It’s no secret that government regulations have played a starring role in the growing popularity of all-electric trucks, but some in that nascent space would like to see Uncle Sam take even more of a commanding lead.
WattEV CEO Salim Youssefzadeh made it clear at a recent meeting hosted by the North American Council for Freight Efficiency that he’d like to see legislative action pressuring utilities to complete projects faster. He said in most cases it takes roughly 18 months for a utility to provide power to a commercial charging site in California.
WattEV will be opening its first multi-truck charging depot at the Port of Long Beach on May 15. The 5 megawatt site will be able to charge 60 electric trucks a day. WattEV has plans to open additional charging depots this year in California but Youssefzadeh is concerned that without increased legislation fleets could be in for a long wait before utilities provide power to those chargers.
“We already have the ACT [Advanced Clean Transportation] and the ACF [Advanced Clean Fleet] rules that are forcing the OEMs to manufacture and the fleets to start using. There's no rule to force the utilities and that's a big bottleneck for everyone,” Youssefzadeh told a packed room during NACFE’s Run on Less Electric breakfast which was held last week in conjunction with the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Anaheim, California.
Youssefzadeh went on to say that electric truck orders are piling up without adequate charging infrastructure in place to support them.
“If you look at the HVIP [Hybrid and Zero-emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project] numbers, a lot of people had placed orders for trucks that they couldn't take delivery on because the depots weren't ready,” Youssefzadeh continued. “They didn't have a place to charge them and that's a huge issue.”
