The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have proposed paying qualifying zero-emission trucks $60 for every terminal visit, up to $36,000 a truck a year, under a draft three-year incentive called the Zero-Emission Truck Rewards Incentive Program, or ZE-TRIP.
Public comments run through November 2. Nothing is funded until both harbor commissions vote to approve it.
The ports say the goal is to make zero-emission trucks cost-competitive to operate, get more use out of the ones already working the docks and pull more of them into the fleet.
US heavy truck sales ran at about 426,000 a year in August, down from 535,000 in mid-2023, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
That's separate from the $75 million zero-emission truck purchasing incentive the Port of LA opened in July, a one-time grant of up to $300,000 a truck toward buying a battery-electric Class 8 drayage truck. ZE-TRIP pays per visit instead, regardless of when or how the truck was bought.
“This incentive program is another tool in our decarbonization playbook, helping offset the higher costs of owning and operating zero-emission trucks based on direct feedback from truckers about what they need,” Port of Long Beach CEO Noel Hacegaba said, per Supply Chain Dive.
Diesel hit a record $6.285 a gallon in the week of September 14, EIA data show, exactly the kind of operating cost the incentive is meant to offset. California regulators dropped their zero-emission drayage mandate last year, so voluntary, cost-based programs like ZE-TRIP are now doing what a state rule once required, as we had covered in June.
