Looking to buy a new diesel motorhome? If you live in one of six states, you may find you can’t. A new air quality regulation issued in California has effectively slammed the door on new diesel motorhome sales, not just in California, but in five other states as well. The other states are Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.
You may wonder why California is the driving force here.
The RV Industry is reeling this week as California and five other clean air states are about to ban the sale of motorhomes with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of over 8,500 pounds.
This includes most motorhomes.
The average weight range for a Class C motorhome is 10,000–12,000 pounds.
The range for a Super C motorhome is 19,500 pounds and up
The average GVWR of a Class A motorhome typically ranges from 13,000 to 30,000 pounds
Class B motorhomes or campervans typically weigh 6,000- 8,000 pounds GVWR and thus won’t be affected.
California motorhome rule kills sales
On October 24, 2024 CARB (the California Air Resources Board) amended its Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) regulations. Essentially, these new regulations require that all vehicles over 8,500 pounds GVWR must produce zero emissions. A credit system allows manufacturers to continue to sell a given number of fossil-fuel engines in California provided they have non-polluting vehicles to offset.
Two major diesel chassis builders, Freightliner and Spartan, have told Newmar Corp that they can’t meet that requirement. In a letter to dealers, Newmar says that effective today (November 4), they will no longer be able to provide any diesel-fueled motorhomes on those platforms.
The new regulation isn’t just limited to Newmar. The law applies to all motorhomes.
California residents who think they can do an end-run around the new California motorhome rule should think twice. Leave the state, buy the motorhome of your choice, and bring it back to California—hit a brick wall. California residents will NOT be allowed to register their rig if it doesn’t meet the ACT regulations. The same may be true in the other five states. Dealers in Washington State are working to get an exemption for RVs under Washington’s law but it remains to be seen whether that will happen.
Now the reason this has shocked the industry is because frankly the industry really expected an exemption from a program that seems aimed at big diesel trucks that are driven around the clock, not low mileage recreation vehicles that typically drive 3,000-5,000 miles a year.
Their reasoning is sound. It seems pretty cut and dry. But several industry leaders feel much more should have been done and that perhaps there was a complacency and lack of urgency in dealing with this.
The Advanced Clean Truck Regulation
California and the five other states that have signed on to the same clean air regulations haven’t made a secret of this at all. The Advanced Clean Truck Regulation has been out there for over a year now. The other states that have adopted it are Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.
You may wonder why California is the driving force here.
Because under Section 177 the federal Clean Air Act that regulates air emissions, California is the only state authorized to set vehicle emission standards and other states wanting to adopt their own such regulations can do so only if they are identical to California’s.
Really! I’m not making this up.
But no one in the industry really thought RVs would be affected by the Advanced Clean Truck Regulation. They thought RVs would be treated differently than big commercial trucks once regulators understood the problem making big motorhomes all EV.
But that understanding didn’t happen and as of right now California and the five other states following that ACT regulation have not only exempted RVs but in fact will halt the sales of most motorhomes manufactured after January 1, 2025.
Why? Because of clean air regulations, internal combustion vehicle manufacturers are required to have a certain percentage of EVs—11 percent in 2025. The bigger the percentage, the more “credits” the regulation gives them to allow sales.
That’s years away for most motorhomes.
Winnebago, Thor, and others have tinkered around with EV Class B campervans but none are near ready for the marketplace.
The technology for bigger Class As and Super Cs just isn’t anywhere near ready for that to happen because the weight of the batteries required to power a big motorhome would make them so heavy they could barely move and the frames, tires, and components currently available just could not handle it.
This is very complicated and bureaucratic and it is led by California and The California Air Resources Board (CARB), which has been on a relentless quest to force internal combustion engine manufacturers to go EV by requiring them to have ever-increasing percentages of their fleet be all-electric.
The car manufacturers have been largely complying but the rule that is now causing all the controversy is the Advanced Clean Truck regulation and how it affects recreational motorhomes.
The new Advanced Clean Truck Regulation followed by California and five other states as of January 1, 2025 bans all new vehicles over 8,500 pounds unless their manufacturers also make a certain percentage of zero-emission Electric Vehicles. RV motorhomes are not excluded.
So here’s the catch: As I said, the bigger motorhomes have no EVs. And they won’t—at least not for a long time.
For Class C motorhomes the situation is better.
