Government Incentives

CURRENT PROGRAMS

The California Hybrid Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) is a unique and streamlined program to help speed the early market introduction of clean, low-carbon hybrid trucks. HVIP accomplishes this by addressing the biggest barrier for fleet purchase of medium- and heavy-duty hybrids: the high incremental cost of these vehicles in the early market years when production volumes are still low.

The HVIP is designed to offset about half of the incremental additional cost of eligible hybrid medium- and heavy-duty vehicles using a simplified purchase voucher. This amount was deemed critical by fleets and manufacturers to assist the early market. The HVIP is also designed to assist fleets and dealers by reducing this cost right at the time of purchase, and has been designed to simplify implementation. Dealers request a voucher with their fleet customers at the time of order; the amounts are pre-set for each qualified vehicle. This first-in-the-nation approach can become a model for effectively spurring clean vehicle technologies.

HVIP provides a meaningful "kick-start" to the low-emission hybrid truck and bus industry; it could help deploy up to 800 vehicles, potentially growing the nation's early market hybrid truck volumes by 50 percent. Since hybrid technology reduces greenhouse gas and criteria emissions, and cuts petroleum use, HVIP provides a strong public benefit by helping speed commercialization of these technologies and supporting a critical ramp-up in production that is necessary to meeting California’s clean air goals.

The HVIP vouchers range from $10,000 to $45,000 on a first-come, first-served basis for the purchase of an eligible new hybrid truck or bus. The HVIP is administered and implemented through a partnership between ARB and CALSTART (which was selected by ARB via a competitive grant solicitation).