Real Estate company EV Realty secures $75 million funding to expand electric truck charging infrastructure across California
EV Realty Breaks Ground on California's Largest Electric Truck Depot
In the strategic heart of California's Inland Empire, a region teeming with distribution warehouses, EV Realty has commenced construction on one of the state's biggest fully grid-powered, fast-charging depots for electric trucks. The new depot, located in San Bernardino, is set to become a significant player in facilitating electric freight movements between California's seaports and inland distribution hubs.
This ambitious project, slated for completion in early 2026, will boast 76 direct-current fast-charging ports, including ultra-high-capacity chargers capable of refilling a Tesla Semi truck in 30 minutes or less. The San Bernardino site, once operational, will pull approximately 10 megawatts of power from the grid.
EV Realty, a San Francisco-based charging site developer, has secured a substantial investment to support this endeavour. Thursday's groundbreaking was accompanied by the announcement that the company had raised $75 million from private equity investor NGP. This cash infusion, coupled with last year's debut of a joint venture with GreenPoint Partners to develop $200 million in charging hubs, has fully capitalized EV Realty against an underwritten, five-year business plan.
The San Bernardino depot is not intended to be an open public charging site. Instead, EV Realty is signing deals with major freight carriers and fleet owners for dedicated charging spots. All 76 chargers at the San Bernardino site are dedicated to specific customers, with 72 under multiyear contracts. The pricing for the pull-through slots is pay-as-you-go, per kilowatt-hour.
The construction of the San Bernardino depot is a response to the growing demand for reliable charging infrastructure for electric trucks. As battery-powered vehicles become increasingly competitive with diesel-fueled ones in terms of cost for moving freight from California's seaports to its inland distribution hubs, the need for dependable charging solutions at both ends of the route becomes crucial.
EV Realty is not new to the charging infrastructure scene. The company has previously installed chargers for passenger vehicles in a parking garage in Oakland, California, backed by power provider Ava Community Energy. Furthermore, the company plans to build and operate five to seven more projects of the scale of the San Bernardino site, plus some smaller, more built-to-suit projects.
Among the upcoming projects, EV Realty has more large-scale depots in the works, including another in San Bernardino, one in Torrance near the Port of Long Beach, and a fourth in Livermore in Northern California. However, no new information about the location of the new projects was provided in this announcement.
With the San Bernardino depot set to be one of the biggest fully grid-powered, fast-charging depots for electric trucks in California so far, it marks a significant step forward in the state's efforts to transition to a more sustainable transportation system. Customers at the San Bernardino site will have stalls and amounts of power that are theirs 24/7, ensuring seamless and efficient electric freight movements across California.
