Giant Electric Truck Charging Hub Opens in Southern California

A collaboration announced this week between two well-known supply chain players—San Francisco-based real estate investment trust company Prologis and Performance Team, a subsidiary of Copenhagen, Denmark-based A.P. Moeller Maersk, an integrated global logistics services provider, operating more than 140 electric vehicles across the U.S.—heralds the rollout of the largest heavy-duty electric vehicle (EV) charging depot in Southern California.

The companies said that this depot is near the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, off of the Harbor (110) Freeway) in Los Angeles on Denker Avenue, and within five miles of Interstate 405 and California State Route 101, and is powered by the largest EV microgrid in the United States. What’s more, they added that the charging depot can charge up to 96 EV trucks at a time, with the facility being constructed in five months. The Performance Team’s fleet of Volvo VNR Electric Trucks, which have a range of 240 miles and charge up to 80% in 90 minutes, will use the depot to charge its trucks.

This depot’s construction comes at a time when California is requiring the end of the sale of diesel trucks and the subsequent move to diesel trucks by 2035 and to electric heavy-duty trucks by 2045, coupled with many companies taking steps to allocate capital for charging infrastructure. Prologis and Maersk described this charging station project as a “key connector in the infrastructure needed to meet the state’s goals.”

As for how this undertaking began, the companies said that Prologis installed the charging infrastructure to expedite the time the project could get online and also get trucks on the road, as opposed to two-year wait for the grid update. They also said that Prologis developed a charging solution with Mainspring Energy in order to build a microgrid, which is defined as any small network of electrical generators and loads that may be grid-connected but capable of operating independently of the local grid, with the Prologis Denker microgrid using 2.75 MW of fuel-flexible hydrogen-ready linear generators that are paired with 18 MWh of batteries to provide up to 9 MW of charging capacity.

In an interview with LM, Javier Garcia Atique, Regional Head of Transportation Operations, North America at A.P. Moller—Maersk, explained that going back to when Maersk started looking at the EV space, it engaged its procurement team in understanding how to put an entire solution together. And he explained that having worked with Prologis in other areas of the U.S. and abroad and an evaluation of its different services and solutions, it became clear Prologis could meet Maersk’s expectations.

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