This story is part of the November 24th, 2024 RV and Camping News Video.
The RV Industry Association (RVIA) has meet with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to work on resolving the ruling that will ban most motorhome sales in 6 states in 2025 and a few more in 2026 and 2027.
RVIA Meets with CARB
RVIA staff and several motorhome manufacturers met with CARB on Tuesday, in a meeting that was requested by CARB to discuss the RVIA’s written comments submitted back in October of 2024.
According to the RVIA, CARB also wanted to hear more directly from RVIA members on what they are being told by the chassis manufacturers regarding why they are unable to deliver products.
From other articles and statements it seems like CARB was surprised that motorhome manufacturers were telling RV manufacturers that they would not be able to manufacture compliant chassis.
What Manufacturers Are Struggling with Ruling?
I’m not going to give you the whole backstory here because we’ve discussed it in detail on a few recent videos, but essentially a chassis manufacturer has to have 11% of their fleet be zero emission vehicles in 2025, which is essentially electric and hydrogen. That’s fine for someone like Ford who makes gas motorhome chassis and electric vehicles, but someone like Freightliner or Spartan who make big diesel pusher RV chassis cannot comply because they are specialty manufacturers that don’t have the diversification that someone like Ford has.
CARB thought they’d solved this problem by allowing to purchase unused “credits” from other manufacturers on a marketplace, which I’m hearing the going rate is about $10,000. So what you have is a situation where you have to pay your competitor ten grand to be able to compete with them, and the manufacturers say this is not solution at all and were expecting an exemption in October for the comparatively small number of vehicles in these states that are motorhomes which also don’t get driven very much and are therefore lower emitting vehicles than one might think.
CARB Doesn’t Have the Authority
At the meeting, the RVIA repeated their belief that an exemption or a delay in implementation from the ruling would be the best way forward. But notably,CARB said it does have the authority to create exemptions to the regulation. They stated that allowable exemptions are set by the law, which created the rule, not by CARB.
Dealers Can Still Sell Motorhomes
The RVIA has also been able to clarify that dealers should be able to sell motorhomes in these 6 states as long as the customer intends to register them in a different state. This ruling seems like a way to open up lots of legal issues, as most states require you to register your vehicles at your home address.
This rule would seems to be directed at out-of-state buyers, but some people do work questionable legal loopholes by getting their vehicles registered under an LLC in Montana.
What States Have Adopted the CARB ACT?
There are ten states which have adopted the CARB ACT rule. Rules in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington will take effect with the 2025 model year. Vermont will take effect with the 2026 model year, and Colorado, Maryland, New Mexico, and Rhode Island with the 2027 model year.
While no final resolution was attained, all sides agreed to continue talking and another meeting is being arranged in early December. Time will tell if a resolution is even possible.
This story is part of the weekly RV Miles RV and Camping News Roundup. For more RV news become a Mile Marker Member and receive our weekly OnRamp newsletter. Each week OnRamp features the top stories from the weekly news video along with a collection of stories we are reading but didn’t make it into the video.
