WattEV says its new 26-truck charging plaza at the Port of Long Beach is complete and scheduled to be open for public use the week of May 15.
The growing population of heavy-duty electric trucks running in and out of the nation’s busiest ocean port complex now can charge up at the nation’s largest public electric truck charging spot. Branded simply as “WattEV,” 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.
The WattEV 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 distant as Hesperia, about 100 miles away.
Salim Youssefzadeh, CEO of WattEV, says the Long Beach depot is the first of several WattEV electric truck charging depots in the works throughout California, including in warehouse districts in nearby Gardena and inland near San Bernardino.
“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,” Youssefzadeh says.
The combined ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have some 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 with a goal of having 100 percent zero-emission trucks serving the ports by 2035.