Forum Mobility and the Quiet Electrification of Freight Infrastructure
“Electric cars are not going to take the market by storm, but it's going to be a gradual improvement.”
Let me start here: I’m not a fan of electric vehicles. I think as a global economy, we lack the necessary infrastructure to go all electric. That’s just for personal vehicles. I’m not a fan of the longevity of vehicles, the quality control on the batteries, the cost of development, and the carbon emissions.
When people talk about electric trucks, they talk about the trucks—Tesla Semis, Class 8 range, zero-emission mandates. But electrification doesn’t start with the truck. It starts with the grid.
Forum Mobility is one of the few companies in freight solving for that. While OEMs race to build battery-powered tractors, Forum is quietly building the physical infrastructure those trucks will depend on—charging depots, power management, grid interconnections, and long-term real estate—specifically for drayage fleets.
Because the real bottleneck in electrifying freight isn’t vehicle availability. It’s where to charge, how often, and at what power density.
The Infrastructure Gap Most Fleets Can’t Bridge
Heavy-duty EVs are coming. California’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) regulation mandates that all drayage trucks registering with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) be zero-emission starting January 1, 2024. And by 2035, internal combustion drayage trucks will be banned from port operations entirely.
That’s a massive shift for an industry that runs on low margins and old equipment. The average drayage truck in California is over 12 years old, and over 30,000 trucks are in active operation—many by small fleets or single-owner operators with little capital to spare.
Electric trucks are expensive, and charging infrastructure is an even bigger hurdle. Fleet operators don’t have megawatt connections sitting in their yards. And utilities don’t build substation capacity for fun. That’s the problem Forum is stepping into.
What Forum Mobility Is Building
Forum is developing a statewide network of heavy-duty charging depots, focused on California’s busiest ports and freight corridors—Oakland, Long Beach, San Pedro Bay, Stockton, and inland hubs like Fontana. These are purpose-built to support battery-electric Class 8 tractors running short-haul drayage lanes.
Each site is designed for:
High-throughput, high-utilization fleet operations
Megawatt-scale capacity with utility interconnections that can take 5–7 years to secure
Turnkey access for fleets: parking, charging, uptime guarantees, and zero infrastructure burden
Forum’s model is infrastructure-first. They handle site acquisition, permitting, grid coordination, and construction. Fleets show up and plug in.
Why Drayage Is the Right Starting Point
Electrification works best in high-repeatability environments. That’s exactly what drayage offers.
Most port drayage runs are under 50 miles roundtrip, operate from fixed origins and destinations, and are highly time-sensitive. They also account for a disproportionate share of emissions. According to CARB, drayage vehicles represent less than 3% of registered trucks in California, but contribute over 10% of total NOx and PM2.5 emissions from on-road freight.
Electrifying this segment is low-hanging fruit from both a technical and policy perspective—and it allows charging infrastructure to be centralized at predictable hubs rather than distributed across uncertain lanes.
Forum’s strategy is to build where the trucks naturally converge: port gates, transload hubs, and crossdock facilities.
Funding the Buildout
In 2023, Forum Mobility announced a major funding milestone: $15 million in equity and $400 million in project financing, led by investment partners like CBRE Investment Management and Homecoming Capital. That capital is going toward a multi-year deployment of depots and equipment across key freight lanes in California.
This isn’t a venture-capital sprint. It’s an infrastructure marathon. Forum is approaching this like a utility: buying land, securing long-term power, and locking in durable contracts with fleet operators.
Partners include:
Tetra Tech for engineering and power system design
CBRE for real estate site sourcing and logistics zone development
EV OEMs like BYD and Volvo, who benefit from depot availability in sale cycles
Business Model: EV-as-a-Service for Drayage
Forum Mobility isn’t just a utility or a real estate player. It’s offering bundled electrification-as-a-service for drayage carriers who want to comply with California mandates but can’t afford to electrify solo.
Carriers can lease electric trucks (Class 8) from Forum with charging access, maintenance, and uptime commitments built in. The pricing is modeled as a monthly or per-mile fee, designed to mimic—or even beat—the cost of operating a diesel tractor once fuel and maintenance are factored in.
It’s designed to eliminate capex, simplify compliance, and guarantee access to infrastructure that would otherwise be out of reach.
Why This Is Hard—and Why It’s a Moat
Connecting megawatt-scale infrastructure to the grid is not fast. It requires:
Multi-agency coordination across utilities, municipalities, and air quality districts
Long lead-time power upgrades (substations, transformers, dedicated feeders)
Real estate in industrial zones where land is expensive and limited
Power redundancy, traffic access, and zoning that fits Class 8 operations
This is the opposite of fast scale. But once you do it, it’s defensible. Forum’s moat is in its permits, grid connections, and locations, not its software. That’s why it’s more utility than startup.
Final Thought: Freight Electrification Isn’t a Product—It’s a Project
Electrifying trucks doesn’t work without infrastructure. Forum Mobility understands that. They’re not building charging stations—they’re building the physical layer of the zero-emission supply chain. The dirt, the wires, and the land that makes electric freight actually possible.
Because the future of freight won’t be decided by who builds the best truck. It’ll be decided by who controls the places those trucks need to charge.
Forum Mobility isn’t selling electrification. They’re operationalizing it.
