Up to 40 electric motorcoaches can plug in at the 3.5-acre campus in Newark, California. According to operators ABC Companies and Proterra, it is North America’s largest charging facility for motorcoaches.
The facility is equipped with 20 charging stations with two cables each. These are provided by Proterra. The total charging power across all stations is 1.4 MW.
“The facility enables enhanced service, delivery, training and support for the growing number of Proterra-powered Van Hool 100 per cent electric motorcoaches, which are powered by Proterra’s battery technology”, it says in the press release.
ABC Companies is a leading provider of motorcoach, transit, and speciality passenger transport equipment.
Together with Proterra and local utility provider Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), it wants to demonstrate that “both the power and charging solutions are available to meet fleet operators’ needs to scale their commercial EV operations.”
“In under two years, over 20% of our motorcoach sales are now battery-electric vehicles. However, the rapid growth in our commercial EV sales requires a corresponding charging infrastructure capable of handling the size and power requirements of these vehicles. Therefore, ABC has chosen to invest strategically to support the vehicles already in operation,” says Roman.