Battery-Powered Trucks Bring Weighty Questions to Climate Fight

They’re quiet, don’t rumble like the average semi, and will decrease transportation emissions, but electric trucks pose a potential engineering problem on their way to being part of a climate solution: They’re heavy.

The batteries and other parts needed to propel green models could weigh up to 5,300 pounds more than diesel components, which is unwelcome news for the nation’s already stressed roads and bridges.

But California is moving forward, betting on legal weight limits and technology to lighten the load as it embarks on its ambitious, first-in-the-nation regulation to put hundreds of thousands of electric trucks on the road ...