'Just' dislocating the pollution away from a dense city block at street level, where people live and work, to a power plant where emissions have less human impact and can be addressed more effectively, sounds great.

Trash collection just dislocates rotting food scraps and garbage from city streets to a landfill. I think it's an acceptable arrangement!

Trash is not a meaningful analogy, for obvious reasons. I agree there are some benefits to dislocation to the power plant, but nearly enough nor as many as just turning off the engine.

Keeping a battery or even a cab warm doesn’t require so much electricity. Also, it depends on how the electricity is generated (hydro, nuclear, coal with much better scrubbers than a small ICE). Even let’s say the electricity is generated by coal without decent scrubbers (something not allowed in the USA at least, but let’s pretend we are in Mongolia): the coal plant is still way outside of the city (in this case, Ulan Bator).

I assume the vehicles are idling to keep the heater on, or the engine warm. Also, it seems like diesel is different from unleaded gasoline in terms of what engines can do or not.

People are focusing only on air quality, but climate change is obviously a critical issue.

> the pollution and climate impact is just dislocated in space and time to the power plant when the truck is charging.

Isn't that the major point (aside from get the heck out of the way) of these anti-idling laws? Reduce the localized noise and air pollution.

Also NYS gets a ton of electricity from carbon-free sources.

The laws also reduce climate change impact, which is critical.

Eh? If an EV is idling then there's no "electricity flowing from its batteries".

What does "idling" mean for the EV? Also, people often idle in order to use power, such as for heat, AC, the refrigerator in the back, etc.

When idling an internal combustion engine burns fuel just for not stopping. This needlessly wastes fuel, causes CO2 emissions, stinks and spreads unhealthy soot blackening lungs and walls of nearby people and houses.

An EV engine just stands still. If people use power, they draw that from the battieres, however this energy is not wasted but employed for something useful.

> an internal combustion engine burns fuel just for not stopping

True, if it's idling, but many (most? all new?) ICEs now automatically stop when the car stops.