CARB is finally realizing that the regulatory process is not going to keep allowing them to run rough shod on companies.
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I think CARB finally came to the realization that you can’t legislate scientific advances in ICE’s all the time. Sometime something is a bridge too far.
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I think it was a combination of both of them. There’s a huge movement in the OTR industry especially in the owner operator ranks were they literally go after model year 2006 and newer trucks. Just south of me a guy has 3 2005 W900s all with 14 liter 60 series Detroit Diesels in them. 2 of them he literally dragged out of a boneyard near Chicago and he’s rebuilding them. All 3 when done will be leased to a major heavy hauling carrier that goes everywhere but California. Or as he told me last week I can run 47 out of the 48 and don’t have to deal with the BS in the land of fruit cakes and nutcases anymore. His first 2 started running the first of the year his 3rd he’s waiting for the transmission to get back from the rebuild shop but it will be done by the end of the month.
I think you meant 2006 and newer (not older). I wouldn’t say it’s a “huge” movement, but it is out there. I don’t expect it to last long. One of the original reasons was that diesels with emission equipment wasn’t reliable for several years. The reliability has increased greatly. Another thing is fuel mileage. Older trucks were in the 5.5-6mpg range. Now you can get at least 7.5mpg with the same (or greater) HP and an automated transmission. Many of those with the old trucks aren’t great businessmen, they’re in it for the “lifestyle”. You can see them in their Peterbilt (usually) “hotrods”. The ones with the big sunvisors, straight exhausts, chrome, fenders on the tandems and constant use of the Jake Brake. It’s annoying.
No it’s the older equipment people want. The costs to repair the newer stuff can bankrupt carriers. RBX out of Springfield Missouri went bankrupt due to their fleet of newer trucks breaking down. Missouri carrier, affiliate blame dispute with engine maker for bankruptcy - FreightWaves
There’s a reason why caterpillar is coming back into the OTR industry for engines but only for trucks up to 2006 with brand new not remanufactured engines. These are brand new parts from the oil pan to the rocker covers and everything in between. There’s a huge demand for these engines.
We haven’t even started on the topic of BEVs being pushed so hard here in CA. I wonder if seeing CARB back down on EV locomotives will make the state look at how its pushing automakers too hard to make zero-emission vehicles. There’s a reason Toyota only recently introduced the bZ4X, but has had the Prius for almost 30 years (and has been shifting its entire linup to hybrid power).
[quote=“AVTrainz, post:6, topic:406063”]
There’s a reason Toyota only recently introduced the bZ4X, but has had the Prius for almost 30 years (and has been shifting its entire linup to hybrid power).[/quote]
I recently bought a Toyota Camry, but it’ll be a very long time before I trust an all electric vehicle. Even the AP is skepical, and they’re not exactly a right-wing news outlet.
Federal EV charging stations are key to Biden’s climate agenda, yet only 4 states have them
A friend of mine an I took a ride out to Pittsburgh, about 320 miles in his Tesla Model 3. Of course, we had to stop to charge as we weren’t going to make it nearly all the way. The range falls way off when it’s 20 degrees out and you have to run the heat! The first rest stop didn’t have any working chargers so we went to the next one. We arrived with about 20 miles of range left, we were screwed if we couldn’t charge there! Although it was only supposed to take 15 minutes to charge to 80%, we had to hang around for over half an hour for the charge. I gas up my Camry in 3-4 minutes and I have over 500 miles of range! For ten gallons of gas, I pay around $32, and our 160 mile charge at the Supercharger was almost $20. So much for it being cheaper to drive the EV… 
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I definitely don’t fully trust BEVs yet either. In my opinion, California is trying to be too progressive, in more ways than one. We shouldn’t stop trying to make cleaner cars and locomotives, but not at the cost of hard regulation forcing companies to develop products too fast and making them inferior. For example, rather than forcing locomotive builders to manufacture BEVs by 2030, they could allow them to improve the emissions of their engines and develop other technologies. What’s to stop locomotive builders from developing HEV and PHEV locomotives, say incorporating a large battery into existing diesel-electric drivetrain designs to create an HEV that can run with its engine or its battery, and recharge itself?
