CARB Factually Misrepresents Adoption Rate of Commercial ZEV’s

Major Media “Carry its Water” by Regurgitating Half Truth

If you go to CARB’s own website and search on “ZEV trucks” you will get this headline, “1 in 6 new trucks, buses, and vans in California are zero-emission.”

That news release is from CARB and dated June 6, 2024 but on September 23, 2025 CARB doubled down on misinformation with this new announcement, “Nearly 1 in 4 new trucks, buses and vans in California go zero-emission, 2 years ahead of schedule.”

Of course, all the major media outlets just regurgitate whatever CARB spews without any meaningful “fact checking.” It’s either by design or a lack of journalistic integrity. Either way, its an example of why American’s trust in the media to report news “fairly and accurately” has dropped to its lowest level in five decades!

What is important to note about CARB’s misleading headlines is when it says “trucks” virtually everyone immediately thinks of a “big truck,” or more accurately Class 7 & 8 vehicles. When you take a deeper dive into what is being sold versus the hype guess what? CARB includes in its numbers Class 2b sales which are vehicles such as Tesla’s Cyber truck (probably the ugliest truck ever built) and Ford electric pick-ups and vans. CARB counts as “trucks” vehicles with a GVWR of 8,500 pounds.

In 2024 ACT sales data shows a total of 131,552 “trucks” sold in Classes 2b-8. When you distill the numbers further the total “truck” ZEV sales accounted for 30,026 of the 131,552 sold statewide. Of the “truck” ZEV’s sold, only 1,887 were over 14,000 pounds. Class 7 & 8 trucks only accounted for 422 of that 1,887 number. We could toss out percentages, but we think you get the point.

Another data point CARB doesn’t seem to have – maybe they do but hide it is – how many of the actual Class 7 & 8 trucks sold (virtually all with huge public subsidies) are even in service? WSTA has only a handful of members who took the chance and procured these types of trucks, with one minor exception, we know all of the trucks are parked collecting dust right now. There are multiple reasons for this, and CARB staff has chosen to act as if their mantra is “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” when it comes to heavy-duty ZEV trucks.

For example, WSTA has one member with 10 Nikola trucks and all have been parked since March, only 8 are actually operational (the other two are down for lack of parts availability since Nikola went bankrupt) yet for the 8, there is no available fueling source (hydrogen) for them (now).

We “get” that small pick-ups and vans usually being operated short distances are probably “form fit” for ZEV adoption – their duty-cycle requirements are different than “large trucks” and recharging doesn’t present the same issues as with Classes 7 & 8.

The “ripple effect” of CARB’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACT) rule that mandated truck OEM’s sell ever increasing percentages of ZEV’s was OEM’s having to limit the ability of California dealers to sell trucks with diesel engines. Of course, CARB tries to dispute this – they explain it away as the OEM’s fault (they can always buy emissions credit from CARB). Yet new Class 7 & 8 truck sales in California have basically collapsed 75% because of the ACT rule (which did get an EPA enforcement waiver under Biden Administration).

Everyone acknowledges newer diesel-powered trucks (even natgas) emit far less emissions than older trucks. How much better could California’s air quality goals have been met if CARB didn’t once again screw around in a marketplace they clearly don’t understand (same thing happened with the Truck & Bus regulation).

All you really need to know is when CARB touts EV “truck” sales numbers they are engaged in purposeful deception.