BC MHD Truck Regs

There is little choice for the BC government in aligning with California's regulatory environment on trucking. The reality is that too many trucks move from one country to another and California sets the standard for vehicle regulations in North America. Infrastructure for California regulated trucks needs to be built in Canada and Canadian trucks need align if they want access to the USA.

The federal government has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with California on regulatory cooperation:

And, BC has signed a Statement of Cooperation with California and other states on regulatory alignment and created the Pacific Costal Collaborative initiative.

BC has excluded plug-in hybrids from their regulation plans, unlike the California. But, since there are no plans for continued production of hybrid semi trucks beyond 2030, so it probably does not matter to exclude them from the regs. The hybrid trucks in the USA are mostly natural gas driven, which does not work well in Canada as we do not have the filling infrastructure.

The review of these regulations is finished (submissions were due before July). There was plenty of opposition to the regulations from the right-wing associations of truckers.

In California, there are active legal battles against the regulation there. Motion to intervene on one of the largest legal challenges brought by the Western States Trucking Association (one of the largest employer associations). Similar lawsuits have been launched by other state-level trucking company associations.

These regulations have come in around the same time as the ports had to backtrack on their attempt to download costs of upgraded trucks to the owner-operators. The difference with this suggested legislation is that government subsidies will be providing some of the support to transition to electric vehicles.

The opposition to any change or forced upgrade to trucks will likely delay some of the implementation or soften the proposals. But, more importantly, it will be the market's response in building trucks and the infrastructure they need to recharge that will delay most of this.

It will be important to include members in this discussion to talk about the full costs and realities of implementing these transitions.

In terms of procurement, it will be important to include the New Flyer folks in this conversation. Transition of buses along this timeline—if made in Canada—should mean some extra production capacity investment.