Modesto Frito-Lay plant shows off Tesla semis, sustainable fleet as part of $30.8m project
Modesto’s Frito-Lay plant on Wednesday showed off its all-electric Tesla semis, the first used anywhere in commercial distribution.
The $30.8 million, multi-pronged environmental project at the Modesto snack foods plant was first unveiled more than three years ago, when a prototype of the electric vehicle company’s semi was brought on site. The semis rolled into Modesto last month.
On Wednesday, six of them — many branded with the yellow-orange Frito-Lay colors — sat at the plant along with the company’s other zero or near-zero emission vehicles.
“We’re just getting started. This project in Modesto doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” said Steven Williams, CEO of PepsiCo Foods North America, which is Frito-Lay’s parent company. “It’s part of a much larger ambition for PepsiCo to use fewer precious resources and help build a stronger sustainable future for everyone.”
The semis are part of an overall order of 15. In early December, Tesla CEO Elon Musk held a flashy private event at the company’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nev., to celebrate the delivery of the first semi to the Modesto plant. Williams and fellow PepsiCo executive Kirk Tanner were at the event, which featured lasers, smoke and a lot of high-fives. The electric semis have been on the road since, used for distribution of Frito-Lay products.
The plant’s sustainability project also includes the purchase of 38 Volvo natural gas-powered semis, six electric Peterbilt box trucks, 12 electric forklifts and three electric yard tractors. The site also installed additional solar panels and on-site charging and battery storage stations.
Williams said the plant’s use of the electric and compressed natural gas already has resulted in a 91% reduction of greenhouse gases from its fleet. That is equivalent to taking about 1,000 standard SUVs off the road, he said.
The plant’s sustainability goals go beyond its fleet, including using renewable energy sources for all of its electricity. The on-site rooftop and parking lot solar panels provide 20% of the facility’s daily energy use. Williams said the Modesto plant is now a blueprint for the company, and hopefully others, on how to leverage and use sustainable technology.
The sustainable transformation comes with a healthy dose of public funding. The project received $15.4 million from the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which Frito-Lay matched with $13.5 million, plus another $1.8 million from American Natural Gas. CARB Executive Officer Steven Cliff said Modesto’s plant was targeted in part because of the poor air quality in the region. Modesto is sixth worst in the nation for particulate matter and 13th worst for ozone.
“Bold and transformative projects like this have the ability to lessen the socioeconomic burdens in the community by reducing asthma rates and hospital visits, but it’s really just the beginning,” Cliff said. “The importance of what you have achieved through this program is larger than this facility alone.”
The project, announced in late 2019, initially was planned to be completed by 2021. But the pandemic, supply issues and a slower roll-out for the semis than originally planned by Tesla pushed it back.
Newly elected Rep. John Duarte was among the dignitaries at the Modesto ceremony. “I love it; this is the kind of company we need here in Modesto,” he said. “Modesto is Food City USA. This should be the place the latest in logistics, food production, scaleability, sustainability comes to because we’ve got the irrigation districts, we’ve got the energy, the water and the best people. So I’m damn glad they’re doing it.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
