Electric transportation developer WattEV has completed its 26-truck charging plaza at the Port of Long Beach and is preparing to take delivery of 14 Nikola Tre battery-electric trucks.

WattEV is building public charging depots to serve fleets of commercial electric trucks. But the company also provides electric trucks as a service to meet the needs of shippers and fleet operators committed to meeting California’s mandates towards zero-emissions. 

WattEV’s first of four charging depots in Southern California will open for service at the Port of Long Beach with access to Interstate 710 and 110 starting the week of May 15. Nikola trucks can use the WattEV depots for daily charging.

WattEV CEO Salim Youssefzadeh says his company aims to reduce charging times significantly. 

“We have been running a pilot test with Nikola battery-electric trucks for the past six months and are quite satisfied with the energy efficiency of the trucks and the ongoing technical support," he said. "Nikola’s customer-centric approach to meet our requirement for transition from CCS to MCS charging will be a game changer, which will allow us to rapidly expand our fleet size,” Youssefzadeh said.  

The Combined Charging System (CCS) is the current charging standard for heavy-duty e-trucks, while faster charging systems are under development. The higher-power Megawatt Charging System is expected to become the worldwide standard for fast-charging of medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, reducing the typical charge sessions to less than 30 minutes.

More About the WattEV Charging at Long Beach Port

The plaza's public opening will follow the Volts Conference, a charging infrastructure event taking place May 9-10 in Long Beach, sponsored by the California Energy Commission, hosted by the North American office of the Charging Interface Initiative, known as CharIN, with testing provided by WattEV.

Branded as WattEV, the depot will serve heavy-duty electric trucks with routes connecting to inland destinations throughout Southern California. The facility will support its first batch of 14 Nikola electric trucks with the fleet expected to expand to about 100 electric trucks by the end of 2023, with the opening of additional charging depots in Southern California. 

According to WattEV, the Port of Long Beach charging depot is designed to serve electric truck operations throughout the San Pedro Bay ports complex. It's the first of several WattEV electric truck charging depots in the works throughout California, including warehouse districts in nearby Gardena and inland near San Bernardino.

"This charging station is the southern anchor of our planned electric-truck charging freight corridor, which will incrementally connect to all the major freight routes throughout California, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada," said Salim Youssefzadeh, CEO of WattEV, in a statement. "Our truck-charging depot at the Port of Long Beach is a major step towards enabling transporters to transition to zero-emission trucking."

The ports have been setting clean air goals for about 20 years with a goal of having 100% zero-emission trucks serving the ports by 2035.

On opening, WattEV's Port of Long Beach e-truck charging plaza will feature 26 charging bays using Combined Charging System (CCS) connectors to provide power at up to 360kW. When trucks with megawatt charging capability become available, four more pass-through e-truck bays will be added, which will feature the higher-power Megawatt Charging System, rated for charging at up to 1.2 megawatts, reducing charge sessions for medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles to less than 30 minutes.