Port of LA turns to electric terminal trucks to to slash dwell times

APM Terminals has been electrifying its operations at the Port of Los Angeles over the last few years – and they’ve been able to effectively decarbonize and cut their fuel costs substantially. Those efforts have yielded another unexpected benefit, too: they’ve slashed truck idle times at the port by almost 85%.

With short runs at low speeds under heavy loads in a controlled space, heavy-duty terminal tractors represent an almost ideal use case for electrification. APM Terminals Pier 400 did that math and came to the same conclusion, adding twenty new Orange EV yard dogs to their fleet at the Port of Los Angeles. Along with other decarbonization and efficiency investments, that purchase has helped the company reduce truck dwell times from an average 90 minutes to just 35.

The pier has found big wins by making the whole truck-and-cargo flow less “wait your turn,” and more “keep it moving” with the addition of green lanes for ZEVs, tighter gate operations, and by pairing electrified equipment and its superior uptime with new, better rail and yard coordination.

“I’d have to say I was a little skeptical at the start, how one could move from low sixties percentage reliability to 90, and do it consistently?” remarked Jon Poelma, Managing Director, APM Terminals, Los Angeles. “But I think we can all see from the data that it is happening.”

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Investing in the future

That efficiency has been driven a number of clean vehicle investments that includes 36 electric cars and trucks, 3 electric straddle carriers, 9 HD electric forklifts and telehandlers, and 22 total electric terminal tractors, all drawing power from 51 EV charging stations sprinkled liberally around the sprawling container port.

Poelma also notes that the ship-to-shore cranes APMT uses run on grid electricity, and the ships that pull into dock can plug into that shore power as well.

“The cranes are all plugged in; not every terminal in the world has cranes that are plugged in,” adds Poelma. “Also, every ship that comes here, I would say 97% of the ships that came into Pier 400 last year got plugged in, and they go to shore power. So, you don’t see smoke coming out of those ships … and that’s pretty unique to Los Angeles and Long Beach. Even some of our cleanest ports out there in Europe are looking at it, (but) haven’t even implemented it yet.”

Poelma says APMT is now consuming about 7 MW of electricity, with plans to increase its consumption to over 18 MW as it pushes for more electrification in the years ahead. To that end, the company is also investing heavily in workforce development and training for both the operators and the technicians that keep the port’s operations running smoothly.

“This training has given our mechanics both the confidence and capability to support the port’s clean energy future,” explains Joe Gregorio Jr., President and Chief Operations Officer, PCMC. “We’re proud to be part of an effort that values upskilling and union craftsmanship alongside much needed progress to decarbonize supply chains. PCMC is dedicated to supporting both APM Terminals and our mechanics in the shift to decarbonize operations.”

Electrek’s Take

Over at The Heavy Equipment Podcast, we had a chance to talk to Orange EV founder Kurt Neutgens ahead of last year’s ACT Expo for clean trucking. On the show (available here), Kurt explained how his experience at Ford helped inform his design ideology, and that the Orange EV was designed to be cost competitive with diesel options, even without subsidies.

Give it a listen, then let us know whether you think the big yard dogs’ success will help debunk the “messy middle” myths or not, in the comments.

SOURCE | IMAGES: APM Terminals, via American Journal of Transportation.

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