Penske Truck Leasing gradually expanded its charging network to six stations at facilities in Southern California.
Earlier this month, Penske Truck Leasing has officially opened its sixth heavy-duty charging station in Southern California, mostly for its all-electric medium-duty Freightliner eM2 and heavy-duty Freightliner eCascadia trucks.
The latest station in Ontario, California is equipped with six DC stalls and an energy storage system, manufactured by Fluence Energy, LLC, a Siemens and AES Company, to offset demand on the electricity grid during peak charging times.
The whole network consists of six stations, with a total of 21 stalls (50-150 kW DC). The previous five stations are located at Penske Truck Leasing’s facilities in: San Diego, Chino, Anaheim, Temecula and La Miradain.
Drew Cullen, senior vice president of fuels and facility services at Penske Transportation Solutions said:
“We continue to expand our heavy-duty electric vehicle charging network, while also challenging ourselves to test new solutions like the battery storage component. We are committed to being on the leading-edge of sustainability and technology advancements in transportation and we look forward to putting our new charging facility to work for our customers and the industry.”
At the current stage, it’s all just try-on rather than a fully commercial approach. Ultimately the sites will have to be bigger and have higher power, as well as supplemented by on-route public stations.
Anyway, it’s great to see that the trial progresses ahead of the market launch of electric Freightliners in 2022.
Sooner, because in 2021 we should see the market launch of Tesla Semi and many of us wait to see the Tesla Megacharger approach to make EV trucks capable of long-distance travel.
Gallery: Freightliner eCascadia
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