Class-C motorhome. (Photo: Public Domain)
Ageism: California Gov. Gavin Newsom Now Destroying RV Industry with Clean Air Regs
Proving that stupidity is contagious, 5 other states joined the CARB Advanced Clean Truck bandwagon
By Katy Grimes, November 14, 2024 9:02 am
A new California Air Resources Board regulation is impacting diesel motorhome sales, and not just in California, but in five other states that have adopted California’s absurd clean air regulations.
This is age discrimination given that most RVers are retired.
As the Globe has reported, in 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom proudly declared a “clean air” policy which has the potential to put the state’s drivers in harms way:
“California became the first jurisdiction in the world today to end the sales of traditional combustion trucks by 2036, creating a path to 100% zero emission medium heavy-duty trucks on the roads in California by 2045. California also became the first state in the nation to implement emissions standards for trains,” Newsom said.
“The future happens here first,” Newsom declared, “and California is once again showing the world what real climate action looks like.”
If the future is life without gas and diesel powered vehicles apparently. “Real climate action” means absolutely nothing other than the destruction of our way of life.
Newsom’s “Advanced Clean Trucks” regulations, as with passenger vehicles, call for phasing out gas and diesel engines and replacing them with plug-in electric and hydrogen-electric vehicles.
The governor has gone after commercial big rigs and trucks, and now, diesel-powered RVs.
That’s because on October 24, the California Air Resources Board amended its Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) regulations, RVTravel.com reported. “Essentially, these new regulations require that all vehicles over 8,500 pounds GVWR (gross vehicle weight rating) must produce zero emissions. A credit system allows manufacturers to continue to sell a given number of fossil-fuel engines in California, provided they have non-polluting vehicles to offset.”
CARB’s Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) regulations are impacting all commercial and recreational vehicles at this point – including tow-trucks.
“However, truck manufacturers have not developed electric alternatives to meet a towing or recovery truck’s range, demanding performance and safety standards,” said Keep California Motorists Safe, a coalition of small businesses, truck drivers, and motorists.
Specifically, tow trucks aren’t there yet – not even close. And there are other issues to address.
“Since the heavy-duty electric truck regulations were enacted this year, the importation of medium—to heavy truck combustion engine chassis to California has declined dramatically,” said Keep California Motorists Safe. “The ACT and Heavy-Duty Omnibus (Omnibus) regulations cut off the supply of combustion engine trucks before truck manufacturers produced electric alternatives that meet a tow truck’s range, performance, and safety standards.”
Gov. Newsom and the CARB are putting the cart before the horse, damn the consequences.
As the Globe reported, the benevolent California Air Resources Board was scheduled to consider amendments to the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulation – and they did in October as RVTravel.com reported.
In 2023, the California Air Resources Board approved what the Newsom Administration characterized as a “nation-leading regulation” to phase out the sales of medium—and heavy-duty combustion engines, which took effect in January 2024. The regulation began a national movement to transition America’s trucking industry to Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) by 2035.
Proving that stupidity is contagious, 5 other states joined the CARB Advanced Clean Truck bandwagon: California, Oregon, Washington, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts – residents of these states will not be able to register a motorhome that is not in compliance with the CARB RV/Truck regulation.
Interesting that Oregon joined in this regulation as one of their biggest industries is RV manufacturing.
The US Department of Transportation and EPA will need to intervene ASAP once the new Trump administration is sworn in. These are business-killing regulations that don’t move the needle one bit on “clean air.”
Passed in 2021, the California Air Resources Board announced “plans to accelerate the first wave of zero-emission trucks.”
And the CARB lies again claiming “fossil fuels that power them are the largest contributors to the formation of ozone, greenhouse gas emissions, fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and toxic diesel particulate matter.”
