Washington's trucking industry is calling for the state to roll back its electric vehicle transition requirements for commercial fleets. 

Washington is currently committed to standards that mirror California's Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) program, which require truck manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks (ZEVs) each year. Starting in 2025, 7-11% of trucks sold by manufacturers must be ZEVs (depending on the classification of the vehicle). That range rises to 10-13% in 2026, climbing in each subsequent year before topping out at 40-75% in 2035. 

In a letter to Washington Governor Jay Inslee, the Washington Trucking Association (WTA) raised concerns about meeting the ACT program's benchmarks, citing a lack of infrastructure, higher vehicle costs and limited availability of ZEV trucks. 

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"We feel these issues will place constraints on the industry and reduce supply chain resiliency in Washington state — one of the most trade-dependent states in the nation," WTA president and CEO Sheri Call wrote in the letter to Inslee. 

According to Call, a ZEV truck costs two-and-a-half times more than its clean diesel counterpart, sacrifices two-and-a-half tons of payload, and only has a range of 150-200 miles before it needs to charge (operating at the federal limit of 11 hours a day, a trucker can end up driving anywhere between 400-600 miles daily). Given those limitations, Call claims that ZEV trucks "simply will not work for 90% of existing routes," and that the schedule outlined in the ACT program is "too aggressive."

The WTA is instead asking that Washington adopt more gradual Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ZEV truck standards, which were finalized in March of 2024. The EPA's "Clean Trucks" initiative doesn't kick in until 2027, and requires 30-40% of all commercial trucks sold to be ZEVs by 2032.