WattEV will install a charging plaza for heavy-duty electric trucks at the Port of Long Beach.
The charging plaza will be used to charge WattEV’s electric truck fleet as well as other carriers transitioning to two electric trucks for operations to and from the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, two of the busiest ports in the world. The site would be southern hub of ‘Electric Highway’ e-truck charging network connecting Southern California ports to interstate freeways and Sacramento
WattEV’s charging plaza at Pier A Way will feature 26 charging bays initially that use Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors to provide power at up to 360 kW. The company will operate its own electric trucks under its Trucks-as-a-Service (TaaS) program at the port.
Those trucks will be Volvo VNR electric trucks for the program, 50 of which are expected to be delivered by the end of 2022 and several hundred more thereafter.
Another eight e-truck bays will be added later at the Port of Long Beach that will feature faster, higher-power Megawatt Charging Systems (MCS), which can charge at up to 1.2 megawatts.
The CCS system is the current charging standard for heavy-duty e-trucks and the MCS is expected to become the global standard for fast charging of these trucks.
“This project is an exciting opportunity in WattEV’s near-term plans to build an electric-truck charging ‘highway’ from the Port of Long Beach to Sacramento by the end of 2023,” WattEV CEO Salim Youssefzadeh said. “WattEV’s electric charging facility at the Port of Long Beach would be a major step towards encouraging transporters to transition to zero emission trucking.”
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Under WattEV’s TaaS system, large and small fleet operators will be able to electrify their freight operations on a pay-as-you-go basis without a large upfront investment. The company also is working with Southern California Edison to power its charging stations throughout its service area, including the Port of Long Beach charging plaza.
By 2030, WattEV intends to have 12,000 heavy-duty electric trucks on road with supporting infrastructure. To achieve this goal, WattEV is actively building its e-truck charging stations in Bakersfield, Gardena, San Bernardino. It will also break ground in Sacramento at a solar-powered facility on U.S. Interstate 5 just across the Sacramento International Airport air freight hub.
“We’re on schedule to build out electric truck stops from the ports to Southern California warehouses and up I-5 and Highway 99 to Sacramento, and east along the I-10 to Barstow, Blythe and neighboring states, and beyond,” said Youssefzadeh.