You’re talking about one company with 28 tractors that filed a lawsuit. Look at all the big boys–Swift, JBH, Schneider, Walmart, etc. They all run newer trucks.
So after some digging, it does look like both HEV and PHEV locomotive technologies are indeed being developed. Canadian National took delivery of two GT38H PHEV diesels early last year from Progress Rail, and Union Pacific has also taken an HEV mother-slug set, with the slug housing a traction battery. Now if only CARB would look at that and want to help work the railroads in that direction, rather than saying “hey, you need to design a BEV in X-years and once you do any old locomotives are banned from California.” I will say, who would have thought that when Toyota introduced the first Prius in 1997 it would lead us to a world where every carmaker has at least one hybrid or plug-in, and now railroad locomotives are being developed on the same basic concept.
Backshop Schneider tried EVs for southern California on their local routes. They needed twice the trucks to carry what the ICE powered trucks did why they literally ran out of power. The vaunted Tesla semi Pepsi and Frito Lay literally are only running it now in the central valley as it couldn’t make it over Donner pass loaded on a single battery charge from Sacramento to Reno. The longest nonstop run they got was 330 miles on flat terrian. In the hills less than 100. These were with full gross loads.
There’s one thing you’ve missed about the bigger carriers running newer trucks. They literally don’t keep anything beyond 400k miles at all. It hits that mileage point it’s pulled from service and returned for another new one.
However if you look deeper into the financial reports of the mega carriers you also noticed something else. Since the latest round of emission standards were imposed in 2024 as a precurser of the more draconian 2027 ones heading this way maintenance costs are up again. Why in order to meet emission standards for NOX EGR intake was increased by 15 percent over 2023. The newest ones are at times literally trying to run on up to 45 percent exhaust gasses that have been recirculated along with all that carbon and other crap. Guess what’s happening the engines are breaking valves camshafts and valve springs this time. Why the valves get so carbonated that they freeze in place and wreck the valve trains. The only solution they’ve found so far at that has been cirilulated is dropping the extended oil drains intervals down from 100k back to 50k or less. Yes with full synthetic oil and bypass filters people routinely did 100k oil changes.
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It’s not just the really big fleets. Even smaller fleets are turning over trucks rapidly. As part of my job I can see some truck fleet data, and while I obviously can’t give any real information, I grabbed a random sample of ~1800 trucks and only 80 of them were more that 5 years old.
EVs are great if:
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You have more than one car so you can use the EV for around town and ICE for long trips. Most households now have 2+ cars but many still do not.
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You have a home or work charger.
I’ve got neither so it’s ICE for me.
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Hybrids are an interesting compromise, especially plug-in hybrids.
Hybrid diesel-electric locomotives have some advantages over non-hybrid locomotives. These include: recovering energy from regenerative braking, potentially much faster throttle response, higher short term power, potential emission reductions from slower changes in prime mover power settings.
Hybrid DMU’s make even more sense as the start/stop cycling presents even more opportunities for recovering regenerated power. With the right battery choice, the power available for acceleration can be much higher than the prime mover output resulting in higher schedule speeds for commuter service.
A pure battery locomotive sounds like a niche product.
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Plug in Hybrids are a mixed bag. They generally aren’t as powerful or as efficient as regular hybrids and in a lot of cases, they’ll switch over to the gas engine before they should.
Not sure why everyone thinks California has realized the goal was unworkable when it seems far more plausible that they just realized the incoming administration was going to nix it anyway so why waste the money fighting. check again 4 years from now if the political winds shift, things will be different.
Having said that, as noted in other threads, Hybrids, Hydrogen fuel cell and Battery Electric are all currently being produced. The article even showed a picture of the PHL Joule (though it said it was an SD70J. I don’t think that’s accurate. I thought they got the smaller one.)
Rather than speculate, EMD has real world data already. There are also a number of smaller rebuilders creating Battery electric locomotive.
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There seems to be a standard profile in the life of a semi. It runs it’s first 4-5 years with a large carrier that bought it new. Then it gets sold to an OTR O/O who runs it for several more years. Finally, it spends its last several years running container drayage for a driver who doesn’t make much but is home almost every night.