Amazon plans to deploy a dozen electric seaport trucks amid push to slash tailpipe emissions
NY Post
LOS ANGELES, May 7 (Reuters) – Amazon.com, on Tuesday unveiled the first of a dozen Volvo electric big rigs it plans to deploy this year to pick up cargo from the nation’s busiest container seaport in Southern California.
The e-commerce giant already has eight of those semi trucks in use at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, where every so-called drayage truck must be zero-emissions by 2035.
The deployment is a first for Amazon, extending its vehicle electrification projects from ocean ports to customer doorsteps. The effort is vital to the company’s push to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
So far, a little more than 1% of the 23,761 trucks that serve the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex are zero-emission vehicles – including 201 electric rigs, Long Beach port spokesman Lee Peterson said.
“Heavy-duty trucking is a particularly difficult area to decarbonize,” said Udit Madan, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide operations.
The company has rolled out more than 13,500 Rivian, electric cargo delivery vans across the country since 2022. The transition to electric semi trucks will be a bigger lift, because they haul heavier loads and their batteries require more intensive charging infrastructure.
