Caltrans looks to lead the way to an electrified future

Caltrans looks to lead the way to an electrified future

The evolution of what powers transportation is – no doubt about it – electrifying. Caltrans is busy making plans for and implementing changes that are transforming how people and goods make their way about the Golden State.

The era of ZEV (zero-emission vehicles) is upon us.

Through a pair of executive orders issued in 2019 and 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom decreed that the following goals be pursued and met:

• By 2025, there will be 250,000 electric vehicles charging stations along California roadways.
• By 2030, there will be 5 million ZEVs on California's roads.
• By 2035, all new passenger cars and truck sold in California will be ZEVs, and where feasible there will be 100 percent zero-emission off-road vehicles and equipment.
• By 2045, 100 percent of medium- and heavy- duty vehicles in the state will be zero-emission.

Mile Marker recently asked Jimmy O’Dea of the Director’s Office of Equity, Sustainability & Tribal Affairs to discuss what Caltrans is doing to pave the way for an all-ZEV future.

He began with a clarification.

“When we say electric vehicle, we mean both battery and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles,” O’Dea explained. “Some people interpret electrification as only batteries, but the technology of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle also uses an electric drive train powered by electricity, once hydrogen is converted from chemical energy to electrical energy.”

Then O’Dea launched into the big picture.

“Of the four big buckets of our work, one is our own fleet. We have 11,000 vehicles ranging from sedans to snowplows, and we want to electrify them all over time.  In the words of Division of Equipment lead Bob Meyers, we want to be the ‘greenest fleet in the country.’

“Some vehicles are easier to electrify than others and we’re making progress on the low-hanging fruit already. Over the last year, we’ve added roughly 400 electric sedans to our fleet. We’ll begin getting electric SUVs this year. We have several hundred electric pickup trucks on order that we’re also hopeful to begin taking deliveries of soon. So, we’re starting to make progress on our fleet and we want to be a leader in this area not only for other state DOTs but also large, private fleets of similar size. We’re among the largest fleets in the country. electrifying our fleet is a really exciting opportunity.

“The second big bucket is supporting charging for the public. This is done largely through funding programs that we’re administering, or with funding that we’re seeking on behalf of the state. A big program that we’re helping to administer is from the federal infrastructure bill [the $110 billion Infrastructure Investment and Job Act of 2020], a formula-funded bill that provides funding to all states for chargers to support long-distance intercity and interstate travel.

“We’re working with the California Energy Commission, which is the national expert in delivering charging infrastructure grant funding, to get this program out the door. This program [the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program] is going to support charging on over 6,000 miles of California interstates and highways. With this funding, there will be at least four fast chargers every 50 miles on these corridors, and in many cases a lot more. …

“So it’s a $384 million project [$5 billion nationally] that we’re really excited about, and hope to formally kick off with release of the funding this year.

“There’s also $2.5 billion in discretionary funding that we’re interested in bringing to the state from the federal infrastructure bill. We’re working with other state agencies, namely the Energy Commission, to develop grant proposals.

“The next big bucket is our rail and transit effort. From the rail side, we provide locomotives for three intercity corridors, the Capital Corridor, San Joaquin and Pacific Surfliner rail lines. We’re interested in transitioning those rail fleets to zero-emission technology. Our rail team is in the exploratory stage right now, working with potential manufacturers of these vehicles to scope out vehicle specifications and to take our goals from paper to practice. Rail will also be an area where Caltrans can emerge as a national leader, as we transition these vehicles to zero-emission technologies.

“On the transit side, we’re one of the largest funders of zero-emission bus efforts through both state and federal funding that we direct to transit agencies. Transit agencies have state requirements for transitioning their fleets to zero-emission buses, so we’re very interested in providing as much support as we can to achieve these standards, which are beginning to take effect this year.

“The last big bucket is our freight work. And here, again, we’re trying to support the freight industry’s transition to zero-emission technologies, namely by supporting charging and hydrogen fueling infrastructure along truck corridors. We’ve been both an applicant for state funding for these types of projects, and we’re also the administrator of programs that can potentially fund these types of programs. Given the funding that’s available, our position as technical leaders in the freight industry, and our relationships across private and public stakeholders in the freight industry, I expect us to play a large role in support freight’s transition to zero-emission technologies – similar to what we’re doing with transit.”

Does O’Dea see anything in particular being especially difficult, or challenging, to overcome?

“The theme through all of this is transition and change, which are always met with challenges and barriers. The further you are on the leading edge, the more barriers and challenges you’ll encounter. We want to be on the leading edge, and are comfortable facing these new challenges.

“So of those (four main “buckets”), none, I would say, is any more challenging than the others. The issues of transitioning our own fleet to electric technologies are the same ones that the freight industry is experiencing with their vehicles and fleet operators. Maybe in different duty cycles, in some cases, but our snowplows are doing as aggressive of duty cycles as any vehicle out there.

“Public charging – we want to deliver a really good product to the public, which means chargers that are reliable, which hasn’t been the case to date for all companies. There’s a spectrum of reliability in the market right now. We hope to solve that with reliability requirements for funding we administer.”

Are there political forces at play in terms of what individual states do to bring about a national ZEV landscape?

“Before the infrastructure bill,” O’Dea responded, “there were tax credits for electric vehicle purchases for consumers, and tax credits for charger installations. In California we’ve had hundreds of millions of dollars in projects for vehicle incentives both on the passenger side and the commercial side. For infrastructure our Public Utilities Commission adopted some landmark policies to bring the investor-owned utilities into the mix.

“It's very encouraging and exciting, the federal funding that is available right now. It is bringing in states that haven’t been as committed to electrification as California has and that’s a great thing. All boats rise in a high tide. To date, California has been pulling the industry along, nationally, and it’s going to be great to have investments happening across the country that will ultimately benefit us in California with economies of scale and lessons learned from more people and more companies in the mix.

“There’s been some really great interstate planning, particularly on the West Coast, that’s been going on for over a decade that is starting to bear fruit with charging for cars along Interstate 5 in Washington, Oregon, and California. The next step is to build out that infrastructure for trucks.”

Learn more about Caltrans’ ZEV efforts on this Sustainability Office webpage. Find updates on statewide ZEV progress via this California Energy Commission site.

Sources: Jimmy O’Dea, Assistant Deputy Director of Transportation Electrification in the Director’s Office of Equity, Sustainability & Tribal Affairs