The Port of New York and New Jersey will need to overcome multiple logistical, planning and financial obstacles to grow its electric truck fleet significantly beyond the handful it has currently, a top port official told the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) at a hearing on medium- and heavy-duty (MHD) electric vehicle chargers Tuesday.

Electric trucks are still too expensive, with only one fully tested model available, and the range is too short to be viable  for many port truck trips, Deputy Port Director Bethann Rooney said at the first hearing into the BPU’s proposal on how to incentivize the creation of charging infrastructure around the state.

Another issue to be resolved is that extra weight of a battery EV, about 8,000 pounds, would mean that an electric truck could carry less cargo than a diesel vehicle, Rooney said. Such a shift would require supply chain adjustments to container content as far back as the manufacturers in Asia, she said.

The fact that about 80% of the trucks that serve the port are owned by small independent owner-operators with one or two older trucks, which are often parked outside the owner’s house, presents other difficulties, she said. Those owners would find the cost of a new electric truck especially prohibitive, and providing them all with their own charging infrastructure might be unfeasible. Rooney suggested that the state or a private developer may need to create new communal fleet depots where independent owners can recharge overnight, a proposal that would require a significant amount of space.

“From the port’s perspective, we believe that there are a number of hurdles to electrification,” Rooney said while also outlining the port’s commitment to mitigating climate change, including its more than decade-long efforts to cut carbon emissions and air pollutants. “It’s real important that we understand exactly what is the electric infrastructure that we’re going to need in the port facilities.”

She said the port is conducting a study of its drayage fleet to assess the feasibility of electrification and working with Public Service Enterprise Group (NYSE:PEG) on an “electrical infrastructure assessment” to prepare for the future electrification of port transportation.

Demand for Electric Trucks

The hearing was the first of seven to solicit industry and public input into the BPU’s proposal, which agency officials hope will provide a structure for the creation of charging sites that are evenly distributed to provide charging options around the state and also support environmental justice communities. (See NJ Plans for More Electric Truck Chargers.)

The proposal seeks to cut range anxiety for truckers, with a distribution of chargers created by private developers and investors, who would install, own and operate the equipment and market the sites to customers. Electric distribution companies (EDCs) would be responsible for wiring and providing the necessary backbone infrastructure, generally funded by ratepayers, to ensure the state has a “robust number of publicly accessible or public-serving” locations that are ready for MHD chargers to be installed.

Other speakers at the hearing — including representatives for the Center for Sustainable Energy, Public Service Electric and Gas, vehicle charging developer Greenlots and the Natural Resources Defense Council — said that truck owners are still assessing technology and how it can help them. But the state needs to be ready when early adopters start buying electric trucks.

“It’s happening faster than you think it’s happening,” said James Sherman, COO of Climate Change Mitigation Technologies, which helps businesses and government agencies put together EV purchase packages with the help of state subsidies. “We have people calling us all the time that want to know how to electrify. And I think there’s a great, pent-up demand for this.”

Sherman said the state needs to work on two tracks simultaneously: creating charging infrastructure immediately for the small number of early adopters, and planning for larger projects in the future, such as fleets of electric trucks.

“There is a short-term need for speed, while we look at the larger picture,” said Sherman, adding that he has put together a dozen fleet projects that will bring 44 electric trucks of different types to the state. Sherman helped arrange the purchase of 10 electric tractors — which move containers short distances and don’t leave the port — that began operating this month at the Red Hook terminal in Newark. (See Port of NY-NJ Unveils Fleet of 10 EV Trucks.)

Electric Truck Charging Challenges

Transportation accounts for about 40% of New Jersey’s carbon emissions, and transitioning to electric trucks and light-duty vehicles is a key element of Gov. Phil Murphy’s target of reaching 100% clean energy by 2050. The state’s master plan, released in 2019, assumes that 75% of medium-duty trucks and 50% of heavy-duty trucks will be electric by 2050.

Rooney said about 36,000 Class 8 diesel trucks, the largest on the road, are registered in New Jersey, and about 5,500 of them serve the port. Until the implementation of the Red Hook fleet, there were just a handful of electric trucks in the port, mainly tractors.

