Clean-Air Vehicles at a Fraction of the Price

Fleets / purchasers do not apply for HVIP vouchers directly. HVIP-eligible dealers are responsible for securing HVIP voucher funding through the online Voucher Processing Center. A purchaser should connect with an HVIP-approved dealer to acquire their vehicle and the dealer will take it from there to acquire the voucher. If you have a trusted dealer relationship or already have a vehicle in mind, connect us with your dealer and we can help them become HVIP-eligible.

If you are a school district in a small- or medium-sized air district, the FY21-22 School Bus Set-Aside has been fully subscribed. School buses are now being funded with standard HVIP funds.

Yes, there are different requirements depending on fleet size, effective January 1, 2023, including flexibility for stacking with other state incentive programs, exceptions to the manufacturer soft rolling cap, reserved funds, bulk purchase requirements, and voucher adjustments. Additional fleet size requirements will take effect starting January 1, 2024. See the Funding Updates page and HVIP FY22-23 Policy Changes and Funding announcement for more details.

For ISEF, fleets must contain 20 or fewer trucking operating in California and less than $15 million in annual revenue. Please check Appendix F for more details on eligibility requirements.

Starting January 1, 2024, consistent with the Advanced Clean Fleet Regulation, HVIP’s fleet size definition will include ALL vehicles owned directly or under common ownership, including those domiciled or operated outside of California.

Yes. Fleets may request up to 30 vouchers per calendar year. The cap for drayage fleets is set at 50 voucher requests per year. Requests that are redeemed within the same year they are requested do not count against the cap.

HVIP does not require scrappage of an old vehicle except for the Public School Bus Set Aside for Small and Medium Air Districts and does not have any requirements about what happens to replaced vehicles. For more information about truck replacement, visit CARB’s One Stop Truck site.

HVIP eligible vehicles can be found in our Eligible Catalog. You can filter and search by vehicle type, manufacturer, vehicle size, and more. Incentive amounts per vehicle are the discount that a purchaser would receive. To know what the TOTAL price of the vehicle will be, contact one of our approved dealers. Our approved dealers will work out a price with you and then on your purchase order, there will be the HVIP incentive amount subtracted from the price that was negotiated.

The HVIP vehicle catalog only publishes the incentive amount per vehicle; the total cost of the vehicle will be determined between you and your dealer and noted in your Purchase Order.

HVIP was created to reduce price barriers, enabling fleets to adopt more clean heavy-duty commercial vehicles. Created by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in 2009, HVIP provides point-of-sale discount vouchers that reduce the purchase cost of vehicles operated in the State of California. HVIP vouchers make zero-emission and Low NOx buses and trucks as affordable as their traditional fossil-fueled counterparts at point of sale and reduce prices for medium- and heavy-duty hybrid vehicles. Funded vehicles include parcel, beverage, and food-distribution trucks, transit buses, shuttle buses, and more.

The goal of HVIP is to accelerate and facilitate the adoption of low-emitting hybrid, low NOx, and zero-emission trucks and buses. These vehicles are relatively new technologies and are therefore more expensive than traditional vehicles, especially in the early market years when production volumes are low. CARB recognizes that these vehicles have the proven ability to reduce criteria and greenhouse gas (GHG) pollutants in California and aims to accelerate the penetration of these cleaner vehicles to help meet state clean air regulations and climate change goals. HVIP is part of the California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that invests Cap and Trade dollars.

For standard HVIP and the drayage and transit set-asides, vouchers are awarded on a first-come, first-served basis unless a randomization process is needed if funds are subscribed within the first 24 hours that HVIP is open only.

The Public School Bus Set-Aside for Small and Medium Air Districts has different rules; please contact [email protected] respectively.

Funding status is confirmed shortly after submission with no uncertainty regarding securing funding, and no lengthy application or bid process. HVIP is a streamlined funding mechanism that is set up for ease of use by end-users. Dealers, not purchasers, are responsible for securing HVIP funding – fleet owners do not need to gain an understanding of the voucher process to receive the full benefits of HVIP funding. A list of participating dealers can be found in the HVIP Eligible Vehicles Catalog.

Sign up for the California HVIP e-mail list by filling out the form: Contact Us.

Please email [email protected] or call the HVIP toll-free hotline at 888-457-HVIP.

After the first 24 hours of HVIP opening, the Available Funding table on the website lists how much money has been requested. This reflects the funds based on the vouchers requested to-date as long as funds remain. All voucher participants will be notified of which funding pots are open through the website, email, and VPC notifications.

