Toyota Participates in the Zero-Emissions Freight Movement

Development of zero-emissions vehicles for the Port of Los Angeles has been taking place for a couple of years with Toyota taking the lead.

There’s no denying the fact that California is at the forefront of trying to move toward zero-emissions programs for the vehicles on the roadways in the state and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is leading the efforts. CARB has preliminarily awarded $41 million to the Port of Los Angeles to develop this technology in a program that will bring in Toyota, Kenworth, and Shell to the mix. The goal is to develop a fleet of trucks that can haul materials from the ships to the store while producing nearly no harmful emissions into the air.

Expanding the Use of Hydrogen

Receiving an award of this magnitude will allow the port to expand from having two trucks that run on hydrogen to ten Class 8 on-road trucks that are built on the Kenworth T680 platform that use the Toyota hydrogen fuel cell powertrain. The ten new trucks will be used by Toyota Logistics Services, United Parcel Services, Total Transportation Services Inc., and Southern Counties Express to get items from the port to where they need to go.

More Fueling Stations

While a hydrogen fueling station for a small passenger vehicle is easy enough to put together, the need to have stations large enough to refuel these heavy-duty trucks is necessary for this program to be successful. There will be two new large capacity stations that are placed in Wilmington and Ontario, California by Shell to make sure there are stations in place for these trucks. This will allow the network of stations to reach a total of five in the region to enable the zero-emissions freight trucks to get their job done.

Toyota Isn’t Stopping There

Developing trucks that can run on hydrogen and expel only water vapor as the emitted waste is one thing, putting the focus on the rest of the equipment used is another. The Toyota port warehouse in the Port of Hueneme will be the home of the first two zero-emissions yard tractors and forklifts to help get the work done. This means the equipment that’s loading the trucks that carry the goods to the store will also expel only water vapor into the air and not the harmful emissions that most of these pieces of equipment put out right now.

An Excellent Program Led by Toyota

The development of hydrogen fuel-cell trucks for the Port of Los Angeles has been a program that’s been led by Toyota for the past couple of years to help prove that large trucks can be zero-emissions vehicles. This “Shore to Store” plan allows the heavy-duty transportation of goods in a way that’s more closely related to the current methods of refueling, driving, and operating these trucks. With the success of this program, you can expect to see more of these trucks on the roads around the country in the future.