Sacramento could be home to the nation’s biggest electric truck charging depot

A transportation startup is planning to open the nation’s biggest electric vehicle charging depot off Interstate 5 near the Sacramento International Airport in 2025. 

The public station on a more than 100-acre site will be geared toward commercial trucks driving through the I-5 corridor. The Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District is working with WattEV on the solar-powered project, which will also lease its own vehicles from the depot. 

“Transportation emissions are the largest emissions sector in our region, so to remove this many gasoline-consuming vehicles off the road, especially from the heavy-duty sector, will have a huge impact on the air quality in our region,” said Raef Porter, the transportation and climate change program manager for the district. “So we’re really excited about this project.”

WattEV has secured a $34 million federal grant through the California Transportation Commission for the project. It recently completed a similar charging plaza at the Port of Long Beach, and has received funding for a station in Salem, Oregon.

The company said that around two-thirds of the electricity for the project will be solar, with the rest of the grid’s power supplied by SMUD.

Porter said a few companies in the area run their own electric truck charging stations — like Pepsi in South Sacramento, which has 20 Tesla semi-trucks — but this will be the first one open to the public.  

“Everything else has largely been what we'll call behind the fence or not available to the public,” Porter said. “This will be the first open to the public charging station or charging plaza. And the scale of it is going to mean that not only the fleet that WattEV is planning to operate, but any other fleet in the area would definitely be able to take advantage of the charging infrastructure as well.”

WattEV also plans to include 30 chargers for passenger vehicles at the station, but it’s not walking distance from the airport. The startup aims to open the depot in mid-to-late 2025.