that the power required for a truck charger is significantly more than what is needed for a car — we're talking about a 60-kilowatt charger for a really small truck, up to a 150 kW or 240 kW unit, depending on how many trucks you are trying to charge."

Most electric cars that require a complete recharge, by contrast, need only about 10 kW to reach full power.

Then there is the problem of the time it takes to charge an electric truck.

According to Gallivan, current "fast" charging stations need approximately five hours to power a truck to 80 percent capacity and up to 10 hours for a full charge. But, in cold weather, such as you would find in New York State, an electric vehicle's range decreases significantly. Indeed, a recent test showed an electric truck running out of power after traveling just 80 mi., he said.

When Tracey Road's truck customers began asking their utilities if they could get the needed electric power delivered to their location, according to Holzwarth, they learned that the amount of kilowatts was so massive that most small towns do not require as much energy as many chargers can provide.

"If the power companies can't deliver the power, we can't get the chargers and the customers can't charge the trucks, so why should they buy an electric truck," he said. "It's simply unworkable."

Now, with the ACT program in full swing, he admitted that this winter Daimler has not been accepting orders for any trucks other than snowplows, street sweepers, catch basin cleaners or dump trucks used for snowplow removal by municipalities.

"For a commercial account, if a customer wanted to come to us and order a truck for next year, I would first need to have had credits from selling an electric vehicle," Holzwarth said. "At this point, though, I have no prospects for selling any electric vehicles and I have none on order."

He added that Tracey Road sold one ZEV to National Grid, which registered it in Massachusetts, but the ACT rules say that when a company buys a truck from his dealership and registers it in a state other than New York, the credits go to the customer, not the dealership. After the deal was concluded, National Grid ended up with six credits, while Tracey Road gained none.

"As far as I am aware, nobody in the state is able to order trucks any differently than us," Holzwarth said.

At this point, the process by which Tracey Road and other New York truck dealers must navigate their way to full ACT compliance is — to say the least — a study in bureaucracy.

He said that if he wants to order a truck for a municipality, for example, he must first get the customer to send a letter to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

"The DEC takes a look at the letter and then either approves or disapproves it," said Holzwarth. "When I get an approval letter back from DEC, and the customer e-mails me the letter they originally submitted to the DEC to get the OK, with those two things I can place my order with the OEM. Without them both, I have nothing. And that is for trucks that are going to be registered in New York State."

Charger Costs Are High, While Infrastructure Lacking

Holzwarth also called out the state for its short sightedness in pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into building car-charging stations at all 27 service plazas on the New York Thruway — but not one for trucks.

Gallivan admitted that the lack of planning for heavy-duty charging infrastructure remains a significant issue.

"Effective policy implementation requires coordination between the state, utility companies, and industry stakeholders," he added. "Currently, there are only three public charging stations in New York, and none within range of our company in Albany. This lack of infrastructure could create substantial operational inefficiencies, particularly for long-haul trucking."

As a result, Holzwarth said that when Tracey Road pitches ZEVs to its customers, "we tell them that they are not going to be able to rely on the state for putting in the needed infrastructure," and that, instead, they will need to have the funds necessary to purchase their own chargers.

"Now we ask them, ‘What do you have for power? Can you get 60-150 kW through your facility? If so, then you need to buy a charger, which [costs] in the vicinity of $60,000 to $100,000, have it installed, and all that must be done before we can order you a new truck,'" he said.

Gallivan added that the transitioning costs for trucking firms switching from diesel to electric vehicles are also substantial, noting that "while a diesel truck costs around $200,000 and can travel 500-650 miles per day, an electric truck costs between $550,000 and $700,000, with an additional $200,000 to $750,000 needed for charging infrastructure."

With the current technology only allowing for a ZEV, carrying a full 80,000-lb. load, to travel with a maximum range of about 150 mi. from its base, he explained, "multiple electric trucks would be required to perform the same workload as a single clean diesel truck, leading to increased operational costs."

For those New York trucking firms that rely on hauling freight to or doing business in other parts of the United States, most of which also have little to no EV infrastructure, using electric trucks is almost unthinkable, particularly for smaller companies.

Gallivan said that this, too, is a major concern for his construction and landscaping outfit, as well as for most other TANY members.

"Our operations extend throughout the Northeast," he said. "Additionally, in recent hurricane relief efforts in North Carolina and Florida, our diesel trucks played a vital role in emergency response. The current electric truck technology does not yet support the heavy loads and long distances required for such critical missions."

Trucking Industry, Contractors in NYS ACT Frustrates

Truck customers are understandably frustrated and upset over New York State's ACT regulations, according to Holzwarth.

"They simply want to be able to buy trucks at reasonable prices and, as a result, some of them are actually considering buying an EV simply to get the credits to buy the diesel vehicles, and then taking the price of that one electric machine and diluting it with the other six or eight that they would end up buying, which is not a good business practice because they are just inflating their acquisition costs," he said.

The function of that one EV, he added, would be for it to just sit unused on the lot of a freight hauler or construction company.

"Let's say someone orders an electric Freightliner eM2, which is a six-wheel straight delivery truck, or maybe a tractor," Holzwarth said. "The tractor is going to get you eight credits, the eM2 is going to get you six credits. The people that contemplate doing this will buy the truck, register it — which is required — and then just park it."

Another option, he said, is for a company to go out of state to find older trucks that are likely to have dirtier engines than newer vehicles, which only serves to worsen New York's air quality and do the opposite of what the ACT's supporters intended.

Both Sides Working Toward Agreement

Despite everything, though, both Gallivan and Holzwarth remain optimistic that TANY's lobbying efforts to Hochul, state legislators, and other ACT backers will end with an agreement that is acceptable to all parties.

Gallivan noted that there has been significant bipartisan discussion on addressing TANY's concerns and possibly adjusting ACT's timeline.

"Earlier this year, S.M. Gallivan participated in a special investigatory hearing held by the New York Assembly where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concerns about the feasibility of these regulations. However, there is still a need for more direct engagement between state officials and the industry."

Gallivan added that he hopes the ongoing discussions will lead to practical solutions that balance environmental goals with economic and operational realities.

"From what I understand, we have gotten some really good face time with key people in government and helped them to better understand the problems that the trucking industry faces," said Holzwarth, who has himself been a part of TANY's lobbying efforts. "We are making some headway, but I don't know how long it will take.

"We need the issues ironed out now, though, not six months or a year from now."