Over 16,000 Medium- and Heavy-Duty ZEV Charging & Fueling Points Available In California – CleanTechnica

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Much of the news about electric vehicles and those that run on hydrogen is focused on personal transportation. Medium- and heavy-duty zero-emissions vehicles don’t get as much press, so their sustainability progress may be somewhat overlooked. In California, medium- and heavy-duty trucks generate quite a bit of air pollution: “they account for over 35% of the state’s transportation-generated nitrogen oxide emissions and a quarter of the state’s on-road greenhouse gas emissions.”

Unfortunately, many people are exposed to this air pollution. “California communities that sit near trucking corridors and warehouse locations with heavy truck traffic, which often are low-income and communities of color, have some of the worst air in the nation.” Diesel exhaust is particularly bad for human health. Replacing gas and diesel trucks with zero-emissions ones improves air quality and is better for the health of people and the planet.

The California Energy Commission recently released an online charging and fueling dashboard for ZEV medium- and heavy-duty trucks. It presents much information about the over 16,000 charging and fueling points.

California Energy Commission staff answered some questions about the dashboard and growing ZEV charging and refueling infrastructure for CleanTechnica.

Who will use the new dashboard and what can it be used for?

The dashboard tracks California’s progress toward having sufficient charging ports and hydrogen fueling nozzles for MDHD ZEVs and will aid in future funding decisions on rapid infrastructure deployment across the state. Federal, state and local agencies will be able to use the dashboard to evaluate MDHD ZEV infrastructure needs along California’s most important transportation corridors. 

Regarding the 16,327 charging and hydrogen fueling points … does the word “points” mean individual chargers and fuel pumps or can a point be more than one?

A “charging point” is defined as one electric charging port, while a “fueling point” is one hydrogen fuel nozzle.  

Of the 16,327 points, how many are EV chargers and how many are hydrogen fuel pumps?

Of the 16,327 points, 144 are hydrogen nozzles.  

With a bit over 16,000 currently, are there plans to increase that total? If so, by how many, and what is the time frame? 

According to the latest Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Assessment (AB 2127), the state will need approximately 98,000 medium- and heavy-duty (MDHD) charging ports by 2030. Most of these will be needed at private MDHD charging depots, while approximately 6,000 public charging ports will be needed along important transportation corridors.

For hydrogen infrastructure, the latest SB 643 report presents a wide range of scenarios and uses stations as a metric rather than nozzles, estimating anywhere from 1 to 601 stations needed by 2030, and by 2035, the range varies from 11 to more than 2,000. The next SB 643 report will be modeled by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and will be broken down by nozzles.

Please note that these estimates are only for MDHD zero-emission vehicle trucks. The new dashboard incorporates hydrogen nozzles and charging ports for public transit and school buses. 

Does CA have the most chargers and fueling points for medium- and heavy-duty trucks of all the US states? 

Yes, it does.  

Transit agencies have nearly 900 zero-emissions buses. Are they all electric or are some hydrogen? 

According to the CEC medium- and heavy-duty vehicle dashboard, at the end of 2023, there were 1,123 ZEV transit buses on the road. Of that total, 173 were H2 buses. These totals do not include ZEV school buses. This dataset is expected to be updated at the end of April.