Truck OEMs Invested in Infrastructure

Charging infrastructure is the “pacing item” for widespread deployment of battery-electric commercial vehicles, and the pace must pick up CEOs say.

September 5, 2024

Ryan Gehm

The Electric Island public charging station near DTNA’s Portland, Oregon, headquarters is the “initial recipe” for similar installations that will occur across the U.S., according to Black & Veatch. (DTNA)

Truck manufacturers have not sat idly by as charging infrastructure continues to lag behind the growing availability of battery-electric commercial vehicles. Take for example Daimler Truck North America’s (DTNA) Greenlane joint venture, which announced earlier this year plans for its first commercial EV charging corridor with more than 100 chargers. The 280-mile (450-km) stretch along Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas will begin with initial locations in Colton, Barstow and Baker, California.

Greenlane’s first commercial EV charging corridor will be along Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The flagship site in Colton, California, is expected to open in Q4 2024. (Greenlane)

Expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2024, the Colton flagship site is planned to have more than 60 chargers, including 400-kW direct current fast chargers (DCFC) as well as 200-kW DCFC options for long-duration and overnight charging. The site will be “future-proofed” to accommodate the Megawatt Charging System (MCS) when commercially available and to eventually provide hydrogen refueling for commercial vehicles.

“That’s something we wouldn’t have done a few years back, but we decided we just can’t sit on the sideline and say, ‘We have a truck. That’s good enough.’ We wanted to participate in trying to solve that infrastructure problem,” John O’Leary, president and CEO at DTNA, said at the 2024 ACT Expo during a CEO Roundtable on Scaling Vehicle Electrification that also included executives from Volvo Trucks, Paccar, Navistar and Mack Trucks.

John O’Leary, president and CEO at DTNA, speaks at ACT Expo during a CEO Roundtable on Scaling Vehicle Electrification. (SAE/Ryan Gehm)

Three of those truck makers – DTNA, Navistar and Volvo – teamed in early 2024 to establish the Powering America’s Commercial Transportation (PACT) coalition as a “unified voice” to accelerate the construction of refueling infrastructure for medium- (MD) and heavy-duty (HD) zero-emission vehicles. The group, which had 24 founding members including the likes of Amazon, Cummins and WattEV, aims to convince lawmakers and stakeholders of the urgency of the situation.

“Because it seems that just left to its own devices, it’s not happening fast enough,” O’Leary said, stressing that DTNA does not want to put the onus completely on its customers. “We know, that’s not their area of expertise. They’re moving freight; they’re not in the business of building charging depots, so we’re trying to help wherever we can.”

Volvo also partnered with Pilot Company nearly two years ago to help develop a national public charging network for MD and HD electric trucks utilizing existing Pilot and Flying J travel centers.

“We cannot talk about infrastructure enough because it is the pacing item today,” said Jason Skoog, president and general manager at Peterbilt. (SAE/Ryan Gehm)

“Partnership is the new leadership,” said Peter Voorhoeve, president of Volvo Trucks North America. He said the companies work together to identify which travel centers should be prioritized based on current and anticipated battery-electric truck deployment volume, customers’ charging needs and patterns, and the availability of federal and state funding to support capital costs.

“Three or four years ago, we were seeing electric trucks being deployed and no infrastructure. We’ve all done our industry partnerships and various things to help our customers enable that,” said Jason Skoog, president and general manager at Peterbilt. “What I think is a good thing is the whole industry is talking about infrastructure right now. We cannot talk about infrastructure enough because it is the pacing item today.”

The executives agreed that having a collaborative approach to the issue is essential. “Even though we’ve invested many billions between all our companies, there’s many more billions that we can’t afford to take on additionally,” O’Leary said. “So, the best way is to partner up and share that. We still fiercely compete every day in the marketplace, but we’ve evolved enough, we’re committed enough to the effort to put aside [any] past differences to say, ‘Hey, this is a bigger mission that we’re going after.’”