US finalises efficiency standards for heavier vehicles to 2027

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have finalised emissions and energy efficiency standards for medium and heavy-duty vehicles that vehicle manufactures will have to comply with into the next decade.

The ‘Phase 2’ standards, for vehicles from model year 2021 to 2027, see fuel consumption and carbon dioxide (alongside nitrous oxide and methane) emission standards set for four categories of vehicle: tractors, tractor-trailers, heavy duty pick up trucks and vans, and vocational vehicles. They follow on from the Phase 1 standards  for the same class of vehicles that cover 2014–2018.

The Phase 2 regulation also includes efficiency and emissions standards for trailers, which were not included in Phase 1, and which will come into effect in 2018. Tractor-trailers are responsible for the largest share of fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions in the US commercial vehicle sector, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). The Phase 2 standards require up to a 30% reduction in fuel use for tractor-trailers per mile compared to 2017 levels.

ICCT says that the regulation will promote fuel-saving technologies that can increase typical highway fuel economy from 6–7 miles per gallon today up to above 8 miles per gallon, and will pay back within two years. The rule requires a 16–19% efficiency improvement for vocational vehicles and a 16% improvement for heavy-duty pickup trucks and vans.

The Phase 2 standards were outlined as part of US President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan. The EPA has estimated that the final regulations will lower carbon dioxide emissions by around 1.1bn tonnes and reduce oil consumption by around 2bn barrels over their lifetime, compared to business as usual. It says that the net benefits of the programme will outweigh the costs by eight to one.

Heavy-duty trucks account for around 20% of greenhouse gas emissions and oil use in the US transportation sector, according to the EPA, figures that are rapidly increasing in the US and elsewhere.

Commentators have pointed out that these rules will also have effects in other markets. ‘The world’s major economies will take important policy guidance from these rules,’ said Drew Kodjak, Executive Director of the ICCT. ‘Adopting long-term standards – in this case eleven years out into the future – will help industry invest with great confidence in reliable, sustainable low carbon technologies.’

The EPA and NHTSA worked together to harmonise their standards for emissions and fuel efficiency respectively under the programme. The final rules are more ambitious than originally proposed and follow a second phase of standards for light duty vehicles that were set in 2012.

The final Phase 2 heavy-duty standards are also more robust in terms of compliance, and include improved test procedures, enhanced enforcement audits and bolstered protection against ‘defeat devices’ – devices to circumvent emissions testing that were highlighted by the Volkswagen ‘dieselgate’ scandal.

More details on the Phase 2 standards can be found at www.nhtsa.gov/fuel-economy