Without accessible power, battery-electric Class 8 trucks don't stand a chance, even in drayage

Overdrive Radio

That's the message in a certain way of the very existence of companies like Forum Mobility, around for just a couple years as a vehicle-charging-services and equipment leasing company. Company regional director Ron Hunt leads the podcast with that very notion, sounding like many an owner-operator in wait-and-see mode around electric-drive tech and battery-charging-infrastructure development. Hunt’s a veteran of the trucking world who got involved with electric-truck start-up Xos Trucks some time back. Yet what he learned led him to the charging-infrastructure side, in part given absolutely huge barriers that exist to any widespread adoption of electric Class 8s. On October 25 we published the anchor story in a series around electric-drive-power realities, in which Alex Lockie unveiled and contextualized Overdrive readers’ views on the current state of electrification as it relates the specific needs of their mostly OTR businesses: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15544337/teslas-semi-may-blow-past-diesels-uphill-but-truckers-see-limits Putting it quite succinctly, here’s how one owner-operator commenter in some ways summed up current views on the nature of quite literally all battery-electric Class 8 technology as it relates to bedrock operational feasibility OTR: "It's not going to work, the power grid can't handle it, and the trucks don't go far enough on a charge." Hunt and his colleagues at the Forum Mobility company aim to help on the grid front, and well realize any “electric revolution” will be a good long time in coming to trucking, even port drayage where they're specializing. It is certainly growing fast if electric Class 8 tractors running in California still only number in the low three digits, Ron Hunt emphasized. Port drayage in the state is where those units are most prominent, for good reason. The California Air Resources Board has done everything it can to really make the market there, with an end-of-year deadline for dray haulers to register their diesels within CARB’s system. And as of the first of the year, if lawsuits don’t derail this particular deadline (a little more on that in the podcast, and here: https://www.overdriveonline.com/regulations/article/15636769/california-trucking-association-seeks-injunction-of-diesel-truck-ban ), any truck registered to work California ports must be a “zero emissions vehicle” – we’ll use that ZEV shorthand a bit, though no manufactured product in today’s world is truly “zero emissions." Forum Mobility is aiming nonetheless to be a power provider with subscription-based charging access to sites in both Southern and Northern California specifically built with drayage trucks in mind. They’re also combining electric truck-lease services with those charging-power subscriptions for those who want to pursue that kind of model, as they build a planned six facilities over the next couple years. Today on the podcast, excerpts from a talk with Ron Hunt and two other Forum reps about how the business got its start and just where it’s planning to go to serve drayage haulers in California, and beyond. Another related element of the series is this feature about Hight Logistics, Forum Mobility's partner small fleet now running five electric trucks in SoCal ports leased through Forum: https://www.overdriveonline.com/equipment/article/15546421/small-fleet-owner-predicts-longterm-roi-with-batteryelectric