The Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposal fell short of a steeper increase and shorter time frame sought by environmentalists. Truckmakers must be in full compliance by 2027.
“We will be pushing the administration to require compliance sooner, in order to deliver these benefits more quickly,” Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.
The EPA sided with engine-maker Cummins Inc. and transmission manufacturer Eaton Corp. and proposed a separate standard and testing procedure for truck engines.
Truckmakers had pushed for elimination of engine targets and only testing the whole vehicle the way automobiles are assessed. That way, fuel consumption targets could be met with less expensive changes, such as improved aerodynamics.
“These standards provide important incentives to help deploy the next generation of fuel-efficient technologies,” said Alexander M. Cutler, Eaton chairman and chief executive officer.
Economic Benefits
It is the second time U.S. regulators set efficiency goals for the more than 7 million tractor trailers and other heavy-duty trucks that haul most of the nation’s goods. Regulators predicted environmental and economic benefits from the truck rules.
Reduced shipping costs would eventually be passed onto consumers through lower prices, they said.
Following earlier rules to boost the mileage of cars and cut use of coal to make electricity, the truck-efficiency rule is a step to reach President Barack Obama’s pledge to cut overall U.S. climate emissions by 26 percent by 2025.
“Once upon a time, to be pro-environment you had to be anti-big-vehicles,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement.
“This rule will change that. In fact, these efficiency standards are good for the environment –- and the economy.”
Unlike standards set in 2011 -- lasting through 2018 -- these rules force truckmakers to employ new, untested technology.
Vehicles built using new technologies developed to meet the regulatory targets would end up cutting 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions by 2027, saving about 1.8 billion barrels of oil, according to the EPA.
Added Costs
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, whose members typically own one or two trucks, has expressed concern that costs could rise and whether untested technology will be reliable enough.
Regulators estimated the proposal would add $10,000 to $12,000 to the cost of a big rig. Truck owners’ savings at the pump will let them recover the added vehicle costs in two years, they said. EPA and NHTSA calculated the overall costs to industry as about $25 billion.
The economic benefits were more than 10 times higher, or $230 billion, the regulators said. Besides the tractors that pull freight trailers on U.S. highways, there are separate targets for so-called vocational vehicles, like trash compactors, utility trucks and passenger buses.
There’s another standard for medium- and heavy-duty pickups. Freight trailers will have their own requirements for the first time.
Fuel Costs
Fuel is the single largest cost of owning and operating heavy-duty trucks, averaging about $73,000 a year for a tractor-trailer.
U.S. households pay about $1,100 a year in diesel charges that are built into retail prices, according to the Consumer Federation of America.
“Americans understand that big truck fuel costs are passed on to them, which means they understand that raising big truck fuel economy standards will save them money,” said Jack Gillis, a spokesman for the Washington-based watchdog group.
The agency said that most of the gains can be accomplished with existing technology, including more efficient tires, and that the extra costs imposed on vehicles could be recouped by owners within two years by lower fuel bills.
The proposed tractor standards could be met through improvements in the engine, transmission, aerodynamic design and extended idle reduction, EPA said in a fact sheet.
Environmental groups such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, the NRDC and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy pushed for an overall 40 percent reduction from a 2010 baseline for all trucking segments by 2025.
The EPA proposal appeared to fall short, both in the energy to be saved and the extended out compliance time. “The implementation timeline can and should be accelerated,” Luke Tonachel, the NRDC’s vehicles director, said in a blog post.
“The technology is known and can be deployed earlier.”
For heavy-duty pickup trucks, the agencies predicted that some makers would use engine-stop and hybridization in some segments of the market.
bloomberg.com
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