TeraWatt breaks ground on first heavy-duty truck facility

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TeraWatt Infrastructure broke ground on November 2 on the first heavy-duty electric truck charging site in California, the company said.

The facility is located in Rancho Dominguez, less than 15 miles north of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and is scheduled to be operational by July 2024. Construction is expected to take seven to eight months, and the site will be operational, the company said. It features a total of 20 traction and DC fast charging kiosks. The facility will have the capacity to ship up to 125 trucks per day. PepsiCo has already committed to using the facility for last-mile delivery shipping in the Los Angeles area, San Francisco-based TeraWatt said.

“The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are hubs for our nation’s strategic shipping operations and are some of the busiest and most important ports in the country,” said Neha Palmer, CEO of TeraWatt. “We know that with the right infrastructure in place, electric vehicle adoption will accelerate in this region. We look forward to being at the forefront of this transformation by providing complete solutions that enable fleets to seamlessly electrify their operations in the near and long term.”

TeraWatt said in early October that it had acquired two sites in California’s Inland Empire to build heavy-duty electric truck charging sites for an undisclosed sum. With the largest concentration of warehouses and distribution centers in the United States, the Inland Empire is a major center for heavy fleet operations.

The two sites, in the Agua Mansa Industrial Corridor and in Fontana, near the intersection of Interstate 10 and I-15, are scheduled to be operational in 2025, the company said. When built, the two sites will together provide more than 40 megawatts of power, supporting up to 500 trucks per day. TeraWatt plans to use 350-kilowatt chargers at the site.

In the long term, TeraWatt plans to build seven heavy-duty charging centers between Long Beach and El Paso, Texas. Peter Cohen, senior director of business development, told Transport Topics in September that construction of the company’s charging stations would be staggered.

In August, the company began construction on a light freight site in Inglewood, California. The facility, near Los Angeles International Airport, is scheduled to begin operations in early 2024 and will provide 26 fast chargers.

California is at the forefront of developing heavy-duty public electric truck charging facilities, although there are concerns that construction is not happening fast enough to meet statewide trucking-leading goals.

“Our private sector partners play a key role in building the infrastructure needed to power California’s net-zero emissions future,” said Leanne Randolph, President of the California Air Resources Board. “The upcoming TeraWatt facility in Rancho Dominguez is one example of how the industry is stepping up to build sustainability into the operations of one of the nation’s busiest ports while providing the clean air Californians need and deserve.”