"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." – Chinese proverb
As of mid-last year, 867 zero-emission heavy trucks have been deployed across the U.S., according to CALSTART's third update to its comprehensive market report, Zeroing in on Zero-Emission Trucks (ZET), which focuses on the steadily increasing adoption of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks throughout the country.
The noteworthy increase in ZET adoption since the previous version of this report in May 2023 is due in part to the increased availability of models from all OEMs. According to CALSTART, there are now more than 160 ZET models available in the U.S. from more than 40 OEMs.
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The zero-emission medium-duty truck market has the most options with 73 models available, followed by heavy-duty trucks with 32 and cargo vans with 23 models. The cargo van segment, however, represents more than 80% of all ZET deployments.
"My biggest takeaway from the latest update is just how quickly this market is growing," Jessie Lund, CALSTART’s deputy director of truck technology told Clean Trucking. "Especially considering the data only covers the first half of 2023, it's encouraging to see the 'hockey stick' exponential growth. Deployments have increased by an order of magnitude since the first iteration of this report (January 2022) – and all that in spite of a global pandemic, supply chain challenges and economic volatility. This tells me that the market, while still relatively small compared to the overall truck market, has some serious momentum."
