Matt Mandel, the FPAA representative on the Greater Nogales and Santa Cruz County Port Authority, and Allison Moore attended a meeting of stakeholders working on a project to study electric truck feasibility and the needed area infrastructure to support electric trucks operating in the Sonora-Arizona corridor.

The Nogales Port Authority is the principal program sponsor, the co-sponsoring agencies on this project include the Arizona-Mexico Commission, the Arizona Department of Transportation, the North American Development Bank, and the State of Sonora in addition to several private-sector stakeholders, including the FPAA.

The mission of the pilot program “to design, implement, and monitor a pilot program that deploys electric trucks and the necessary electric charging stations for cross-border drayage operations at Ambos Nogales.” Phase 1 would look at electric trucks crossing the border in the local Nogales AZ/Nogales Sonora area doing local stops. Phase 2 would identify and study a longer corridor into Sonora and Arizona. The project is in the early phases still, and the meeting on February 16 helped identify some additional areas that need to be considered in designing the full project as well as bringing all stakeholders to the table as the project gets underway.