Six States to ban Motorhome Sales

[Eagle5]

Six States to ban Motorhome Sales manufactured on or after January 1st, 2025

1. California
2. Massachusetts
3. New Jersey
4. New York
5. Oregon
6. Washington

Oh my.
Eagle5

[creativepart]

That's what's set to happen. Something tells me that this will all get walked back. There is too much money at stake for it to go to fruition.

[Eagle5]

The economic damage is already happening. New orders are not being placed.

NEW 2025 Diesel Motorhomes UNAVAILABLE for SALE

[Ray,IN]

On irv2.com a man representing himself as a CARB supervisor said that is not true, and linked to the California code. Private MH.s are exempt.

[202235f]

Are they going to ban diesel powered 18 wheelers too?

[creativepart]

WARNING!

We've had to delete a few political posts. You can discuss this issue without mentioning politics or politicians. If you can't, just don't post.

[VaVet]

Class Bs and Cs on Sprinter and Transit chassis will likely be fine under the new regulations. It's true that their GVWR puts them in the focus group, but both Ford and Mercedes sell enough EVs in their overall fleet to qualify them under the EV participation rules. RAM has no EVs yet in their fleet, so Bs built on the Promaster, GVWR 9,350 lbs, will likely not be able to be sold, until RAM gets some of the pending Promaster EVs on the roads.

[COCamper]

I guess they don't really like tourism.

[Eagle5]

I have been thinking about my motorhome dealership here in Washington State; Roy Robinson. They sold-out to Camping World a couple of years back, and I did drop-by last month just to look around. They had very few new Class A motorhomes, and the showroom was displaying lesser-expensive trailers. Could it be that Roy Robinson sold-out in anticipation of this ruling from California? I am beginning to think so. I would speculate that the dealerships will not be able to pencil with only the Class B sales and trailer sales.
Eagle5

[Morich]

Are you folks missing one of the big points?
The internet is about the worst place ever to get reliable information!
If going with what is posted on videos, we might all be aliens!

That might at least explain some things I've seen on forums!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHT--5qY5hY

I favor waiting to get some REAL info!

[HappiHenri]

What is causing all this is the recent CARB (California Air Resources Bureau) ruling, which came 3 days after the election. The regulation is called "Current Zero-Emission Vehicle Regulation", which states that starting January 1, 2025, all 2026 model year vehicles must achieve sales of at least 35% of ZEV (Zero Emission Vehicles). And that's the catch.

The recent Nov 7 decision refused to allow any exceptions by manufacturer, causing real problems for both manufacturers of Spartan and Freightliner diesel chassis - because neither has ANY zero emission alternative. Therefore they cannot meet this goal so will be forced to not sell their vehicles in both California and the 5 other states which follow all CARB regulations.

So how can this be "worked around"? Some thoughts -
(1) Continue to pump out a lot of 2025 MY vehicles instead. From my experience most auto manufacturers like to get a jump on the next Model Year in order to encourage Retail sales. But keep in mind - and this confuses things greatly - we are referring to the drive train only - not the RV manufacturer. So theoretically Spartan and Freight Liner could continue to build 25MY chassis all through 2025. But then the RV manufacturers would have to follow suite, building ONLY 2025 MY vehicles. (for a while).
(2) Customers of these states could still buy 2026 MY diesel RVs in another state. But the problem is that they would very likely not be allowed to register it in their home state. I know this will occur for CA residents.
(3) Customers could still buy a 2026 MY diesel RV in another state, but then register it to an out of state address. Such as a 2nd home, or a friend's or relative's home. But then do not get caught driving it back to your home state where these vehicles are illegal. I know this is VERY true in CA, where a few years back a number of people created a Montana LLC and registered their RV to that Montana address. But some of them then brought that vehicle back to CA - with Montana plates - sending out a big red flag for them to be stopped by CA police to check where the owner of the RV actually lived. If they found a CA resident doing this they faced huge fines and legal action for deliberately trying to evade CA use taxes (Sales tax) and registration fees.
But back to the point - people can still but a 2026MY diesel RV out of state - as long as they never try to bring it back into CA.

So what about Class A gas RVs? Well - since Ford is the only chassis builder of these right now they simply follow Ford sales. So as long as at least 35% of ALL Ford vehicle sales are ZEV then those 2026 MY RVs would be OK.

Others also ask - what about out of state diesel RVs traveling and camping in California of any Model Year? Will they be allowed in? They answer so far is yes - -- BUT - - CARB has already gone after diesel trucks, so it only seems a matter of time - and all indications point this way - that they will eventually ban all non-ZEV out-of-state diesel vehicles from driving in CA. Eventually.

There are many other issues with the CARB ZEV sales regulations, which ramp up to 100% by 2035.
(1) Tracking and enforcement of a sales mandate. The regulations target manufacturer "deliveries" (Retail sales), but Manufacturers do not Retail cars - only their franchised dealers do. So the Manufacturer has very little control over the ZEV sales percentage.
(2) These regulations fall hardest on dealers. Both because of the potential to totally eliminate sales of all diesel RVs, but also in that it falls to dealers to try and achieve a certain sales %. What are they to do if the customer demand is insufficient?

