SAN DIEGO, Calif.—San Diego Gas & Electric, along with local and state officials, unveiled four public, direct current (DC) fast chargers at Truck Net truck stop just north of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.  

The 250-kilowatt (kW) chargers can provide up to 250 miles per hour of charging for a passenger car. They can charge a typical medium-duty box truck from 20%-80% in about an hour and fully charge from empty to 100% in about two hours, San Diego Gas & Electric said in a statement.

The Otay Mesa Port of Entry is the busiest commercial border crossing in California, processing nearly one million commercial trucks and five million privately owned vehicles each year. Idling vehicles waiting to cross the border is a key contributor to air pollution in the San Diego region, according to the utility.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that this makes Truck Net the first truck stop in California to install public fast chargers for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.

“Air pollution doesn’t recognize national boundaries, and to accommodate the transition to zero-emission trucks on both sides of the border, it’s critically important that we rapidly scale up the charging network,” said Patty Monahan, a commissioner at the California Energy Commission (CEC), which paid for the chargers via a $200,000 grant.

Nora Vargas, chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, said, “This is a true community infrastructure solution that proves that through public-private partnerships, we can improve poor air quality for families and children and promote economic prosperity for the binational region.”

While there are about 1.4 million zero-emission passenger cars on California’s roads, there are only about 2,000 zero-emission trucks and buses in the Golden State, the Union-Tribune reports.