For media inquiries, contact:
Sasha Tenenbaum, stenenbaum@calstart.org
Jennifer Smith, jsmith@calstart.org

Detroit, MI — Today, CALSTART released the 2025 update to its ZET Ahead Dashboard, an interactive visualization of the progress 23 states (and the District of Columbia) have made toward accelerating the adoption of zero-emission vans, trucks, and buses. A Q&A blog post accompanies the release. This updated dashboard debuts alongside the preeminent national clean transportation event Forth Roadmap Conference (October 14–16 in Detroit).  

The 2025 update to ZET Ahead includes detailed profiles of 6 new states: Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Georgia, and Florida, as well as progress updates to the 17 states originally featured on the dashboard. This year’s dashboard update also adds a new Economic Development market dimension, analyzing complementary tax and workforce development policies that encourage clean transportation investment. 

The ZET Ahead Dashboard is used by policymakers, investors, industry stakeholders, and advocates to stay informed about the most impactful state actions and investments supporting zero-emission trucking. The dashboard also provides a framework for states looking to kick-start their transition to zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. 

In an era of constrained funding and increasingly complex and competing priorities, the ZET Ahead Dashboard provides state staff with a succinct playbook for initiating, growing, and sustaining an ecosystem for zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Based on three decades of experience, CALSTART has identified the most impactful actions for states working to decarbonize their transport sector, using a strategy that requires not just one program or one policy, but rather a suite of complimentary deployments across a range of targeted areas such as: Targets, Planning, Economic Development, Vehicles Incentives, Infrastructure, Innovative Policy, and Regulations. 

What is equally noteworthy in this year’s release is the newly added Economic Development dimension, which includes industry strategy and clustering, public financing, tax inducements, streamlined permitting, business assistance, and workforce development, among other sectors. Low-carbon, zero-emitting technologies, vehicles, and infrastructure are critical growth areas for the world economy, and states with strong market and regulatory support for these technologies will be attractive sites for manufacturing, service, and support. In particular, infrastructure installation and maintenance jobs are “hyper-local” – they must be done in the region – and are a powerful area for job training, incentives, and favorable policies. 

Alissa Burger, Regional Policy Director

“States have a newly updated tool in their toolbox when it comes to zero-emission truck and bus adoption. Our ZET Ahead dashboard provides actionable information and much-needed guidance. In fact, the data we’re seeing this year make clear that the groundwork to enable zero-emission trucking is no longer regionally clustered. And favorable market conditions are now spreading out across the entire United States,” said Alissa Burger, Regional Policy Director at CALSTART. “Every state in the country — red or blue, urban or rural, big or small — can take steps today to enable freight modernization with zero-emission trucks tomorrow.” 

Background:
While vans, trucks, and buses (otherwise known as medium- and heavy-duty vehicles) make up less than 5% of vehicles on U.S. roads, this vehicle segment contributes a disproportionate burden in terms of both greenhouse gas emissions and harmful local air pollution. Accordingly, medium- and heavy-duty vehicle electrification presents outsize potential for climate abatement and improved urban air quality. 

About CALSTART

A mission-driven industry organization focused on transportation decarbonization and clean air for all, CALSTART has offices in New York, Michigan, Colorado, California, Florida, and Europe. CALSTART is uniquely positioned to build the national clean transportation industry by working closely with its more than 210 member companies and building on the lessons learned from the major programs it manages for the State of California. CALSTART manages more than $1 billion in vehicle incentive and technical assistance programs in the United States and is leading a global effort to build the zero-emission commercial vehicle market.