California is promoting electric trucks as the future of trucking
Neri Diaz thought he was ready for a pivotal moment in California’s ambitious plans, closely watched in other states and around the world, to phase out diesel-powered trucks.
His company, Harbor Pride Logistics, has purchased 14 electric trucks this year to work alongside 32 diesel vehicles, ahead of a rule that says after Monday, diesel plants can no longer be added to the list of vehicles approved to move goods in and out transport. of the ports of California. But in August, the manufacturer of Mr. Diaz, Nikola, returned the trucks as part of a recall and said he would return them in the first quarter of the new year.
“It’s a brand new technology, first generation, so I knew things were going to happen, but I didn’t expect all 14 of my trucks to be repossessed,” he said. “It has a major impact on my activities.”
Trucking, a huge source of carbon emissions, is where California’s green revolution is meeting some of its biggest challenges. Electric trucks can cost more than $400,000 with their massive batteries, and they can’t travel long distances without stopping for long charging periods, which can undermine the economics of a truck fleet.
But California sees the port trucks as an opportunity to take a big step forward.
The electric trucks on the market today can travel from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach – the nation’s busiest hub for container freight – to many of the inland warehouses without stopping to charge. And cleaning up the port trucks can have a big impact. With around 30,000 registered trucks at the ports, the introduction of green vehicles could lead to a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions and particles that can cause disease in the communities the trucks travel through.
Nancy Gonzalez and her 25-year-old son Juan, who has Down syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis, live in the Wilmington neighborhood, just north of the ports. Huge drilling rigs going to and from nearby truck yards are constantly roaring just feet from the house.
Truck traffic became much heavier about four years ago, Ms. Gonzalez said, and now she cleans twice a day to remove the dirt it produces. Mrs. Gonzalez says she has problems with her sinuses and that her son’s eyes started watering about two years ago.
“Nobody opens the windows,” she said through an interpreter in Spanish. “No one.”
California hopes the strict rules, combined with financial support — subsidies for truck purchases from state agencies can reach as much as $288,000 per vehicle, operators say — will help truckers, automakers, warehouse owners, utilities and charging companies make the investments needed for a zero-carbon trucking sector at the port by 2035, when all diesel trucks will be banned from ports. And success at the ports could help the state reach its goal of decarbonizing all types of freight over the next 20 years, and be a model for similar efforts in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington.
“In the long term, I am confident that we can decarbonize the heavy-duty truck sector,” said James Sallee, professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Berkeley, referring to California’s plan. “But I don’t know if the industry is ready to overcome the various barriers to rapid implementation.”
The port fleets have barely started the transformation.
In November, 180 electric trucks, only 1 percent of the total, were registered to operate at the Port of Los Angeles. There was one truck powered by hydrogen fuel cells, the other technology used to power big oil rigs.
Some truckers say they stockpiled diesel trucks and registered them with the ports before Monday’s closing date, although this is not reflected in the port statistics. There were 20,083 diesel trucks accessing the Port of Los Angeles in November, up from 21,310 a year earlier.
Large companies, with deep pockets and large facilities, are best positioned to make the green transition. Mike Gallagher, a California-based executive at Maersk, the Danish shipping giant, said the company has an all-electric fleet, consisting of some 85 vehicles made by Volvo and BYD, the Chinese automaker, for transporting goods up to 50 miles outside the ports. of Southern California. And it has worked with landlords to install dozens of chargers at its depots.
“We are well ahead of the curve,” he says.
But smaller truck fleets do the bulk of the port trips — accounting for about 70 percent at the Port of Los Angeles — and they will find the transition difficult. The California Trucking Association has filed a federal lawsuit against the state’s truck regulations, including those targeting port trucks, arguing that they “represent a massive overreach that threatens the safety and predictability of the nation’s trucking industry.”
Matt Schrap, the CEO of the Harbor Trucking Association, another trade group, said the harbor trucking rules do not include exceptions that would help smaller companies survive the transformation. Gaining access to chargers is especially difficult for smaller fleets, he said: They are expensive, and truck rental companies may be reluctant to install them, forcing operators to rely on a public charging system that is only just under construction. is.
“The landlord says, ‘There’s not a snowball’s chance in Bakersfield that you’re going to tear up my parking lot to charge a heavy load,’” Mr. Schrap said.
Concerns also exist outside the trade groups. Mr Gallagher, managing director of Maersk, said if the clean truck rules caused serious problems for smaller operators it could be “a significant disruption to the supply chain”.
Forum Mobility is one of many companies that think they can help smaller fleets by building public truck charging stations and leasing electric trucks. The company has secured permits to build a depot at the Port of Long Beach, expected to open next year, that will house 44 trucks. The depot will run on nine megawatts of electricity, enough to power most sports stadiums, but Forum Mobility executives say charging all the trucks at the port would require about the amount of power produced by Diablo Canyon, a nuclear power plant in California, and thousands of chargers. .
“We need a real Manhattan Project on interconnection,” said Adam Browning, executive vice president for policy at Forum Mobility.
Chanel Parson, director of construction and transportation electrification at Edison, a major energy company in Southern California, said building out truck charging infrastructure would be helped if government agencies streamlined the issuance of permits and expedited the approval of expenditures, and if truck companies would communicate their charging infrastructure. needs. But she added that her company was not deterred by the task. “There’s no concern that this is really difficult,” she said. “It’s what we do.”
Mr. Diaz, the operator whose Nikola trucks were recalled, said the trucks cost about 40 percent less to charge than diesel, and he was impressed with their performance. Even with the help of state subsidies, he estimates that the electric trucks cost him as much as 50 percent more than diesel models. During the recall, Nikola made payments on the loans Mr. Diaz had agreed to buy the trucks, but he said he was concerned about the truck manufacturer’s financial situation.
Nikola CEO Steve Girsky said a new capital injection in December showed investors believed in the company. “This will take us a long way,” he said in an interview. “Everything this company is talking about will come together in the fourth quarter.”
Some trucking executives say not only are they used to responding to California’s tightening regulations over the years, but also that they believe in the environmental goals of the port’s truck transition.
Rudy Diaz, president of Hight Logistics, said the new regulations had increased some of his costs as his company had added drivers to the payroll and reduced its reliance on contract drivers who used their own diesel trucks.
“It’s extra headaches, extra costs,” he said. “But consumers are asking for products that are more sustainable, and they are willing to pay the price.”
Ana Facio-Krajcer reporting contributed.