Growth of ZEV’s impacts trucks, buses – and their drivers too

By Elizbeth Perry - Work and Climate Change Report, May 17, 2021

The International Energy Agency released its annual Global Electric Vehicle Outlook report for 2021 in April, providing data, historical trends and future projections. Despite the pandemic, there was a 41% increase in electric vehicle registrations in 2020 – compared to a 16% contraction of the overall global automobile market. There are now more than 10 million electric cars on the world’s roads, and for the first time, Europe overtook China as the centre of the global electric car market. In addition, there are roughly 1 million electric vans, heavy trucks and buses globally. A separate forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, as summarized by The Guardian, projects that electric vehicles will reach price parity with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2027. Another April report from Boston Consulting Group forecasts that zero-emission vehicles will replace ICE vehicles as the dominant powertrain for new light-vehicle sales globally just after 2035.

Most policy discussions of the electrification of transportation focus on the potential for GHG emissions reductions, consumer preferences, and the economic impacts for the automotive industry. There has been a lack of attention on operational workers – with a few exceptions. A 2020 report from the International Labour Organization and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Jobs in green and healthy transport: Making the green shift , offers modelling of employment impacts in a broad definition of transportation, including personal vehicles, trucks and public transport. It focuses on Europe, and discusses the employment impacts in both manufacturing and operation.

A second notable report: The Impacts of Zero Emission Buses on the Transportation Workforce – is a Policy Statement regarding public transit, was released on April 21 by the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and the Transport Workers Union in the U.S.. Their statement warns that major job losses could occur and workers could be left without adequate training, and calls for the federal government in the U.S. to mandate worker protections, including: the Federal Transit Administration should require “advance notification of procurements and workforce impact assessments including potential job displacements or significant changes in responsibilities due to the introduction of new technologies to employee representatives”; a right of first refusal for existing employees to newly created jobs; and requirements for employers and employees to bargain in good faith over the terms of implementing the project. The Statement also call for a national workforce training center to be established to train current employees on the new systems, and a guarantee that workers will be represented on task forces and committees around climate change and technology.

These are policies which might be relevant to the response of the Amalgamated Transit Union in Toronto, where the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), announced a “green fleet expansion”, in partnership with Toronto Hydro and Ontario Power Generation. Their April 9 press release states: “The TTC is currently operating 60 battery-electric buses, the largest zero-emissions fleet in North America, made by three different manufacturers: BYD Canada Co. Ltd., New Flyer Industries Inc. and Proterra Inc. All three have been part of TTC’s innovative ongoing head-to-head evaluation …. The Board is expected to discuss the results of the evaluation and subsequently greenlight the procurement of approximately 300 long-range battery-electric buses that will be delivered between Q1 2023 and Q1 2025.”

Other EV News from Canada

British Columbia’s new report, Zero-Emission Vehicle Update 2020 , states that B.C. has the highest electric vehicle uptake in North America – with 54,469 light-duty ZEVs registered and over 2,500 public charging stations in the province at the end of 2020. On May 14, the province announced increased weight allowances for trucks, “to offset the loss of payload capacity that commercial operators experience with greener vehicles. Low-carbon options weigh more than standard diesel trucks due to the size of their battery packs and hydrogen tanks.” In Vancouver, a draft Climate 2050 Transportation Roadmap was presented to City Council on April 21 – the second in a series of ten Roadmaps that will guide the region’s climate actions to 2050. The Roadmap describes and recommends strategies to increase EV uptake –including an outreach program to large employers to encourage the installation of EV charging stations at workplaces, and facilitate fleet replacement.

In Ontario, two new reports from the Pembina Institute discuss fleet replacement: Making the Case for Electric Urban Delivery Fleets in the GTHA and Making the Switch to Electric Urban Delivery Fleets in the GTHA. Both are directed at fleet managers, but act as useful overviews of the complex issues in such a conversion. Making the Switch acknowledges (though only briefly) the need for training for both drivers and maintenance workers. Information about the impact of driver attitudes and habits appears in Long-haul trucking fleets take emission reductions into their own hands – an April report with case studies of three companies with heavy-duty trucks. These reports are the latest in a series of reports from Pembina, reflecting their sustained interest in the transportation sector.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.