Calif. Drayage Fleets Face Battery-Electric Truck Dilemma
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Carriers in California won’t be doing a U-turn on the highway to battery-electric truck adoption despite regulatory change, but executives say the thoroughfare needs some maintenance to eradicate snarl-ups and potholes.
The end of the road for California Air Resources Board’s Advanced Clean Fleets Rule was plotted out May 5 nearly four months after the agency withdrew its Environmental Protection Agency waiver request Jan. 13.
Executive Officer Steven Cliff and state Attorney General Rob Bonta conceded defeat to the state of Nebraska in a U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California filing, laying out plans for a legal burial no later than Oct. 31.
However, that still leaves California fleets tackling the repercussions of CARB’s Advanced Clean Trucks regulation, which requires manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission trucks from 2024 through 2035.
U.S. truck deployments reached 42,500 from 37 manufacturers with 64% deployed beyond the Advanced Clean Truck states showing clear first- and last-mile delivery demand.
— Steven Cliff, Ph.D. (@CARB_EO)
By 2035, some 40% of major OEMs’ Class 8 tractor sales must be zero-emission vehicles under the rule while 75% of Classes 4-8 straight truck sales must meet the mandate. The rules are limited to OEMs that sell more than 500 vehicles a year in California.
That will require carriers, especially drayage fleets, to buy more battery-electric tractors, according to Sustainability Manager Lauren Miller, who told attendees at the recent 2025 Advanced Clean Transportation Expo that battery-electric trucks were the only scalable zero-emission solution for the sector at present.
ITS Logistics ranks No. 12 on the Transport Topics list of the top intermodal and drayage carriers.
Battery-electric trucks are the only scalable zero-emission solution available to the drayage sector at present, according to ITS' Logistics' Miller (ITS Logistics).
Speaking on an April 30 panel at the event in Anaheim, Calif., Miller and other executives laid out a multitude of gripes that fleet managers and owners have with the slower-than-expected transition to zero-emission trucks so far and their requirements for the coming months and years.
CEO Sami Khan said carriers with battery-electric trucks had to work harder than their peers.
“You have to double shift these trucks to make things work,” said Khan, whose entire fleet is zero emissions, adding that he wanted ports to be open 24/7.
Khan also warned his peers with battery-electric trucks to avoid live loads.
A live load refers to picking up a container, driving directly to the shipper, waiting while the container is unloaded and then returning the container to where it was picked up.
Indifference to the Technology
, meanwhile, said the biggest challenge is getting people to actually care about zero-emission trucks.
Shippers don’t care and regulators need to make the transition easier, said the top executive at the 32-truck fleet based in Long Beach, Calif., adding: “There’s a lot of talk, not a lot of walk.”
Khan and fellow panelist Carlo Bertani, who heads decarbonization and renewable energy procurement and development in the Americas at shipping giant , concurred.
Khan said Santa Monica, Calif.-based Nevoya could not expand to the fast-growing Port of Savannah in Georgia because he could not find the financing as a less-well-established carrier.
The Maersk Skarstind containership is moored at the APM Terminals in the Port of Los Angeles in April. (Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press)
The company couldn’t get financing for trucks because it had not been in business for three years and didn’t have long-term contracts, he said.
“If OEMs want customers to buy [the trucks], they are going to have to change their plans, because, ultimately, no small trucking company can afford this on their own,” he added.
Bertani, whose company doesn’t have credit problems after generating more than $5 billion in free cash flow in 2024, also could not make the economics work.
Copenhagen, Denmark-headquartered Maersk ranks No. 6 on the TT Top 50 list of the largest global freight companies while Maersk Logistics (North America) ranks No. 29on the TT Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies.
Maersk axed zero-emission trucking projects in Chicago and New York because they were not profitable, Bertani told ACT attendees.
Maersk's Battery-Electric Truck Pilot
Meantime, Maersk is spearheading a longhaul, battery-electric truck pilot on Interstate 10 between Los Angeles and El Paso, Texas — a route that links the nation’s busiest ports to the second-busiest border crossing.
As a result of the hoops fleets have had to jump through, the panelists said, change is needed.
The freight industry needs to ensure carriers are rewarded for investing in battery-electric trucks with steady business flows, said ITS’ Miller, making sure smaller carriers are not left behind.
Seth Clevenger and Mike Senatore dive into the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies. They address trade challenges, mergers, sector trends and more. Tune in above or by going to .
“I need the ports and terminals to step it up,” said Abarca, who bought her first BETs in 2024 and called for special appointments for the trucks, an EV hour and an exemption on fees for empties.
“We have to remove some of these guardrails for smaller carriers for them to get into BETs,” Miller said.
Authorities need to back lease programs due to the cost of new equipment, said Khan, adding that a secondhand market must be established to advance adoption, especially by smaller players.
Financial Assistance
That’s even though the t offers vouchers for purchasing zero-emission drayage trucks.
The standard HVIP drayage truck voucher of $150,000 is supplemented by an additional $100,000 per truck for fleets with 10 or fewer trucks and by $75,000 per truck for fleets with more than 10 trucks. The supplemental funding is provided by the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach.
Still, charging a battery-electric truck in California once you have one is not a problem, unlike elsewhere in the U.S., Khan and Abarca said.
“We charge everywhere,” Khan said. “Anyone who says you can’t charge trucks in California is using that as an excuse. The charging is the easy part.”
King Fio is using a Zeem Solutions facility near Los Angeles airport, behind-the-fence charging at another carrier’s yard, and has a project of its own underway, said Abarca.
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