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Just when will heavy-duty electric trucks be ready for prime time, and when will motor carriers purchase them?

Last week, President Donald Trump proposed gutting California’s unique ability to write greenhouse gas emission limits for cars and trucks.

California air-pollution regulators want to meet with Trump administration officials over plans to ease federal auto-efficiency standards, saying in a letter to the White House that efforts to undermine the state’s authority would run afoul of the law.

The California Air Resources Board has approved amendments to toughen state standards on heavy truck smoke opacity limits as well as require motor carriers with two or more trucks to report their annual smoke test results to the agency.

Over and over in their decadeslong war on smog, Southern California regulators have failed to use a powerful tool against ports, warehouses and other freight and logistics hubs that are magnets for air pollution.

The Trump administration announced that fuel-efficiency regulations for cars and light trucks are too stringent and must be revised, formally beginning a process sought by the U.S. auto industry to rollback anti-pollution targets.

The Trump administration will argue that the high cost of meeting Obama-era fuel economy standards discourages motorists from trading in less-efficient vehicles, as it sets about weakening the rules, said people familiar with the discussions.

As the Trump administration begins to dismantle Barack Obama’s ambitious auto efficiency regulations, California is said to be poised to retaliate by doing something that automakers have feared: de-coupling the state’s rules with those set in Washington.

California and the Trump administration are on a collision course over auto-efficiency regulations that could lead the White House to deploy the nuclear option: revoking the state’s cherished power to set its own limits on air pollution.