California’s New Truck-Charging Hub Shows Where Industrial Real Estate Is Headed

Keith Reynolds
Dec 3
5 min read

Terawatt’s Rialto site isn’t just 18 fast chargers. It’s a blueprint for freight-corridor real estate.

A heavy-duty hub built like a logistics asset

Along Interstate 10 in Rialto, about 56 miles east of Los Angeles, Terawatt Infrastructure has switched on one of the most fully featured heavy-duty charging hubs in the U.S.

According to reporting from CleanTrucking.com and CleanTechnica, the site includes 18 pull-through 350 kW DC fast-charging stalls designed for Class 6–8 trucks, 55 bobtail parking stalls for overnight and shift-change parking, 24/7 gated access with license-plate recognition and 360-degree cameras, plus a driver lounge with Wi-Fi, climate control, and restrooms. Every charging session is backed by 100 percent renewable energy via solar canopies and supply contracts.

Electrek describes it as “a new fast-charge pit stop for electric big rigs” on one of the country’s busiest freight corridors, linking the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the Inland Empire warehouse belt. That framing matters for landlords: this is truck-specific infrastructure — long, pull-through bays, secure parking, and driver amenities — designed from the ground up as a logistics asset, not a repurposed passenger-car site.

Truck electrification is real demand, not pilot theater

If a build like this had opened five years ago, it might have looked like a science project. The numbers now say otherwise.

CALSTART’s June 2025 Zeroing in on Zero-Emission Trucks update counts more than 52,500 zero-emission trucks (ZETs) on U.S. roads as of December 2024, a 23 percent increase over the prior report, with California still leading deployments and states like Texas and Florida rapidly following. CALSTART’s summary and the associated market-update PDF break down deployments by state and truck class.

Globally, the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook 2025 reports that electric medium- and heavy-duty truck sales grew sharply in 2024, with Europe logging more than 10,000 electric truck sales for the second year in a row and countries like Brazil, Canada, and Japan starting to move beyond early pilots. IEA’s heavy-duty trends chapter and prior 2024 analysis show electric truck sales climbing from around 54,000 in 2023 with growth concentrated in China and Europe.

AP reporting on China’s truck market adds another signal: by mid-2025, roughly 22 percent of new heavy truck sales in China were already electric, with some analysts projecting 60 percent by 2026 — a shift that could significantly dent global diesel and LNG demand. Associated Press coverage frames this as an underreported but structural change in freight energy.

For industrial and logistics landlords, the takeaways are simple:

Tenant fleets will increasingly show up expecting high-power charging, not just asking whether it might come someday.
Properties near ports and freight corridors will see location value re-rated based on access to power, not just access to highways.
Whoever controls well-sited, power-ready land — owners, infra funds, or specialists like Terawatt — will control a key piece of the freight value chain.

Why microgrid-style design will matter to landlords

Rialto’s renewable-backed design hints at a second trend: treating truck hubs as microgrid-ready energy assets, not just “big parking lots with plugs.” Terawatt’s hub relies on solar canopies and contracted renewable supply to power sessions, reducing exposure to grid volatility and improving the site’s emissions profile. CleanTechnica’s write-up emphasizes that every charge delivered at the site is matched with renewable energy.

The model closely mirrors the Duke Energy + Electrada Fleet Mobility Microgrid in Mount Holly, North Carolina, where fleets can charge from either the grid or a microgrid composed of solar, battery storage, hydrogen and other generation. Duke calls it the first depot in the U.S. designed for light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks that can switch to 100 percent renewable energy on site. See Duke’s press release, Electrada’s project stats and a Kempower case study.

The logic is straightforward for owners and investors:

High, spiky loads from truck charging can trigger punishing demand charges and upgrade costs if unmanaged.
Pairing chargers with storage and renewables, controlled by smart software, can flatten peaks, provide backup during outages, and in some markets earn grid-services revenue.
Wrapping the whole stack into a fleet-as-a-service contract with predictable per-mile or per-kWh pricing makes it easier for tenants and lenders to underwrite.

For property portfolios, that’s a case for designing large depots and truck courts as energy campuses from day one: engineered interconnection, reserved space for batteries and solar, and control systems that coordinate with building loads instead of fighting them. DOE and EPA resources on EV charging for commercial buildings offer practical guidance on integrating charging into existing electrical infrastructure.

Truck-charging as an anchor amenity

Rialto also underscores that driver experience is now part of asset value. The lounge, restrooms, Wi-Fi, lighting and security features signal that Terawatt and its customers understand charging time is still dwell time. For industrial parks competing for tenants and drivers, that can be the difference between a “must-stop” hub and a lot drivers avoid.

We’re already seeing similar thinking at ports. At the Port of Long Beach, a facility operated by 4 Gen Logistics in partnership with Electrify America has installed 30 hyper-fast chargers (up to 350 kW) dedicated to drayage trucks. The port calls it the largest truck-charging station at any U.S. port; 4 Gen frames it as core to its sustainability and operations strategy. See the Port’s news release and 4 Gen’s project overview, as well as additional context from DSL Logistics. For owners, that suggests truck-charging hubs can evolve into anchor amenities — much like rail spurs or cross-dock configurations once were — whose quality directly affects tenant retention, labor recruitment and ESG positioning.

Questions industrial owners and developers should ask

If you own or plan warehouses, truck courts or industrial land on major freight routes, Terawatt’s Rialto hub is less a curiosity than a preview. A few questions to take back to your team:

Where on our network could a shared truck-charging hub create a moat? Look at your sites along I-10, I-5, I-95 and major port approaches where multiple tenants or carriers could share capacity
What is our real grid headroom — and what would it cost to serve trucks? Engage utilities early, using fleet-planning and commercial-building charging guides to model loads and interconnection timelines rather than treating charging as an afterthought.
Do we want to host, partner, or operate? Players like Terawatt and Electrada are effectively infrastructure co-developers. Decide whether your strategy is to host their sites, form joint ventures, or build internal capabilities.
How do we design for renewables and storage from day one? Use microgrid examples like Mount Holly as templates for reserving space, permitting DERs, and aligning controls with fleet and building loads.
What do drivers and dispatchers actually experience on our sites today? The gap between “infrastructure on paper” and real-world usability — signage, lighting, uptime, restrooms, safety — is where fleet relationships are won or lost.

Taken together, Terawatt’s Rialto build and the emerging microgrid hubs around it are sending a clear message to the CRE world: in the age of electric freight, industrial real estate is becoming an energy business too — whether owners are ready or not.