California’s new Rialto EV truck hub shows how renewable energy, AI, and logistics are converging to clean up freight while cutting costs and creating better jobs.
Most people still think of electric vehicles as passenger cars and glossy ads. Meanwhile, the real transformation is happening in truck yards, depots, and highway corridors.
In late November 2025, another big piece of that puzzle went live: a heavy-duty EV charging hub in Rialto, California, powered by 100% renewable energy and built specifically for commercial fleets. It’s not just another set of plugs in the ground. It’s a blueprint for how green technology, logistics, and smart infrastructure fit together.
This matters because freight is one of the dirtiest parts of the transport system. Heavy-duty trucks are a small fraction of vehicles on the road, but they produce a huge share of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Every time an electric truck replaces a diesel rig on a major corridor, the impact is outsized.
In this post, part of our Green Technology series, I’ll break down what Terawatt Infrastructure’s new Rialto site actually offers, why hubs like this are becoming critical to the clean energy transition, how AI and smart charging will shape fleet electrification, and what all of this means for businesses looking for an edge.
What’s Different About the Rialto Renewable EV Charging Hub?
The Rialto project is a purpose-built EV charging hub for medium- and heavy-duty fleets located about 56 miles east of Los Angeles along the I‑10 corridor. It’s designed around how trucks really operate, not how passenger cars refuel.
Here’s what the site includes:
- 18 pull-through 350 kW DC fast-charging stalls designed for trucks and trailers
- 55 bobtail parking stalls for overnight parking, shift changes, and staging
- Driver lounge with climate control, Wi‑Fi, and restrooms
- License plate recognition for automated, frictionless entry
- Solar canopies on-site and 100% renewable energy powering every session
- 24/7 security, gated access, and 360-degree cameras to protect vehicles, cargo, and people
The pull-through layout is a bigger deal than it sounds. Most existing fast chargers were designed for cars; trying to fit a tractor-trailer into a tight charging bay is a logistics headache. A pull-through design lets a truck roll in, plug in, and roll out without precarious backing maneuvers.
Rialto isn’t a one-off experiment either. Earlier in 2025, Terawatt opened a similar California site with 20 fast charging stalls and about 7 MW of capacity, enough to handle around 125 trucks per day. The pattern is clear: these hubs are being designed as a network, not isolated islands.
The simple version: heavy-duty fleets now have a real, scalable alternative to diesel along a key freight corridor in Southern California.
Why Renewable-Powered Truck Charging Hubs Matter
The main benefit of a renewable EV truck hub is obvious: lower emissions. But the details are where logistics leaders and sustainability teams can justify actual investment.
1. Huge Air Quality and Climate Benefits
Heavy-duty diesel trucks are responsible for a disproportionate share of:
- Nitrogen oxides (NOx) that harm lungs and drive smog
- Particulate matter (PM) that penetrates deep into the respiratory system
- CO₂ emissions that drive climate change
Switching freight corridors from diesel to electric cuts all three, especially when powered by renewable energy.
Rialto’s promise of 100% renewable energy—with solar canopies on-site—means the emissions associated with each kWh of charging are dramatically lower than grid-average power. When you scale that across fleets doing hundreds of thousands of miles per year, the carbon math gets compelling fast.
2. Local Benefits for Communities on Freight Corridors
Corridors stretching from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through Vernon, Commerce, and Rialto pass directly through communities that have borne the brunt of diesel pollution for decades.
A corridor of electric heavy-duty charging hubs:
- Reduces local tailpipe emissions where people live and work
- Supports California clean air mandates and port decarbonization goals
- Reduces noise pollution from idling diesel engines
You’re not just making a sustainability report look nicer; you’re changing the lived experience of people near warehouses, distribution centers, and ports.
3. Real Economic Upside: Jobs and Higher Wages
Green technology isn’t just about emissions—it’s also about industrial strategy and jobs. According to regional data for Southern California:
- The five-county region employs around 119,200 workers in the EV industry
- That’s about 43% of all EV jobs in California (roughly 275,600 statewide)
- Average annual wages in the California EV industry sit around $91,300, versus about $68,500 across all industries
Infrastructure like the Rialto hub supports:
- Construction and engineering jobs to build the sites
- Ongoing operations, maintenance, and security roles
- Upstream work in vehicle manufacturing, battery systems, and software
If you’re a regional planner or an economic development team, freight corridor electrification is honestly one of the most concrete “green growth” stories out there.
How AI and Smart Charging Turn Hubs into Green Technology Platforms
Here’s the thing about large EV hubs: if you run them in a dumb way, you get big power bills and grid headaches. Run them smart, and you get a flexible, resilient asset that supports both fleets and utilities.
This is where AI and smart energy management show up as the quiet engine behind green technology.
