Clean heavy-duty on-road vehicles

The on-road truck and transit bus grant funded by the VW settlement will improve Minnesota’s air quality by taking 124 old dirty diesel engines off the road, reducing harmful tailpipe pollution in the communities where these vehicles operate. The new vehicles reduce emissions by about 95%.

Awarded grants

Approximately 55 applications were received in July 2019, requesting nearly $8 million in grants—more than twice the amount available. After all eligible projects were evaluated and scored, 29 businesses were notified that they would receive grant funding of up to $40,000 per vehicle.

The new trucks will replace older, more polluting models, from 2009 or earlier, and include refuse and recycling trucks, short-haul semi-trucks, flatbed, bread and fuel delivery trucks, and dump trucks. Seven of the replacements are all-electric models, and one new truck is powered by compressed natural gas (CNG). The majority of the trucks are within class 8, the largest on-road category, while roughly twenty-five percent are mid-sized trucks in class 4-7. These trucks operate in communities across the state as well as the Twin Cities metro area.

Over the lifetime of the vehicles, projects funded by this grant are expected to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (257 tons), fine-particle pollution (12 tons), and greenhouse gases (11,000 tons).