Inside a warehouse in Rancho Dominguez in south Los Angeles County, four Isuzu trucks are in various stages of repair. These trucks were originally headed for the scrap yard or abroad, where they’d continue to be driven and pollute for years to come.  

“Instead, now they get at least 10 more years of operation as a zero-emissions vehicle here in California,” said Jakson Alvarez, the co-founder of Evolectric, a company that retrofits medium-duty diesel trucks to all-electric.  

California — along with states such as New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Mexico — is working to electrify the trucking industry to cut pollution. That effort so far has focused on swapping out old diesel-powered trucks for shiny, new electric ones.

But thanks to businesses like Evolectric, there is another option: giving old trucks a new, electric life.  

Alvarez said that converting these trucks costs between $80,000 to $110,000 — about half as much as buying a new electric truck. “This solution is especially ideal for those smaller fleets.”

Small businesses often spend tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the vehicle to maintain their diesel trucks and keep them running, he added. Converting to electric can help those businesses save money on fuel and on maintenance in the long run.  

“Calculations we’ve done could be 70% lower than a diesel truck,” said Alvarez.

Evolectric’s clients now include a few small recycling businesses and a construction contractor, as well as major industry players such as Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola. 

But a challenge has been training the needed workforce — including Marlon Guillén, who’s tightening bolts for a new inverter he’s installing in one of the Isuzus.

The 24-year-old recently graduated from LA Trade Tech College, where he studied diesel engine tech. Now, he works for Evolectric.  

“So far where we’re at, the trade schools, they don’t really teach electric stuff,” he said. “They do teach basic low-voltage diagnostics and stuff, but when it comes to higher voltage stuff, they don’t really teach it.”

Converting these trucks isn’t quite as simple as swapping out a diesel engine for a lithium-ion battery; technicians add a lot of high-voltage wires. The motor goes in the middle instead of the front of the chassis.

The company, now running for five years, spent its first several years engineering the optimal design. It’s one of the first companies successfully converting medium-duty trucks.  

“It’s just that satisfaction and feeling that you get once you complete it, once you finally have that final build and it’s running, it’s a good moment,” Guillén said.

And for Guillén, it’s also the start to a good career.