In one of the largest pending projects, New Jersey awarded $5.9 million to trucking company International Motor Freight to purchase two electric tractors and 16 electric trucks, which will be used on trips of 100 to 150 miles a day in and out of the port. The project is expected to receive a test vehicle, a Freightliner Cascadia, next week, with the full fleet expected to be delivered in late 2022 or early 2023, Rooney said.

It’s not clear, however, if there are any Class 8 electric trucks working on non-port-related trips in the state. Truckers in New Jersey, like those around the nation, cite the lack of MHD charging sites as a key obstacle to greater use of electric trucks. Other barriers include the short range of existing electric trucks — only up to about 250 miles — and the high cost of the vehicles. The cost of a new electric Class 8 truck, the size used to move containers in and out of the port and for long-haul deliveries, is about three times as much as a new diesel truck.

Rooney said that cost differential increases dramatically for the many small owner-operator truck companies in the port, who invariably do not have the money to buy a new truck, so they buy a used truck, 10 years old or older.

“So, a new electric truck with a charging station could cost somewhere between five to 10 times as much as the diesel equivalent that these independent owner-operators are typically buying,” she said.  

Port trucks can typically make a 250-mile trip to drop off a container, with a return trip the same day, which wouldn’t be possible using a currently available electric truck, she said. And if the truck stops to recharge, the driver could then run up against the federal safety limit to the number of hours that a driver can be behind the wheel, known as “hours of service,” she said.

“If they were to need to stop, for example, at a rest stop on the [New Jersey] Turnpike or Route 80 or Route 78 to charge, does that count against their hours of service or not?” Rooney said.

But Sherman said many drayage trucks — those that pick up or drop off containers at the port — make shorter trips, either to the concentration of warehouses and distribution centers in Central Jersey around Exit 8A of the turnpike, or across the George Washington Bridge and on to the Hunts Point food market, or other parts of New York. Exit 8A is about 35 miles from the port, and Hunts Point is about 30 miles away.

“These are easily within the range” of an electric truck, such as those made by manufacturer BYD, Sherman said. BYD’s model has a “working range” of about 150 miles, according to his presentation.

Charging Speed

Several speakers urged the BPU to make the final charger program as flexible as possible because the technology is changing and there are so many unknowns at present as to how it will be used. Truckers that want to go electric will have to plan not only what trucks to buy, but also the recharging system and what infrastructure they need the electric company to install to support it. Then they have to plan how to manage the trucks to get the optimal cost and use from them, speakers said.

“The fleet electrification market, I think, as we’ve seen so far, is pretty diverse; it’s evolving,” said Kellen Schefter, director of electric transportation at the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). “So, one takeaway is that there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all solution here in terms of the electric company approach.”

The diversity of situations that need to be accommodated range from fleets with hundreds of small light-duty vans doing last-mile deliveries, which would be charged overnight, to heavier Class 8 trucks, he said. Those trucks might be doing multiple short-haul routes a day and “need to charge a lot quicker and get back on the road,” he said.

One issue to consider is the location density of fleets and warehouses, which would mean a major load on the electricity distribution system if they all looked to employ EVs at once, he said. Moreover, while New Jersey needs to ensure there are enough charging sites statewide to accommodate the needs for long-haul trucks moving across the state, EEI believes that the “critical path forward, at least in the immediate term,” will be providing the infrastructure for truck charging at depots.

The charging strategy adopted by the fleet operator “can really make or break the operational cost savings,” Schefter said. He cited the example of four trucks charging with 150 kWh for two hours, between 9 and 11 p.m., compared to the same four trucks charging at 50 kWh over a longer period, from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

“Same amount of energy delivered; same amount of volume of electricity,” Schefter said. “But totally different requirements in terms of the power delivered, and a totally different implication for the total bill cost.”

The faster charging scenario would cost 37 cents/kWh, and “that’s probably more than they’re paying for diesel,” Schefter said. The slow charge, costing 17 cents/kWh, would likely be cheaper than diesel fuel.

“The point here is that just that one choice of when you charge and at what power level will really have an impact on the strategy here,” he said.