HVIP FY23-24 Funding and Policy Changes

November 17, 2023

On November 16, 2023, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-24 Funding Plan for Clean Transportation Incentives, which includes policy changes and an allocation of over $400 million for school buses, drayage trucks, and small truck fleets to be administered by the Clean Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP), including through Innovative Small E-Fleets (ISEF) and the Public School Bus Set-Aside.

In addition, over $500 million remains available now for new voucher requests across all vehicle types and fleets. Available funding is updated daily at www.CaliforniaHVIP.org/funding.

The Funding Plan outlines the following adopted policy changes for HVIP:

Effective November 17, 2023: New Small Fleet Definition and Doubling Small Fleet Voucher Amounts

For requests placed on or after 11/17/23, small fleets are now defined as public fleets with 20 or fewer medium- and heavy-duty (MHD) vehicles or private fleets with 20 or fewer MHD vehicles and less than $15 million in annual revenue. The change in small fleet definition will apply to all uses, including eligibility for the 15% Disadvantaged Community (DAC) Plus Up, additional fund stacking flexibility with State incentive programs (e.g. Moyer, Volkswagen), and newly increased base vouchers.

The base voucher will be doubled for small public and private fleets submitting new voucher requests on or after 11/17/23 in Standard HVIP, the Drayage Truck Set-Aside, or the Public Transit Set-Aside, for any HVIP-eligible vehicles. This includes requests that would have otherwise been ISEF standard purchases. All standard purchases formerly made through ISEF will now be funded through HVIP and all existing ISEF standard purchase vouchers will be automatically adjusted to reflect the new HVIP small fleet incentive levels. No action is required by dealers and purchasers, and additional information will be forthcoming. Innovative Solutions such as short-term leases, rentals, and Truck-as-a-Service will continue to be available through ISEF.

An example calculation can be viewed in the FAQs at www.CaliforniaHVIP.org/About. The +100% base adjustment will replace the existing fleet size base adjustment of +15% which was previously in effect for private and public fleets with 10 or fewer MHD vehicles.

The criteria used to determine eligible fleet size follows the definition in the FY22-23 Implementation Manual until 1/1/24, when the fleet size definition will be updated to align with the Advanced Clean Fleets regulation, as described below.

Important note for dealers and purchasers: Updates to the online Voucher Processing Center are underway, and voucher-specific updates will be provided regarding forthcoming adjustments to vouchers to address the above policies in the coming weeks. For example, increased voucher amounts or adjustments to DAC eligibility will not be visible immediately on 11/17. 

Effective January 1, 2024:

Updated Fleet Size definition: for Standard HVIP and all Set-Asides except for the Public School Bus Set Aside, HVIP’s fleet size definition for voucher requests placed on or after 1/1/24 will be inclusive of the fleet’s vehicles domiciled anywhere globally that are over 8,500 lbs GVWR, including all such vehicles under common ownership or control, as defined in HVIP’s Implementation Manual.

Fleet size is inclusive of vehicles registered with the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) as non-operational, but excluding off-road vehicles, unregistered vehicles, and those registered with the DMV as non-revivable junk or dismantled.

PO age: Starting 1/1/24, Purchase Orders or other binding sales agreements for private-entity purchasers can be dated no earlier than 90 calendar days before the date the voucher request is submitted. For public-entity purchasers, POs or other binding sales agreements can be no older than March 30, 2023.

Additional limitations may apply to fleets subject to the Advanced Clean Fleet Regulation.

More information about fleet size and POs is available in the FAQs at www.CaliforniaHVIP.org/About.

Other updates:

• The existing +25% Early Adopter voucher enhancements for Refuse and Drayage, described at CaliforniaHVIP.org/funding, are extended to 12/31/24.
• ​​​Public transit fleets and fleets purchasing refuse vehicles will have an annual voucher request cap of 50 starting in 2024, in line with the existing cap for drayage purchasers. For other purchasers, the cap remains 30 vouchers per calendar year.
• The existing Manufacturer Rolling Soft Cap will continue until new Performance Review parameters are determined; a public Workgroup is anticipated in early 2024.
• Vehicle-to-Grid functionality, or bi-directional charging, will be required on all HVIP battery electric school bus vehicle eligibility applications submitted to CARB on or after 1/1/24. Applications are found in the Manufacturer Resources section at CaliforniaHVIP.org/sellers.
• Private fleets of more than 50 vehicles remain eligible to request HVIP vouchers until January 1, 2025, postponing by a year the policy set in the FY 2022-23 Funding Plan.
• The FY23-24 Implementation Manual is anticipated to be released in spring 2024 with more information about these changes, with mandatory Dealer Training to be announced in advance.​​​

For more information, please contact [email protected].​​​