Right now, west coast from Oregon to Los Angeles (think the San Pedro Bay - Port of Los Angeles, Port of Long Beach; and, California to Texas, the ones to watch: Daimler and TeraWatt.
Daimler Truck North America (DTNA), BlackRock Renewable Power and NextEra Energy Resources announced in February a $650 million joint venture to build truck-charging infrastructure. So far, no details are known.
Separately, DTNA earlier this month unveiled the Megawatt Charging System direct-current (DC) fast-charging connector for heavy-duty vehicles under the auspices of the Charging Interface Initiative (CharIN).
Daimler plans to offer megawatt charging at the Electric Island it operates with Portland General Electric near its Oregon headquarters.
NFI Industries plans to install high-speed 350kW chargers next year at a depot in Ontario, California, but it will recharge trucks at 175kW in the early days. Vehicle architecture must change to accommodate higher-power charging.
TeraWatt burst onto the scene with its September billion-dollar funding announcement with funds managed by Vision Ridge Partners, Keyframe Capital and Cyrus Capital. San Francisco-based TeraWatt has been plenty busy in the background.
“We’ve been at this for almost four years now in terms of assembling pieces of properties along corridors,” Palmer said. “The amount of demand that you’d see if you have all of the vehicles start to electrify, it will be a hockey stick of demand for charging capacity. We’re going to need a lot of solutions.”
Navistar CEO Mathias Carlbaum suggests that it can happen around 2026. TeraWatt is starting with 350-kilowatt chargers, too powerful for most trucks to fully utilize today. Charging as a service is an apt description for TeraWatt.
The company wants long-term commitments from customers when it starts building out the corridor, ultimately placing a charging location every 150 miles. The first locations open in 2023. The corridor should be complete by 2024 with fill-in locations added as electric truck adoption grows.
The sunny climes of the American Southwest host testing of numerous battery-electric and autonomous trucks. It doesn’t snow. It’s rarely cold. So batteries perform better. But the density of freight coming out of Long Beach and north from Mexico drove TeraWatt’s decision to begin buying up properties in 2018.
One estimate puts the cost of electric vehicle infrastructure for cars and trucks globally at $1 trillion by 2040.
That won’t be enough, Palmer said.
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