Even soaring diesel prices aren't enough to make the economics of battery-electric trucking work.
Truckers in California are asking the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to subsidize the high costs of owning and operating zero-emission big rigs. Drivers of electric-powered rigs say they can't compete with diesel-powered rivals even as fuel prices surge to record highs.
Diesel hit a national average record of $6.528 a gallon in September, according to energy pricing specialists OPIS. In California, which has the highest fuel prices in the nation, it set a new high on Sept. 22 of $8.439.
The ports are considering paying truckers $60 each time they pick up or drop off containers with a zero-emission vehicle, up to a maximum $36,000 per truck per year, over the next three years. The boards of the two ports are expected to vote on the proposal in the coming months.
Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said struggling carriers approached the port to request help earlier this year. The ports, as well as state and federal agencies, have already committed hundreds of millions of dollars to install charging infrastructure and subsidize purchases of zero-emission trucks.
"I don't know that just subsidizing people is a complete answer," Seroka said. "But maybe in the interim we've got to do something to help."
The Southern California ports operate the busiest container complex in the country, moving tens of millions of boxes each year and producing one of the largest sources of air pollution in the region, according to state regulators.
California already offers generous grants to truckers to offset some of the higher costs of zero-emission vehicles that can run three times more than diesel rigs. Carriers say they also face bigger bills for charging infrastructure and higher operating costs related to financing, insuring and running trucks.
Ping Burke, vice president of sales and operations at Compton, Calif.-based trucker Tradelink Transport, said comparing electricity prices with diesel bills doesn't translate into total savings because electric trucks spend more time out of service being charged. "Hands down, the EV can win on energy cost, but we still have to make sure we don't give those savings back through downtime and lost utilization," Burke said.
State and local agencies have worked for years to reduce emissions. The ports set a target in 2017 to phase out diesel trucks by 2035. Today, fewer than 700 of the 17,000 trucks that call the ports -- or just 4% of rigs -- are zero-emission, according to port data.
Early adopters of zero-emission technologies say they can't command the rates they need to cover the higher costs of battery-electric or hydrogen fuel-cell trucks because they are competing with lower-cost diesel rivals.
"Everybody wants sustainability, but nobody wants to pay for it," said Robert Loya, chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, an industry group that asked the ports to help battery-electric truckers.
Port truckers are coming off the back of several years of low cargo rates. They say they can't assume that a recent increase in freight demand or the run-up in diesel prices will make zero-emission trucking more cost competitive.
"We lost our shirts off it in '23, '24 and '25," said Rudy Diaz, CEO of Long Beach, Calif.-based Hight Logistics, who started running zero-emission trucks at the end of 2022. "We are still upside down when you compare us to diesel fleets."
California had been building momentum for zero-emission trucking demand. But the effort has been set back in recent years, notably when the state dropped regulations that would have forced truckers to buy battery-electric rigs because of anticipated opposition from the Trump administration.
The Los Angeles and Long Beach ports have since 2022 raised more than $350 million to invest in clean technologies via a "clean truck" fee of $10 a visit on diesel rigs. They have distributed only a fraction of that money, in part because truckers face yearslong waits for charging infrastructure and vehicles. The ports plan to finance the new incentive program using $60 million from their clean-truck funds.
Noel Hacegaba, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, said the program is one of several his port is working on to keep existing zero-emission trucks on the road.
The Port of Long Beach recently set aside $4.8 million to make one-off payments of up to $10,000 for early adopters of zero-emission trucks. It added a further $10 million to subsidize the cost of hydrogen fuel. "We need to make sure the trucks already serving the port that are zero-emission can keep operating," Hacegaba said.