These Companies Want an LA to El Paso EV Corridor

• A group of companies including Maersk, Microsoft, DB Schenker, AIT Worldwide Logistics and PepsiCo, have formed a coalition to test an EV truck charging corridor between Los Angeles and El Paso, Texas, spanning hundreds of miles.

• Several efforts are underway to bring EV truck charging stations to the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, as well as the greater LA area, as cargo fleets begin to experiment with BEV trucks.

• The coalition is led by a non-profit called Smart Freight Centre, which works to support development of a wider ecosystem for BEV trucks.

We've known for a while that an EV charging corridor between LA and Las Vegas was only a matter of time. It would connect two of the west coast's largest ports, which already have their own charging infrastructure, with one of the largest cities in the southwest, allowing goods to move inland.

But such a charging corridor, which is already in the works, would still have a rather limited scope even though it would be a big step for EV trucking efforts in the US.

Now, a group of companies is teaming up on plans for a charging network between LA and El Paso, and it's backed by Maersk, Microsoft, DB Schenker, AIT Worldwide Logistics, and PepsiCo. The planned route will stretch along I-10, connecting the two major cargo hubs, with Terawatt Infrastructure set to provide the charging hardware and related services.

The group is led by a non-profit called Smart Freight Centre, which works to advance climate goals in the freight sector.

"Through this coalition, we seek to jointly accelerate the uptake of long-haul EV heavy-duty trucks," said Christoph Wolff, CEO of the Smart Freight Centre.

Electrification has been more complex of a problem in the commercial sector than the old chicken-and-egg scenario in the private sector. While the latter has been able to rely on money-no-object early adopters to shell out six figures for luxury EVs, the bottom line in the trucking sector actually matters far more, and it's a question of life or death for businesses.

So having the charging infrastructure in place and having heavy-duty EVs on sale doesn't actually assure EV adoption in the commercial trucking world, if an EV truck costs even 50% higher than a comparable diesel models.

But the goal of this effort isn't quite to solve EV long-haul trucking overnight—its aims are a little more modest. Rather, the shorter-term aim is to test long-haul heavy-duty BEV operations along a preset route that links one existing BEV trucking hub with a number of large cities.

The ports of Long Beach and LA have already been the sites of some of the most intensive EV truck charging infrastructure efforts, which is why this location is where the charging corridor will effectively start. But less has been done on the other end of the planned corridor.

The project aims to create a wider ecosystem for EV trucks along this route, sharing its results with other shippers, and to encourage key tech providers to accelerate the roll-out of related solutions at scale.

Accelerating cost parity is also one of the longer-term goals of this coalition, so these companies are certainly mindful of the bottom line. And absent some kind of federal mandate for EV trucking—unlikely to materialize anytime soon—it is largely industry groups like this that will pave the way for change in the trucking industry.

"To electrify trucking on a meaningful scale, all stakeholders need to invest in expanding the electric grid for charging capabilities," said Charles van der Steene, regional president for Maersk North America.

Will we see heavy-duty electric trucks in greater number by the second half of the decade, or will this transition take far longer? Let us know what you think in the comments below.