Smart Charging for Fleets
A heavy-duty EV charging hub is an ideal case for AI-driven charging orchestration:
- Route-aware scheduling: Software can prioritize which trucks charge when, based on departure times, routes, and delivery windows.
- Dynamic power allocation: Instead of every charger pulling max power, AI distributes energy to meet state-of-charge targets at the lowest cost.
- Demand charge mitigation: Algorithms can smooth peaks to avoid expensive utility demand charges.
For a fleet operator, the KPI isn’t “time spent charging.” It’s on-time delivery at the lowest total cost per mile. AI can crunch thousands of variables—weather, traffic, route length, driver hours-of-service, energy prices—and create optimal charging plans in real time.
Integrating Solar and Storage
Rialto already features solar canopies. The natural next steps many hubs take are:
- On-site battery storage to shift solar energy into evening peaks
- Participation in demand response or grid services
Here, AI can:
- Predict solar generation and fleet load profiles
- Decide when to charge the site battery and when to discharge
- Automatically choose between using solar, storage, or grid power based on cost and carbon footprint
That’s not just a charging hub anymore; it’s a distributed energy resource that supports a more resilient, lower-carbon grid.
Data as a Strategic Asset
Every session at a site like Rialto generates data:
- Arrival and departure times
- Energy consumed per truck and per route
- Charging speed versus battery health
- Utilization by stall, by time of day, by fleet
Feed that into AI models and you get insights that can:
- Guide fleet right-sizing (How many trucks do you really need?)
- Reveal optimal depot locations for future hubs
- Improve vehicle procurement decisions (Which OEMs deliver best real-world range and uptime?)
Smart fleets will treat these hubs not just as fueling stations, but as data platforms that sharpen their entire operation.
What This Means for Fleets, Developers, and Cities
Most companies get this wrong: they view EV transition as a one-off capital purchase—“buy some trucks, add a few chargers, done.” The reality? It’s an ecosystem shift.
Rialto is a good case study for what each stakeholder should be thinking about.
For Fleet Operators
If you operate medium- or heavy-duty vehicles, hubs like this change your options.
You can:
- Pilot routes from ports to inland distribution centers using battery-electric trucks with reliable access to 350 kW charging
- Start phasing diesel out of regular routes without building all the charging infrastructure yourself
- Reduce exposure to volatile diesel prices with more predictable electricity costs, especially when powered by renewables
Practical steps I’d recommend:
- Map existing routes against current and announced charging hubs.
- Identify early-win routes (predictable, under a few hundred miles, fixed stops).
- Work with infrastructure providers to reserve capacity and integrate charging data into your fleet management system.
For Property Owners and Developers
If you own land near freight corridors, you’re sitting on a potential clean infrastructure asset.
This is the time to:
- Assess grid capacity and interconnection timelines for your sites
- Evaluate solar canopy options (parking + power + shade is a strong combo)
- Explore partnerships with charging operators who can finance and manage the hub while you provide the real estate
In markets like Southern California, demand is growing fastest for:
- Pull-through truck charging
- Mixed-use hubs that serve both light-duty and heavy-duty EVs
- Sites with good access control, security, and driver amenities
For Cities and Regions
Local governments that want both climate progress and high-value jobs should be treating freight electrification as core infrastructure, not an afterthought.
Priorities that actually move the needle:
- Zoning and permitting that recognize charging hubs as critical infrastructure
- Streamlined interconnection processes with utilities
- Incentives that reward renewable-powered sites and local workforce development
Hubs like Rialto align clean transport, clean power, and green jobs in a single project type. That’s rare. It’s worth leaning into.
The Bigger Story: Green Technology Is Becoming Logistics Infrastructure
Rialto’s renewable EV charging hub is one site along one corridor—but it signals where things are heading.
Green technology used to mean rooftop solar panels and maybe a few EV chargers in a parking lot. Now it’s evolving into:
- High-capacity renewable-powered freight hubs
- AI-managed energy systems that balance vehicles, buildings, and the grid
- Regional ecosystems where clean transport, clean energy, and data are woven together
For businesses, the question isn’t whether this shift will happen. It’s: Will you treat it as a compliance headache, or as a competitive advantage?
If you’re running fleets, building logistics assets, or planning regional infrastructure, the next logical move is to:
- Audit where diesel still dominates your operations
- Identify corridors where renewable-powered hubs are emerging
- Run the numbers on total cost of ownership, factoring in fuel, maintenance, air quality regulations, and brand value
The freight landscape of 2030 is being built now, charger by charger and route by route. Projects like the Rialto renewable EV charging hub show that green technology isn’t theoretical anymore—it’s poured concrete, steel canopies, and trucks rolling silently out onto the interstate.