SACRAMENTO – The California Air Resources Board (CARB) and CALSTART announce the reopening of the popular Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) at 10 a.m. to new voucher requests. The 2021 reopening will make available $165 million to California-based businesses that want to transform their fleets with new, zero-emission and near-zero-emission clean vehicles. With an HVIP voucher, industry-leading vehicles can be as affordable as their traditional fossil-fueled counterparts, enabling purchasers of all sizes to deploy advanced technologies that help fleets achieve reductions in emissions and air pollution to support the state’s climate goals and improve air quality in the most impacted communities.

“HVIP is one of California’s leading incentive funding programs for heavy-duty vehicles and is effectively helping fleets get to zero-emission,” said Executive Officer Richard W. Corey. “It plays a key role in achieving Governor Newsom’s vision that all medium- and heavy-duty vehicles be 100 percent zero emission by 2045. This will accelerate the rate at which these zero-emission trucks and buses can help clean the air, especially in those communities hardest hit by pollution from truck traffic.”

This year HVIP will be implemented in waves, allowing the opportunity for more fleets to participate, especially smaller fleets. Half of the funds will be released when the project opens today. The remaining funds will be made available two months later, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, August 10, 2021. Class 8 trucks performing drayage operations, as well as vehicles purchased by public agencies, will be exempt from this pause.

This exemption is particularly important to CARB’s Project 800 initiative. Project 800 aims to support the deployment of zero-emission trucks serving California ports by setting a goal of 800 zero-emission drayage truck orders in 2021. These 800 trucks represent a pathway toward jump-starting the sector and paving the way for more zero-emission trucks in the near future.

“California’s HVIP is the leading example of streamlined and simplified incentive programs that are supported by fleets and industry alike,” said Tom Brotherton, director of Market Acceleration at CALSTART. “It is a critical part of market acceleration needed to continue advancing California’s clean transportation sector, particularly in the Class 8 vehicle segment and in meeting the state’s clean air and climate goals.”

With greater vehicle options from Class 2B through Class 8, HVIP will help businesses and public fleets make the switch to clean vehicles and help grow the market for these technologies. The transportation sector is by far the state’s largest source of air pollution and climate-changing gases, and the prime source of air pollution in communities adjacent to ports, rail yards, distribution centers, and goods movement corridors that suffer from high levels of diesel pollution. More than half of vehicles purchased through the project to date are operating in disadvantaged and low-income communities, which are disproportionately burdened by harmful air pollutants and subject to heavy truck traffic.

Since its launch, the project has:

• Provided more than $400 million through 2020, supporting 1,400+ participating fleet purchasers
• Helped deploy more than 7,000 clean vehicles
• Successfully leveraged more than $2 billion in additional dollars of other public and private spending toward these purchases — over $4 for every $1 of HVIP investment.

Launched by CARB in 2009, HVIP is the earliest model in the U.S. to demonstrate the function, flexibility, and effectiveness of first-come first-served incentives that reduce the incremental cost of commercial vehicles. The project is administered by CALSTART, a national clean transportation nonprofit consortium, on behalf of CARB.

HVIP is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy and improving public health and the environment — particularly in disadvantaged communities.

CALSTART | Changing transportation for good

A national nonprofit consortium with offices in New York, Michigan, Colorado and California and partners world-wide, CALSTARTworks with 280+ member company and agency innovators to build a prosperous, efficient and clean high-tech transportation industry. We knock out barriers to modernization and the adoption of clean vehicles. CALSTART is changing transportation for good.

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