We asked why California’s Air Board is using flawed PM2.5 (particulate matter) deaths research, much of which has been conducted by Chinese investigators, to ban diesel trucks in the state? California has record low pollution levels. And CARB admits trucks represent only 6% of the vehicles on California’s roads. Other than further destroying the trucking industry and the businesses of independent owner/operators…
The science behind these regulations is not only dubious, it is from China, which has a strong motive to see that the United States succumbs to the climate change movement, much of which is funded by China, as Real Clear Energy reported: “For China, climate change offers a strategic opportunity. Decarbonizing the rest of the world makes China’s economy stronger – it weakens its rivals’ economies, reduces the cost of energy for its hydrocarbon-hungry economy, and sinks energy-poor India as a potential Indo-Pacific rival.”
This is the fraud that Gov. Newsom and Democrats are perpetrating on the people. Lies, fraudulent data, Chinese studies, UN Agendas… The people need to wake up and fight back. Maybe a RV/trucker convoy around the State Capitol would get their attention.
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Ruh,Ro!
Where will the California counties house their homeless population!
I think Dear Leader Gavin is denying the civil rights of the homeless!
ACLU needs to get on this now!
Be on the lookout for a new BYD billion dollar contract to build electric RV’s just for California😉
oh yeah – didn’t think about that!
Oh no! I think Gavin just created millions of free homes for the homeless on the backs of RV owners! And the RV’ will have their engines removed/damaged to ensure they won’t emit smog… and have to be towed away with those non-existent electric tow trucks.
Also notice the date… I think he plans on being president in 2028, and the impact won’t hit until after 8 years in office. Or at least being able to avoid direct damage. I see this being reversed when he leaves office (if we get a sensible governor elected in this state)
On any given day, how many diesel powered motorhomes do you think are traveling on California’s highways? Probably not very many.. Maybe somewhere between 200 to 400 at most.. And out of this 2 to 4 hundred motorhomes how do you suppose are diesel? Without exception, these vehicles are parked in storage for most of the year… What about retires (snowbirds) who want to visit our state, maybe spend the winter here… How is it going to benefit the state by destroying the opportunity for citizens to chose what kind of vehicle, recreational or otherwise, the right to chose what they want to drive. How can a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, who are obviously accountable to no one, be allowed to make these kinds of ridiculous laws.. There is truly something wrong with this country when a person is allowed the freedom of choice to kill an unborn child, but not allowed the freedom of choice to drive the vehicle of their choice..
Katy Grimes’ suggestion that maybe RV owners and truckers should stage a massive convoy around the State Capitol to get attention sounds like a good idea? However, since Gavin “Hair-gel Hitler” Newsom and the corrupt Democrat mafia in the legislature along with their stooges who’ve been installed in nebulous agencies like CARB are controlled by nefarious criminal entities (i.e. CCP, WEF globalists, cartels, U.N., etc.), no doubt they’ll react just like Canadian PM Justin “Castro” Trudeau did with the truckers convoy in Canada by sending out their thugs (i.e. Antifa/BLM) to attack the convoy and then try to steal their assets with lawfare?
More insanity of course. But now, as Katy Grimes pointed out, this time around we actually have hope of the saner heads of the Trump Admin prevailing by intervening to put a stop to a lot of this CARB Crap.
By the way, to return to the topic of the new, price-raising CARB “clean air standards,” I heard someone say the other day that the fuel mix will contain a higher percentage of ethanol (15% instead of 10%) and that this increase of “sticky” ethanol threatens to be incompatible with certain cars, breaking down parts and damaging rubber hoses and such. He warned that very expensive retrofits of incompatible cars would have to be done to accommodate this pinheaded CARB regulation. This reckless move of CARB (actually Newsom —- in disguise) is one that they obviously didn’t think through, because as we’ve seen in the past they are incapable of thinking things through, or of thinking for one moment about what Californians have to go through —- even beyond higher prices on gas, which people can’t afford to begin with —- in conforming to their endless diktats. But “who cares?” is their motto, and “burn it all down for green” is their slogan.
wow….what an infringement on our freedom….always wanted to live simpler life working contract jobs living motorhome 3 to 4 months….then moving on…wife is ill can’t quit health benefits…. tightening screws on us all time…
Yeah… look at what happened (and is happening with Germany). They’ve lost a massive industrial base and are swamped with illegal aliens. The Trump election is being cheered, and their leadership is JUST getting the hint that maybe they should stop people at the border. But too little, too late. They’re having special elections now.
