Before the sun rose on a cold January morning, Alex López navigated an 18-wheeler through busy traffic on the 710 freeway. He was headed to the Port of Long Beach, just south of Los Angeles, to retrieve a shipping container and haul it to a warehouse. In the eight years he’s been driving trucks, it was a process López had done thousands of times.
“There’s usually nothing new with the routine we have as truckers,” he said.
But on this day, there was something new: He was driving an electric truck.
López drives for Hight Logistics, a family-owned company that moves cargo in and out of the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. In January, Hight added four battery-electric trucks to its 50-vehicle fleet. They will mostly haul containers between Hight’s warehouse and the port, a route that cuts through a cluster of communities that have some of the dirtiest air and highest rates of asthma in the country.
Trucks play a foundational role in the U.S. economy. Forty ... Read more
