Editor's note: This article was amended on Jan. 3, 2024, with new information provided by California's Air Resources Board.
Affinity Truck Center will have a great sales year in 2023, President Kim Mesfin says. The Volvo and Mack dealer based in California’s central valley is on pace to approach an all-time record for Class 8 truck deliveries.
But this month, instead of preparing for a historically great sales jump in 2024, Affinity is bracing for a market crash and strategizing how it will survive.
In California, the company’s doomsday outlook isn’t an isolated one. Due to new regulations by California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) set to go into effect Jan. 1, all truck dealers in California are teetering on the brink of disaster.
Unless CARB reverses course, and fast, the days of buying a diesel truck in California might be over a lot earlier than 2036.
“Once existing stock is delivered, we are staring at a reality where when January hits we’re not going to have diesel trucks we can sell,” says Mesfin, who in addition to leading Affinity also serves as Volvo’s line rep with the American Truck Dealers (ATD) and is Chair for the California Truck Dealers (CTD).
Mesfin says the looming cliff event is being created by CARB’s Advanced Clean Trucks, Advanced Clean Fleets and, most specifically, its new Omnibus NOx emissions rule. Though the first regulation is directly tied to OEM zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales requirements, the latter two are proving more destructive for California’s 153 commercial new truck dealers.