All HVIP-eligible vehicles can be found in the clean vehicle catalog. If you think a vehicle is eligible, but do not see it listed, please send an email to [email protected].

CARB recognizes that battery size is the largest determinant of battery-electric vehicle cost, therefore HVIP has simplified the voucher tables to one single voucher table based on vehicle weight rating. The incentive amounts are accompanied by voucher modifiers to support unique fleets (public transit and school districts) as well as costlier vehicle bodies. 

Yes, however the ability to combine funding sources may be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

Generally, local and federal funds can be stacked with HVIP, while stacking HVIP with state-funded incentives is NOT permitted, except for public transit buses or, effective 1/1/23, fleets size 10 vehicles and smaller if the other program allows stacking, each incentive program is not paying for the same incremental cost, and the non-HVIP incentive program is not required to generate greenhouse gas emission reductions. This includes stacking with other California Climate Investment programs.

For public transit buses or fleets size 10 vehicles and smaller, HVIP will fund the remaining cost up to the maximum voucher amount after the other incentives have been applied at their maximum allowable amounts.

The total voucher amount (base incentive plus voucher enhancements), plus all other eligible public incentives, may not exceed 90 percent of the total vehicle cost for purchases by private entities, and 100% for purchases by public entities.

No, they are not. The Clean Vehicle Rebate Project provides incentives for the purchase or lease of new, eligible zero-emission vehicles, including electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and fuel cell vehicles.

A DAC is a Census-designated area that is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because of socioeconomic and geographic factors. HVIP provides increased incentives for fleets domiciled within disadvantaged communities. The value of this “plus up” varies by vehicle type and increases for larger vehicles, and there are other requirements as listed in the “Community Specific Incentive” space on this page.

Effective 7/21/23, HVIP defines DAC eligibility as a vehicle domicile address in any of the following areas of the map at https://webmaps.arb.ca.gov/PriorityPopulations/:

• Disadvantaged Communities (Yellow area on map legend)
• Disadvantaged and Low Income Communities (Green; yellow AND blue area on map legend)
• Low Income Communities within ½ mile of a Disadvantaged Community (Crosshatched purple area on map legend) and
• Low Income Households within ½ mile of a Disadvantaged Community (Crosshatched grey area on map legend)

Answers to frequently asked questions for Fiscal Year 2021-22 can be found in the FY21-22 Implementation FAQs.

The HVIP Public School Bus Set-Aside & EnergIIZE – Joint Application will open on June 20th, 2023, at 10:00am (PT) and remain open until September 29, 2023, at 5:00pm (PT).  The link to apply will be available on the HVIP Purchasers page: https://californiahvip.org/purchasers/#SchoolBus. Applicants will find the application link on Card #1 titled, “FY22-23 HVIP Public School Bus Set-Aside & EnergIIZE – Joint Application.”   

The HVIP Public School Bus Set-Aside requires that the eligible applicant/purchaser complete the initial application (Application Part A).   

Eligible applicants interested in applying should be prepared to provide the following:   

1. Letter of Intent  
2. A copy of the DMV registration for each old school bus included on application 
3. Preliminary information regarding existing and planned charging infrastructure   

A Letter of Intent is required to submit Application Part A. A Letter of Intent template can be found here: Letter of Intent.  The Letter of Intent must be signed by an authorized applicant representative and state the applicant’s intent to purchase zero-emission school bus(es).   

Public school districts in California that own their own school buses are eligible to participate in the Public School Bus Set‐Aside.  This includes public school districts that own their school buses but contract with a County Office of Education or private contractor for maintenance and operations.  Where two or more public school districts have formed a Joint Powers Authority (JPA), and the JPA holds ownership of the school buses, the JPA is eligible to participate. Public charter schools that own their own school buses and County Offices of Education that own their own school buses are also eligible to participate. 

All applicants must serve students within the K-12th grade levels.  

Eligible applicants include:  

• California Public School Districts 
• California Public Charter Schools, as listed at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/si/cs/ 
• California Joint Power Authorities (JPAs) 
• California County Offices of Education (COEs) 
• Division of State Special Schools of the California Department of Education  

 Private schools are not eligible applicants.   

