The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has approved $28 million in Air Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) funding to support two statewide incentive programs aimed at bringing the cleanest vehicle technologies to low-income and underserved communities.
These vehicle-purchase incentive programs help businesses and individuals make the switch to clean vehicles and help grow the market for these technologies. The transportation sector is California’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.
“It’s critical that we clean up the way we move people and goods and these investments will help accelerate that change,” says Mary D. Nichols, chair member of CARB. “These programs will help remove the dirtiest cars and trucks from our roads and highways and provide access to the cleanest vehicles for low-income families – and California communities hardest hit by pollution.”
California’s Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) provides incentives to purchase the cleanest medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and Clean Cars 4 All incentivizes lower-income California drivers to scrap their older, high-polluting cars and replace them with zero-emission, plug-in hybrid or hybrid vehicles.
Incentives play a pivotal role in supporting California’s air quality, climate and petroleum-reduction goals. They accelerate the transition of fleets to zero-emission in line with Gov. Newsom’s Executive Order requiring all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California to be zero-emission by 2035 and requiring all medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold in California to be zero-emission by 2045, where feasible.
Of $28.64 million appropriated by the legislature in AQIP funding, the FY 2020-21 Funding Plan provides $25 million for HVIP, $3 million for Clean Cars 4 All and $0.64 million for a fiscal reserve.
