Electric truck as a service provider WattEV announced that its 26-truck charging plaza at the Port of Long Beach is completed and scheduled to open for public use the week of May 15.
The truck charging plaza, called the largest public truck charging station in the nation by WattEV, will assist the growing population of heavy-duty electric trucks running in and out of one of the nation’s busiest ocean port complex. The depot is located directly adjacent to the Pier A terminal in the Port of Long Beach and will serve heavy-duty electric trucks with routes connecting to inland destinations throughout Southern California.
“This charging station is the southern anchor of our planned electric-truck charging freight corridor, which will incrementally connect to all the major freight routes throughout California, Oregon, Arizona and Nevada,” said Salim Youssefzadeh, CEO of WattEV.
The facility will support the first batch of 14 Nikola electric trucks that will operate on WattEV’s zero-emission fleet transportation platform. The fleet is expected to expand to more than 100 electric trucks by the end of 2023, with the opening of additional charging depots in Southern California. The current WattEV fleet will haul freight daily from the port to warehouses as far away as Hesperia, some 94 miles in distance.
The new charging depot will serve WattEV’s fleet of electric trucks and other fleets electrifying their trucking operations to and from the combined ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. Combined, the ports have some 20,000 trucks in their registries using combustion engines, more than 25% of which are older than a decade. Both ports have been setting clean air goals for nearly two decades with a goal of having 100% zero-emission trucks serving the ports by 2035.
“Our truck-charging depot at the Port of Long Beach is a major step towards enabling transporters to transition to zero-emission trucking,” said Youssefzadeh.
On opening, WattEV’s POLB e-truck charging plaza will 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 electric trucks, while faster charging systems are under development. When trucks with megawatt charging capability become available, four more pass-through 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.
