Startup WattEV plans to build a 25-megawatt, solar-powered, electric-only public truck stop between California’s Central Valley and Southern California’s bustling ports and shipping hubs.

The 110-acre truck stop will be located at a heavily truck-trafficked highway intersection in Bakersfield, at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, near logistics centers run by Amazon and Walmart. It will feature a solar microgrid with battery storage, plus grid energy from PG&E.

The WattEV electric truck stop will offer a total of 4 MW of power in the first phase—that will eventually expand to 25 MW, feeding more than 40 charging bays.

WattEV also plans to serve transport customers with its Trucks as a Service (TaaS) offering. The company has already reserved 50 Tesla Semis, and plans to place more orders with other OEMs. WattEV says its TaaS business model will generate initial demand for charging by offering a solution to transporters that is financially viable while enabling shippers to meet their sustainability goals.

“Focusing on the revenue and profit potential of an electric truck, rather than the fixed and variable cost of owning a new or used diesel truck, is how we can get more drivers into more electric trucks more quickly,” said WattEV CEO Salim Youssefzadeh. “Waiting for the market to mature organically, at the rate it’s currently going, could take more than a decade. Our aim is to fast-track the transition to electric truck transport by doing things a little differently. We use a combination of business and technology innovation to create infrastructure and data-driven workflow that provide truckers and fleet operators a solution to meet their profitability goals while contributing to clean-air initiatives and carbon-reduction goals.”

Source: WattEV