Most Class Cs are built on the Ford Transit or Mercedes Sprinter chassis. And both Ford and Mercedes do make EVs for other larger fleets providing some credits that may get them clear of ACT’s requirements.
Big Class A and Super C RV manufacturers like Newmar and chassis makers like Freightliner and Spartan have no such emission credit advantage. They thought, however, they would get an exemption from ACT because they are so niche and are unable to make EVs.
They were wrong and have now notified their dealers in the six states that no new models will be shipped to them in 2025.
The RVIA letter
The RVIA (Recreation Vehicle Manufacturers Association) also thought big motorhomes would be excluded from the regulation and submitted a long letter to California regulators.
Here’s part of the RVIA’s plea for an exemption:
“…we are asking CARB to exempt motorhomes from the ACT Regulation as is currently the
case with emergency vehicles or at least defer compliance for motorhomes until such time that
ZEV chassis for the motorhome market are readily available and desired by consumers.
“This would allow RV manufacturers, RV dealers, and consumers alike to avoid the loss of the entire motorhome industry in the state while having minimal impact on the California environment. It would also prevent an economic loss of several hundred millions of dollars for California RV dealers alone and for motorhome manufacturers some of which are based in California.
“In 2023, motorhome manufacturers shipped a total of 5,898 motorhomes to California as compared with the 134,956 Medium- and Heavy-Duty trucks and tractors sold in California last year. … motorhomes represent only 11.8 million miles versus the 4.8 billion miles for medium- and heavy-duty trucks making it obvious that an exemption for motorhomes will not have an adverse impact on environmental concerns.”
But that exemption didn’t happen during the California Air Resources Board’s meeting last week and the RV industry is stunned. Again, it’s not just California. Five other states are following the same rules—Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. More states are considering it.
Newmar’s letter to dealers
Last week, Newmar sent a letter to its dealers saying that after existing inventory that was manufactured before January 1 is sold, dealers will not be able to get their 2025 model Class A diesel motorhomes and Super C RVs in those six states.
This could be just the start. Looking further out a bunch of other states are following the California example and considering enacting the ACT regulation. Unless things change, similar bans on big motorhomes could be coming from other states in 2026 and 2027.
“Unless things change!” Those are the operative words. The RVIA is still working hard to get an exemption for motorhomes.
Here is an official statement from RVIA: “While we are continuing to work with manufacturers, dealers, and CARB to find a solution, if nothing changes, motorhomes will not be able to be sold and registered in California beginning in 2025.”
Note that the RVIA said in their statement “motorhomes will not be able to be sold.” In their letter to the California Clean Air Resources Board, they warned of the “loss of the entire motorhome industry” in the state. Those are sweeping statements. When asked for clarification, RVIA spokesperson Monika Geraci underscored the scope of the ban.
“All motorhomes are impacted by the ACT,” she said.
From what I can tell the industry was caught flatfooted by this and is embarrassed. They were all so sure that they would allowed to continue to sell new motorhomes in California because EV technology is simply unworkable right now for larger motorhomes. They were wrong.
They’re still hoping to secure an exemption believing that California—the leader on these regulations—and other states will recognize the undue burden being placed on the RV industry.
I should point out that giant motorhomes built with Ford F53 engines will be permitted to be sold after January 1. As noted earlier, this is because Ford also manufactures EVs including the Ford F-150 Lightning and various other passenger vehicles which allow it to meet the EV percentage requirements for its entire fleet.
There are so many questions about this.
Can California residents buy a 2025 motorhome RV outside the state and register it in California? No. What about out of state owners of new 2025 Class A and and Super C motorhomes, can they take them to California and camp there? Probably, though it’s not entirely clear and, if so, they may need a permit.
So this is very much an evolving story.
The Advanced Clean Truck regulations include numerous provisions and annual benchmarks that must be met further strengthening the shift toward zero-emission vehicles. As this push for electric vehicles continues we can expect to see increasing controversy from California and other states.
Believe me, there is a lot of confusion over this. A lot of scrambling is underway and hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake in lost sales if that ban indeed takes place. I’ll do my best to keep track of this all but at this point I can see this is a huge disruption and setback to the very lucrative luxury segment of the RV industry.
And when one segment of the industry takes a hit, so do all the others.
So stay tuned. We’ve not heard the end of this.
Worth Pondering…
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.
―Albert Einstein
