EV Realty has secured a $75 million growth equity commitment from NGP and broken ground on a 76-stall heavy‑duty charging hub in San Bernardino — a high‑throughput site designed to top up more than 200 Class 8 trucks per day. The Inland Empire location ties directly into freight flows near the San Bernardino Intermodal Facility, 60 million square feet of warehouses and Interstates 10 and 215. The project carries 9.9 megawatts of grid capacity and includes megawatt‑class, pull‑through stalls to keep tractors connected to trailers. Public funding support comes via South Coast AQMD and a conditional EnergIIZE award from the California Energy Commission; EV Realty says the hub is slated to open later this year.
The capital and the groundbreaking underscore a specific bet: in electric trucking, the gating item isn’t just chargers or trucks — it’s real estate with power. EV Realty says it acquires and builds on “grid‑ready” parcels in logistics districts, aggregating multiple fleets onto private, high‑power sites to drive utilization and lower per‑mile energy costs. The company frames the strategy as a resilient way to deploy infrastructure amid shifting policies and market cycles.
For carriers, the most consequential detail may be how these depots are sold and scheduled. EV Realty is prioritizing contracted access over walk‑up public use: at San Bernardino, the bulk of stalls are spoken for under multiyear agreements, with a small number reserved for pay‑as‑you‑go “pull‑through” fast turns. That approach smooths demand risk for the operator and gives fleets predictable, on‑route charging windows — a practical prerequisite for drayage and regional routes where uptime and turn times are everything.
The NGP raise arrives as EV Realty works to stitch together a corridor of heavy‑duty sites around California’s freight nodes. Beyond the first San Bernardino depot, the company is advancing additional large sites in Torrance near the Port of Long Beach, Livermore in Northern California and a second San Bernardino location — an emerging network that aligns with where trucks actually start and end their days.
Scale matters in day‑one reliability, but so do the details. The San Bernardino design features megawatt charging system (MCS) capability — crucial for fast top‑ups on loaded tractors — and pull‑through geometry to avoid time‑consuming trailer drops. EV Realty also says it’s linking site access through partnerships so drivers can move seamlessly across hubs operated by different owners, including a recent tie‑up with Prologis.
Why it matters for trucking: dedicated, grid‑powered depots built into freight lanes can narrow the gap between diesel and electric on real‑world total cost of ownership. With contracted stalls and known power availability, fleets can plan shifts and bids around predictable charge windows and energy pricing, rather than gamble on public uptime. That’s the connective tissue long promised for zero‑emission freight — and the latest funding suggests investors see room to build it out, even as the broader policy and demand environment remains choppy.
EV Realty today operates multiple charging hubs near ports and warehouse districts and says the new funding will accelerate additional builds across the state — a sign that grid‑first site selection, not just charger counts, could become the killer feature for fleet electrification in the near term.
Sources: FreightWaves, GlobeNewswire, TechCrunch, Canary Media, Electrek
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