Greenlane is Looking for Partners in its Electric Vehicle and Hydrogen Fueling Network
鈥攁 $650 million joint venture funded by NextEra, BlackRock and Daimler鈥攊s planning to develop electric vehicle charging infrastructure for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. The charging sites will also serve battery-electric passenger car and light-duty fleet customers and are being designed to provide hydrogen refueling for commercial vehicles in the future.
Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of Greenlane, said the company is interested in partnering with truck stop and travel center operators on future locations. He visited to talk with operators.
He explained that Greenlane鈥檚 network will be a combination of greenfield sites with the company acquiring land and developing properties, services and amenities, including food and beverages, and 鈥渂olt-on opportunities鈥� where they鈥檒l partner with existing facilities. 鈥淎 lot of truck stop and travel plaza owners don鈥檛 know where to start. That鈥檚 where we can come in,鈥� Macdonald-King said.
There are possibilities for land leases or joint partnerships. 鈥淭he value to you is you鈥檙e going to join a national network that includes technology, the right infrastructure and marketing to drive traffic to your sites,鈥� Macdonald-King said. 鈥淵ou鈥檒l get additional revenue. It allows you to modernize your facility without having to come out of pocket.鈥�
Partners will need a minimum of an acre-and-a-half of land, but possibly three. Utility requirements will vary depending on the size of the site and the number of lanes, but Macdonald-King said he expects locations to require 1.5 megawatts to five megawatts. 鈥淲e take care of that. One of the biggest things we bring to the table is a package,鈥� he said.
The facilities will be OEM-agnostic, so they can work with any make or model of vehicle, and they will be open to the public. They will feature wide pull-through lanes, allowing drivers to enter and exit the property quickly and easily, and will use a subscription model.
Technology will play a critical role in the infrastructure, and Macdonald-King called it the “connective tissue” that will bring shippers, dispatchers and drivers together to ensure vehicles can charge when needed. “Our network will all do smart tracking, smart routing and have integrations with telematics,” he said. “If a driver is late, it can re-route them to a different charging location or move them to a different lane so they can charge on time.”
Greenlane is focused on site performance. “We need to ensure the infrastructure is reliant, reliable and resilient. We need to surpass NEVI standards, which is 70% uptime,” Macdonald-King said, adding that each location will have onsite and remote monitoring.
The Initial Sites
Macdonald-King told attendees that Greenlane will choose locations based on freight demand and has developed a relationship with Uber Freight, which allows the company to overlay Uber鈥檚 data with its own. 鈥淲e have incredible insights into driver behavior,鈥� he said.
This week Greenlane announced that it broke ground to develop its first commercial EV charging corridor along Interstate 15. The initial locations will be in Colton, Barstow and Baker, California. Over the next year, more locations will be added along the corridor, extending beyond Southern Nevada and to San Pedro in California.
“By using a predictive modeling tool to simulate truck traffic and energy flow at the site, we can determine how many chargers are necessary to meet the regional demand based on vehicle characteristics and departure and arrival times for vehicles hauling freight along this corridor,” Macdonald-King said.
He added that Greenlane鈥檚 findings indicated that placing the three stations approximately 60 to 90 miles apart would maximize uptime for day-cab drivers by enabling shorter charging sessions at each stop.
At full build the Colton site is planned to have over 60 chargers, including 400 kW Direct Current Fast Chargers (DCFC) to speed charging of medium- and heavy-duty zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). More 200 kW DCFC charging options onsite will enable long-duration and overnight charging for heavy-duty tractors, medium-duty ZEVs and school buses. Greenlane will also deploy multiple passenger car charging stalls to support light-duty and passenger vehicles.
Later project phases will support both long-duration and overnight charging lanes for tractor-trailer combinations. The Greenlane site in Colton will also be future-proofed to accommodate the Megawatt Charging System when it becomes commercially available.
Greenlane expects the Colton location to open in late 2024.
To Learn More
Macdonald-King said operators interested in working with Greenlane can email the company at sales@drivegreenlane.com.
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