TeraWatt to help charge EV fleets cruising the LAX area
TeraWatt Infrastructure, founded by ex-Google strategist Neha Palmer, has broken ground on a new charging site for EV fleets in California. The charging park near Los Angeles Airport will host 26 DC fast chargers and is slated to open next year.
TeraWatt owns the site and will operate and maintain the charging infrastructure. At the same time, the statement mentions multi-tenants, making it likely that the Inglewood site will be exclusive to fleet clients.
A grant indicates the same. The site was the recipient of a $1.9 million grant through the California Energy Commission in support of ride-hail electrification in the Los Angeles Airport (LAX) region.
The site in Inglewood is only three miles from the high-traffic LAX area.
TeraWatt says it will provide high charging reliability as the push for zero-emission vehicles continues to gain momentum.
California’s Advanced Clean Vehicle Act will come into force next year and mandates that all sales of new light-duty passenger vehicles in California must be zero emission by 2035. It also introduces sales rates, increasing the pressure to roll out electric cars faster in the run-up to 2035.
Patty Monahan, CEC Commissioner on site, said the Energy Commission was “proud to provide funding for this project to encourage rideshare fleets to electrify and to support the Governor’s goal of transitioning all new light-duty vehicles to zero-emission by 2035.”
Also speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony, Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. welcomed TeraWatt to “the City of Champions as an environmental partner”.
“Our goal is to provide a seamless charging solution with both infrastructure and services so that fleets can more rapidly accelerate their electrification efforts,” said Neha Palmer, CEO and co-founder of TeraWatt. “The move to EVs is happening now, not just for consumers, but for fleets transitioning to a zero-emission approach. The Inglewood charging site is the first of many infrastructure build-outs that will enable businesses to holistically adopt a sustainable transportation strategy.”
Palmer founded the company in May 2021 and was previously responsible for strategically powering Google’s global data centres. Building on his experience, the core of TeraWatt’s strategy is to start the development process early and to include utilities from the beginning. “There will have to be a lot of collaboration between stakeholders, including grid owners, operators, utilities, regulators and end users, to ensure that the grid can evolve alongside the shift to electric transportation,” says Palmer.
TeraWatt received over one billion dollars in funding in September 2022 from mostly unnamed backers.
The company currently owns around 20 sites; the most prominent project, announced last October, is a truck charging corridor along the Interstate 10 highway. The I-10 reaches from the Port of Long Beach, California, to El Paso in Texas, and TeraWatt Charging Centers will be installed across California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
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