Port of Long Beach opens 26-plug depot for electric heavy-duty trucks
Developer WattEV says facility is the southern anchor of its planned electric-truck charging freight corridor
The Port of Long Beach has opened what it’s calling the nation’s largest charging station of its kind for electric heavy-duty trucks, through a partnership with WattEV, a commercial-truck charging infrastructure developer.
Capable of charging 26 trucks at once, the new depot is located directly adjacent to the port’s Pier-A terminal and will serve heavy-duty electric trucks with routes connecting to inland destinations throughout Southern California.
The Port of Long Beach depot becomes the southern anchor of WattEV's planned electric-truck charging freight corridor, which will incrementally connect to major freight routes throughout the West. That corridor will feature WattEV's growing fleet of electric trucks operating on its truck-as-a-service platform, as the firm works toward its goal of getting 12,000 heavy-duty electric trucks on California roads by the end of 2030.
Today, WattEV is also building electric truck charging depots at warehouse districts in nearby Gardena, inland near San Bernardino, and north in Bakersfield. "WattEV has been working on opening four depots in California for the past few years. The Long Beach depot was actually the last of the four to go under contract and into development, but it's the first to open!" WattEV co-founder and CEO Salim Youssefzadeh said in a release. "We also plan to add megawatt charging at this depot which allows pass-through trucks to be charged in 20 minutes."
The Long Beach site currently features 13 dual-cord 360KW chargers with the ability to charge 26 trucks concurrently with 5MW of power provided by Southern California Edison (SCE).
The depot's combined charging system (CCS) plug platform is the current charging standard for heavy-duty electric trucks, while the new megawatt charging system (MCS) standard for faster charging systems is still being finalized. When trucks with megawatt charging capability become available, more pass-through e-truck bays are planned at the Port of Long Beach charging plaza, featuring the faster, higher-power MCS plus rated for charging at up to 1.2 megawatts.
The announcement came the same week that seven global automakers launched a plan to create a high-powered charging network across North America for passenger cars. That team says it plans to install at least 30,000 high-powered charge points in urban and highway locations, according to a group including BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group, and Stellantis NV.
The network will be open to all EV customers, offering both the CCS standard and North American Charging Standard (NACS) connectors, with the first stations scheduled to open in the summer of 2024.