There have been a lot of incentive programs over the years to encourage cargo truck drivers to convert to electric trucks or other clean-burning vehicles to move cargo from the region’s twin ports.
Now comes the first concerted effort from stakeholders at both ends of the truck-route line to go green.
The Port of Long Beach, Sawtelle-based The Wonderful Co. and Rancho Dominguez-based Lincoln Transportation Services signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this month to develop the nation’s first port-powered green truck corridor connecting the port with an agriculture industry center in the Central Valley.
The memorandum signed on May 12 outlines a framework for collaboration and future development, connecting port operations, inland logistics capacity, and emerging zero-emissions trucking opportunities in a planned system designed to improve efficiency over time.
The green truck corridor will run about 150 miles from the port to Wonderful’s 2,000-acre logistics center in Shafter, about 18 miles northwest of Bakersfield in Kern County. The logistics center serves as a hub to move Wonderful’s agricultural products to market. Wonderful is the nation’s largest grower of tree nuts – including walnuts and pistachios – and it grows a range of other crops.
The truck fleet
Currently, more than 300,000 container units of imports and exports flow between the San Pedro Bay ports complex and the southern Central Valley each year, according to the joint announcement.
Facilitating this movement of agricultural industry products along the green truck corridor will be a fleet of trucks procured by Lincoln Transportation Services. The company has ordered 300 Tesla semi electric trucks, with the first 50 to 70 trucks expected next month. Lincoln’s affiliated company, Voltz Innovations, is also in the process of manufacturing 100 new trucks to be delivered by the summer of next year.
Lincoln’s trucks will be able to use some of the roughly 100 charging stations already at the Port of Long Beach, with another 92 coming on board by the end of this year. Wonderful’s logistics center also has electric charging stations.
“By collaborating with the Wonderful Co. and Lincoln Transportation Services to launch this first-of-its-kind Green Truck Corridor, we are accelerating the deployment of clean trucks on one of the nation’s busiest inland trade routes,” Noel Hacegaba, chief executive of the Port of Long Beach, said in a statement.
