California has established aggressive goals to transition medium- and heavy-duty vehicle (HDV) fleets to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). There is limited understanding of how HDV fleets will respond to these goals and policies, and there is even greater uncertainty around how one segment of the HDV fleet population will manage: small fleets. Small fleets, including owner operators and small motor carriers such as those with 20 or fewer vehicles, tend to lack knowledge and understanding of state policy. Furthermore, they account for a considerable portion of the fleet population, over 65% in the California drayage industry. Consequently, disruptions to this segment that result from ZEV goals and policies would seriously impact overall freight operations. Therefore, it is critical to understand how small fleets, especially small drayage fleets, will respond to the policies and move to adopt ZEVs. No two small fleets are alike; they operate in diverse applications and have unique needs. For this reason, researchers will conduct either one-on-one interviews or focus groups with approximately 20 operators of small and drayage fleets. The qualitative research will explore vehicle adoption processes (e.g., leasing versus purchasing, or truck as a service), motivators and barriers to ZEV adoption, potential impact of policies (e.g., a mandate, or financial incentives) on purchase behavior, and labor issues or concerns. The findings will inform policy options that may ease these fleet operators’ concerns and facilitate ZEV adoption, thereby contributing to achieving California’s heavy-duty ZEV targets.

California’s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulation requires original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to manufacture zero emission vehicle (ZEV) trucks at an aggressive pace. The supporting regulation, the Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule, is in development and will require fleets to purchase ZEV trucks in rapidly increasing numbers starting in 2024. OEMs and fleets will depend on each other to either supply or purchase ZEV trucks in order to meet the regulations. Furthermore, the production and purchases must match across a wide range of truck applications including drayage, short haul, delivery, heavy-duty pickups and vans, and vocational vehicles. Because fleets cannot operate ZEV trucks without appropriate infrastructure in place, electric utilities and hydrogen providers must work with OEMs and fleets to ensure that charging and hydrogen infrastructure is sited, installed, and operational by the time ZEV trucks are delivered to fleets. How will these two regulations stay on track? Will refueling infrastructure be installed at the pace and in the locations needed to support the regulations? Will there be a sufficient supply of ZEV truck models, and will production capacity in key market segments meet the requirements of fleets? Will appropriate incentives or other funding sources for both fleet truck purchase and infrastructure installation exist to ensure that ZEV market penetration proceeds on schedule? This project will develop a system to determine whether the ACT and ACF regulations are on track, and if not, what additional policies could enable ZEV market penetration to proceed on schedule. Researchers will work with agency staff, truck OEMs, fleets, and utilities to ascertain the best metrics for tracking ZEV market penetration including infrastructure rollout. Once metrics are defined, researchers will determine how best to collect and analyze data relevant to these metrics such that problems can be clearly identified. A database will be designed to store these data. Given that ZEV market penetration based on the ACT and ACF regulations will proceed for many years, this project will also develop a proposal for future funding and management of the tracking system.