Applicants will be prioritized according to the size of the air district they are located in and whether they are located in a Disadvantaged Community (DAC) or a Low-Income Community (LIC).  All applicants will be placed into a Priority Group.  The Priority Groups are as follows:  

• Priority Group 1 – Applicants located in a small-sized air district and in a DAC or a LIC 
• Priority Group 2 – Applicants located in a small-sized air district, not in a DAC or a LIC 
• Priority Group 3 – Applicants located in a medium-sized air district and in a DAC or a LIC   
• Priority Group 4 – Applicants located in a medium-sized air district, not in a DAC or a LIC 

Prior to the close of the initial application window, funds will be prioritized first to applicants in Priority Group 1, based on timestamp of Application Part A.  After the close of the initial application window, if funding is available after all Priority Group 1 applications are reviewed, funding for Priority Groups 2-4 will be randomized among each respective Priority Group.   

A list of school districts that meet the DAC or LIC priority criteria for the HVIP Public School Set-Aside can be found at https://californiahvip.org/purchasers/#SchoolBus.  The list was created by CALSTART to help identify school districts that meet DAC and LIC priority criteria for the HVIP Public School Bus Set-Aside.  

The list excludes other eligible applicant types (California Joint Power Authorities (JPAs), Division of State Special Schools and California County Offices of Education).  If you do not see your school district or organization listed and believe your service area overlaps with the boundaries of a DAC or LIC, please contact [email protected].   

If the Public School Bus Set-Aside is oversubscribed during the initial application window, funding will be assigned using a randomization process to manage demand and create a waitlist. All applications in Priority Groups 2 through 4 will be randomized as needed and based on demand. Eligible applications will be assigned their place in the queue for funding using a random-number generator, with the caveat that all applications will be randomized within their respective Priority Groups.    

The process of applying the randomization will be conducted by the Grantee and witnessed by CARB staff. The process will be video recorded, and the recording will be available upon request. 

The old school bus can be any internal combustion engine using any fuel type. The following are the old school bus eligibility requirements:  

• The school bus chassis must be a 2010 model year or older. The school bus chassis age is verified by the model year listed on the DMV Registration Form.  
• The school bus must be applicant owned. The school bus cannot have a lienholder listed on the DMV Registration Form.  
• The school bus must have a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) greater than 14,000 pounds. School bus(es) with a GVWR of exactly 14,000 pounds or less than 14,000 pounds are not eligible.  
• The school bus must have a current California Highway Patrol Safety Certification (CHP 292 or equivalent).  
• The diesel-fueled school bus(es) must be compliant with the California Truck and Bus Regulation in order to receive a full voucher amount. In cases where the old school bus is not compliant, a $20,000 voucher deduction will be applied.  

A lienholder will not prevent an eligible applicant from applying, however it can slow down the approval process significantly and, in some cases, can even prevent an applicant from receiving funding.  If possible, it is best to remove lienholders before applying. Removing the lienholder can be a time-consuming process.  Please refer to the State of California Department of Motor Vehicles website to learn more. 

The old school bus(es) is required to be California Highway Patrol Safety Certified (CHP 292 or equivalent) at the time of Application Part A and remain certified until Terms and Conditions (funding contract) have been fully executed.  

 It is imperative to the success of your project to provide timely responses to the HVIP Public School Bus and EnergIIZE Teams. The quicker applicants can resolve questions and/or document corrections, the quicker projects can move forward. Applicant correspondence from the HVIP Public School Bus Team can be sent from the HVIP Voucher Processing Center ([email protected]) or CALSTART School Bus Team ([email protected]).  Please make sure to add these contacts to your email to ensure you do not miss any correspondence. 

If at any stage in the Public School Bus Set-Aside application or funding process, an applicant ceases to respond to CARB or its administrators regarding missed deadlines, for a period beyond 30 days, funding may be cancelled and reallocated to another applicant.   

Eligible applicants who apply for the HVIP Public School Bus Set-Aside & EnergIIZE – Joint Application will be eligible for two awards, one through the HVIP Public School Bus Set-Aside for new zero-emission school bus(es) and one through EnergIIZE for the charging infrastructure and construction costs.   

Per the FY22-23 Funding Plan for Clean Transportation Incentives, V2G functionality, or bi-directional charging, will be required on all HVIP battery electric school bus vehicle eligibility applications submitted to the California Air Resources Board on or after January 1, 2024. Applications are found in the Manufacturer Resources section at www.californiahvip.org/sellers. Specifically, all new battery electric school buses must comply with ISO 15118-20 Road Vehicles, vehicle to grid communication interface, Part 20: 2nd generation network layer and application layer requirements. OEMs must self-certify as to this capability on their school bus vehicle eligibility applications. The V2G requirement was initially introduced to the HVIP Vehicle Catalog as a requirement for the Public School Bus Set-Aside in 2022.