WattEV and the Port of Long Beach announced plans for WattEV to build a charging plaza for heavy-duty electric trucks inside the port complex. Salim Youssefzadeh, chief executive officer of WattEV, alongside Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero, announced the project during the annual Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo industry conference at the Long Beach Convention Center.
The charging facility would serve WattEV’s fleet of electric trucks as well other carriers committed to electrifying trucking operations to and from the combined ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which receive some 40 percent of the nation’s imported goods.
Combined, the ports have 20,000 trucks in their registries using combustion engines, more than 25 percent of which are older than 10 years. Both ports have been setting clean air goals for nearly two decades.
Cordero of the Port of Long Beach said, WattEV’s charging plaza – located on Pier A Way in one of the port’s main area of operations – would serve as “visible testimony” to the Port of Long Beach’s commitment to electric mobility and clean air.
WattEV is actively working with Southern California Edison (SCE) to power its charging stations throughout SCE’s service area, including those under construction in Gardena, San Bernardino and the planned Port of Long Beach charging plaza.
WattEV’s POLB e-truck charging plaza–designed for everyday use by drayage operators and longer-haul fleets–will initially feature 26 charging bays using Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors to provide power at up to 360 kilowatts. The CCS system is the current charging standard for heavy-duty e-trucks, while faster charging systems are under development.
With the availability of trucks with Megawatt charging capability, eight more e-truck bays are planned at the POLB charging plaza, featuring the faster, higher-power Megawatt Charging System (MCS), rated for charging at up to 1.2 megawatts. The MCS is expected to become the worldwide standard for fast-charging of medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles.
While WattEV welcomes fleets and individual operators to charge up at its e-truck charging network, the company also will be operating its own fleet of branded electric trucks for its Trucks-as-a-Service (TaaS) program. WattEV is expecting initial deliveries to begin by the end of this year for 50 Volvo VNR electric trucks on order, and several hundred more from various manufacturers thereafter.
Under WattEV’s TaaS system, large and small feet operators that join WattEV’s service platform can electrify their freight operations on a pay-as-you-go basis without the unknowns in charging and range, and without the large, up-front capital investment.
WattEV has set a goal of putting 12,000 electric heavy-duty trucks on the road with a supporting infrastructure by 2030. To that end, WattEV is actively building additional electric truck charging stations in Bakersfield, Gardena, San Bernardino, and expects to break ground in Sacramento at a solar powered facility on U.S. Interstate 5 across from the Sacramento International Airport air freight hub.
The charging network and WattEV’s heavy-duty e-fleet will facilitate the zero-emission transport of goods to and from air and ocean ports and large warehouses in the Inland Empire, the Sacramento region, and the agricultural sectors of the vast San Joaquin Valley.