I would buy a hydrogen fuel cell RV today, if they were available, and if the fueling infrastructure was in place. It’s time to get off fossil fuels!
The two main hazards from fuel cell and hydrogen-powered vehicles are electrical shock and fuel flammability.
Some fuel cell vehicle motors run on voltages exceeding 350V and with such high currents, the danger of electric shock is great, with 50V being high enough to stop the human heart. The flammability of hydrogen is also an issue. Hydrogen has a flammability range between 4% to 75% in air, which is very wide compared with other fuels (gasoline is to 7.6%). Under the optimal combustion condition (a 29% hydrogen-to-air volume ratio), the energy required to initiate hydrogen combustion is much lower than that required for other common fuels and even a small spark will ignite it.
Each mile driven on hydrogen costs at least 3 times more than a mile driven on gasoline or electricity. And no, economies of scale will not bring down the price of hydrogen in the future. The advantage of hydrogen is that it can be stored.
On any given weekend during the summer months, you will find 10’s of thousands of central valley residents (Bakersfield up to Fresno) flocking to the central coast area many of them in a diesel pusher motorhome looking to escape the valley heat (government nitwits call it climate change). Somehow, we need to memorialize this boneheaded leadership so that we are never conned into going back to this type of lifestyle again.
Thank you Katy! I’m sending this out to senior neighbors.
““The future happens here first,’ Newsom declared, ‘and California is once again showing the world what real climate action looks like.'”
This guy is as dumb as a box of rocks. This is what “climate action look like”, NO CHANGE IN THE CLIMATE. All we have to show for it is jobs lost, and lives ruined.
NO MORE DEMOCRAT GOVERNORS.
They still can’t point to single person who has died from “particulate matter” emitted by vehicles, let along had their life cut short because of it (last time I checked, over the past 100 years, people’s life expectancies have increased while at the same time the number of cars on the road have increased as well). This is pure enviro-religious mythology at work. These people just can’t comprehend that if your electric car breaks down, it has to be towed by a gas/diesel powered truck because there are no heavy duty EV chassis available that can provide the same efficiency for pulling heavy loads. Same reason why there are no EV long haul semi-trucks or garbage trucks or fire trucks or ambulances or….the list goes on. Same thing with RVs. Either you would have to make the EV so heavy and large to match the range of a current ICE powered RV (sacrificing usable room) or you have to accept an RV that has less than 100 mile range which is absurd (same reason why you can’t effectively tow anything with your EV truck for more than a few miles). Sadly, people just don’t understand how they continue to vote in the nut jobs who keep passing these rules. So we get what we deserve I suppose.
Good points. And how about the fact that in about 8 years, the EV RV needs to be junked, because the replacement battery costs more than the RV is worth?
Many people with Class A motorhomes tow cars behind them to travel when they get to their destination. What kind of range is an EV RV going to have towing a car, 50 miles?
Democrats don’t care about working class people or retirees on fixed incomes. They think everyone is rich and owns a winery in Napa. Democrats are elitist jerks.
While derelict RVs line streets among tents, tarps and trash proliferating a public health and safety hazard,
those who have worked hard to afford a luxury travel vehicle are deprived the fruits of their labor.
Newsom and his elitist California cabal have enabled larceny, leniency and the pursuit of drugs in favor of the civil rights of sovereign citizens’ life, liberty and pursuit of highway motoring.
Keep doubling down on the nonsense most of the country just rejected, I say. Gavin is that guy that still wants to party after that party is clearly over and everyone else has gone home. Dude, read the room, its over.
😂Great comment!
He is the after party, after party guy!
He should be embarrassed but nope, he triples down on more idiotic policy.
I love watching this buffoon slow walk off a cliff. It’s one of my favorite things. California will be the first…and last. Such arrogance! Climate B S will be the final act for this fool