Emobility specialist WattEV has completed construction on the largest public truck charging station in the United States at the Port of Long Beach. The charging plaza will open for public use in mid-May.
Long Beach is the busiest ocean port complex in the United States. The new charging plaza marks a significant step towards zero-emission trucking alongside the port’s ambitions for 100% net-zero logistics by 2035.
The state-of-the-art facility will support 14 Nikola electric trucks operating on WattEV’s zero-emission fleet-transportation platform, with plans to expand to over 100 electric trucks by the end of 2023.
The charging plaza, situated adjacent to the Pier-A terminal, will serve heavy-duty electric trucks with routes connecting to Southern California.
The facility will cater to other fleets transitioning to electric trucking operations at the combined ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which receive about 40% of the nation’s containerised imports. The sheer volume of movement through these ports highlights it as an integral area for decarbonisation, and this all-electric charging plaza is providing a real glimpse into the future of trucking worldwide.
The charging plaza will feature 26 charging bays using Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors, providing up to 360 kilowatts of power. WattEV also plans to add four pass-through e-truck bays featuring the Megawatt Charging System (MCS), which is expected to become the global standard for fast charging medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, reducing charge times to under 30 minutes.
According to Salim Youssefzadeh, CEO of WattEV, the depot is the first of several WattEV electric truck charging depots planned across 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”