Full Steam Ahead With Freight Electrification

Investing in Forum Mobility

The electrification of everything is coming to port cities near you, with the biggest opportunities being realized across the shortest distances.

The sleepy category in need of an EV jolt? Drayage. Drayage is an essential, intermodal step in moving freight where logistics services carry large containers over a short distance in and out of ports to warehouses, rail terminals, and trucks. Diesel-powered 18-wheelers have fueled the drayage industry for decades, the first step in a long chain of the heavy duty trucking edifice that moves goods from ports to destinations nationwide.

These small distances add up to a sizable market. According to the Intermodal Association of North America, there are more than 60 million drayage movements each year in North America with up to 95% of all globally manufactured goods traveling in a container at some point. West Coast drayage alone is a $25 billion opportunity, with the broader U.S. drayage market at $45 billion. According to the 2019 CARB registry, the Port of Oakland currently has over 4,000 active Class 8 trucks and the combined Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have over 13,000 Class 8 trucks. California is forecasted to have over 60,000 drayage vehicles by 2030 driven by rapid increases in demand for eCommerce goods.

As we all know by now, electrifying a massive industry (buses, all kinds of fleets, RVs, and more) isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. This is where Forum Mobility comes in.

Forum is enabling the electrification of the drayage market by both building EV infrastructure and providing EV heavy-duty trucks to enable logistics operators to transition to EV fleets at an overall lower total cost of ownership than diesel.

Forum is building the on-ramp to a broader electrification of heavy duty trucking. They’re perfectly situated to do so with the specific, regular, and short routes running in loops like a ferry system.

While it makes financial sense for drayage operators to go electric (fuel savings for local drayage could drive over $18,000 a year in savings per truck, according to CARB), it will also soon be mandatory. California has the worst air quality in the nation and heavy-duty trucks are among the largest contributors. 15 other states have signed a memorandum in support of rapid expansion of the zero emissions trucks setting ZEV sales targets to 30% by 2030 and 100% by 2050, with California setting even more aggressive targets: all Class-7 and Class-8 drayage trucks operating at intermodal seaports or rail yards must transition to full-zero emission by 2035.

CEO Matt Leducq and his team helped to build and develop some of the largest solar utility scale solar projects in the country. Working together for over a decade, they bring a unique expertise around large scale EPC, site acquisition and regulatory maneuvering.

We look forward to helping them build back better — cleaning the air, lowering costs, and supporting a more anti-fragile supply chain.