Daimler Truck North America, NextEra and BlackRock Alternatives announced Greenlane, the companies joint venture to design, develop, install and operate a U.S. nationwide, high-performance zero-emission public charging and hydrogen fueling network for medium- and heavy-duty battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Also unveiled were the renderings of the site layout as a major milestone in the development of the project.

Greenlane addresses the need for a publicly available, nationwide electric charging infrastructure for commercial vehicles, especially for long-haul freight operations, and is a step toward developing a sustainable zero-emission vehicle ecosystem across North America, according to the companies.

The more than $650 million joint venture has made significant progress since its inception in 2022, as noted in a recent press release. The first site will be in Southern California with multiple additional sites being acquired along various freight routes. The joint venture team is collaborating on the necessary infrastructure to holistically deploy the charging network while software and hardware teams are working on developing a custom, commercial vehicle reservation platform to provide fleet managers, dispatchers and drivers with an enhanced customer experience.

The company notes that the network of charging sites will be built on critical freight routes along the east and west coasts and in Texas with an initial focus on battery-electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, followed by hydrogen fueling stations for fuel cell trucks, with plans to expand access to light-duty vehicles in the future to serve the greater goal of electrifying mobility.