Electric Trucks: The REALITY for Tesla Semi & Volvo Fleets

Electric trucks are here, but what’s the real-world experience like? Hight Logistics CEO Rudy Diaz, who operates 2,500 electric trucks including Tesla Semis and Volvo EVs, breaks down the challenges and successes of transitioning to an electric fleet. From charging infrastructure and battery range to financing and regulations, get a frank assessment of where electric trucking stands today.

The single biggest obstacle to electrifying a trucking fleet is not the trucks themselves — it is securing reliable charging infrastructure before a single vehicle arrives. That is the blunt assessment of the founder and CEO of Hight Logistics, a port drayage company operating BYD and Volvo VNRE electric trucks in and out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, who shared four years of hard-won experience in a FreightWaves Today interview.

The stakes are rising fast. Roughly 850 EV trucks are currently operating at the LA and Long Beach port complex, and a second round of HVIP vouchers has already generated 1,000 new orders — doubling, in a single year, the total orders placed since the program launched. Tesla is expected to capture the majority of those new orders, a development the Hight Logistics CEO called encouraging given that Tesla engineered its Semi from the ground up rather than converting an existing diesel platform.

“If you’re going to go this route, you have to secure your charging. You got to make sure that you understand that it’s not — you’re not plugging in a blender, you’re not plugging in a toaster. Like, you got to have it figured out because if you don’t have this figured out and you have trucks and you have an order of 50 trucks, and you have 2 chargers, then you’re gonna run into a lot of issues.”

Current-generation BYD and Volvo VNRE trucks share similar limitations, the CEO said: a realistic range of 200 to 220 miles per charge, a full recharge time of 2 to 3 hours, and a weight penalty of 6,000 to 8,000 pounds compared to equivalent diesel units — excess mass that accelerates tire wear and constrains payload. Price is an additional friction point; electric trucks run roughly $400,000 apiece, a figure the CEO said his own company could not absorb without grant funding and incentives.

California’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule was the regulatory forcing function that pushed Hight Logistics into EVs roughly four years ago, the CEO acknowledged. Without that mandate, and without incentive money, he said he would have stayed with diesel. “Diesel works,” he said. “It’s not that it’s broken.” But for short-haul drayage — repeated runs of roughly 60 miles between the ports and the Inland Empire — he now views EV as the superior technology, pointing to California diesel prices that have reached nearly $8.50 a gallon as a decisive cost argument.

Route and charge management, not driver training, proved to be the steepest learning curve. Drivers adapted quickly to the quieter, automatic, regenerative-braking trucks, but dispatchers had to rethink every deployment. Early on, Hight Logistics pushed trucks past their usable range to establish real-world limits — and had to tow a few back. That trial-and-error discipline is now embedded in its operations.

The CEO said the ecosystem has matured considerably since Hight Logistics entered the space. Financing, insurance, and truck availability have all improved — hurdles that were nearly prohibitive at the outset. His long-term target is a 100% EV fleet. “At Hight Logistics, we’ve demonstrated that it works,” he said. “I would say that if you fast forward from 4 years ago, it’s a lot easier for a carrier to get into an electric truck.”

• 1,000 new EV truck orders submitted in the latest HVIP voucher round — double the roughly 850 units already operating at the LA and Long Beach ports.
• BYD and Volvo VNRE trucks deliver 200–220 miles of range, take 2–3 hours to fully charge, and weigh 6,000–8,000 lbs more than comparable diesel trucks.
• At ~$400,000 per truck, Hight Logistics says EV adoption would be unviable without grant funding and California mandates, but diesel near $8.50/gallon strengthens the operating cost case for short-haul drayage.

This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.