I could go on and on, but it is obvious that the ZEV sales mandates have already created a lot of confusion. And as they currently stand, no 2026 Diesel RVs will be allowed to be sold in both California and the 5 other states which follow those CARB regulations.

For more information you can go to the source -
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/search/site?k...tion&gsc.sort=

[Eagle5]

Thank you Rick - excellent report.
Eagle5

[creativepart]

Here’s a link to a California media article on the “RV Ban” that shares a different perspective on this situation. It’s not a reprieve but shares a non-rv industry solution.

https://www.kcra.com/article/califor...-carb/62953461

Also Oregon and other states are discussing a change to delay implementation of the heavy truck rules:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/oregon-co...004539373.html

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/states-delay-carb-regs

[Morich]

There will never be full agreement on what needs to be done. But I am glad to see somebody is thinking about the problem.
Looking around the country in the last 10-20 years, it is pretty obvious that we are running closer to some really big problems.
Wildfires in the West are also on the East coast. In between there are lots of signs. Nobody even had a name for the type of wind events that now happen in Iowa!
I can't even spell the name for those storms and I was a trained weather observer in the military. We never heard of them as it is a new term!

But whether we want to pay the price or put it off, we WILL have to deal with it at some point or live with the results. Ask the folks in Florida and Houston how they feel about the price they are paying?

If you have a big house on the cliff on the West coast, the price is getting pretty high! I sold out of my nice island place in Florida several years ago!
The new owners got to deal with that problem! WHEW!

I spent $1000 to get the trees trimmed as we now have insurance that won't renew because we now have to figure in ice storms in Austin!
I got off lucky? But my insurance rates are going up! SOMEBODY has to pay the price!

[creativepart]

We own a fully electric car AND a hybrid car, but looking at the realities of the overall automobile market it would seem that CARB needs to take a look at their timeline for zero emission vehicles and make some changes. 2035 is only 10-years away and it seems unrealistic to expect the total change over from ICE to BEV at this point.

We love our electric BMW i-4 but it could never be our only car.

I said previously, I expect this to be "fixed" or at least adjusted pretty soon. There are too many financial interests at stake - not just RVs but Heavy Trucks - for this to continue as is.

[Eagle5]

One cannot schedule an invention. Right now, Samsung has the only battery solution which could possibly handle larger truck applications (the Silver/Carbon - Lithium battery) and the power generation and distribution capacity to recharge them is not there.
One of my neighbors is a manager at a Ford Dealership, and he says this will pretty much wipe-out the RV dealers if the situation is not corrected immediately.

[Morich]

I fully agree that it is likely way late in the game to start and it most likely will NOT get done.
But it is like when we are in a flood and know we can't swim fast enough?
We get two choices, put it off or try!

Most of us are old enough that it will likely not become too critical for us. But that will take some major thought to try to avoid the worst results. I've been able to avoid the big direct costs like losing a house, etc. as I was able to sell before land along the river began to flood too often and then I was able to sell the Florida property at the right time as well.
Much of it was a matter of lucky timing but I still have my children and grandkids to solve the problems!
A bit like deciding whether to get an oil change done or put it off until I really am forced to do it? Pay now or pay lots more later and it seems like most folks are willing to put it off!
My wife has farm background folks in her family and I'm surprised at how many assume they have to take care of the stock and the farm in a different way than they assume we can take care of where WE live. They just never consider putting too much stock in any one barn and not cleaning up the mess.
But when it comes to cleaning up the mess we make as we go along? That costs too much!

Most of us who have had RV for very long know that they are not really a practical thing to have! So, at some point in the future, it is likely to become out of reach when we have to look at the practical side of things. We can afford it for now but how long that will last is still a work in progress.

[Eagle5]

An update to the original article was just released:
https://camperreport.com/will-califo...sales-in-2025/

1. CARB said it does have the authority to create exemptions to the regulation.
2. Another meeting is being arranged in early December

In the meantime, dealerships cannot order new motorhomes, which is trapping us in an economic black hole.
FYI; Eagle5

We are caught in a trap

[Scotty B]

And then there is this from an email I received today...

[Morich]

This seems to be the same old nonsense that has been going on for a hundred years in different fields!
The big difference is that we now have unlimited range to pass nonsense on with the internet.
Before when things like this were proposed, only a limited number of people ever heard about it.
Remember when bigger trucks were a big issue? Same type discussion only not all the "loose lips" talking about it!

The world has some major problems but whether we can buy or drive a motorhome is NOT one of them!
But it does what much of the internet does. It means money for the folks who can promote the most traffic.
Whether it has any merit or not is no concern for the folks who sell the ads!
Like any good TV show, drama sells, so they like to create lots of drama!