LOS ANGELES, May 7 (Reuters) - Amazon.com ( AMZN ) on

Tuesday will unveil the first of a dozen Volvo electric big rigs

it plans to deploy this year to pick up cargo from the nation's

busiest container seaport in southern California.

The e-commerce giant said it already has eight of those semi

trucks in use at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, where

every so-called drayage truck must be zero-emissions by 2035.

The deployment is a first for Amazon ( AMZN ), extending its vehicle

electrification projects across its land-based logistics network

that stretches from ocean ports to customer doorsteps. The

effort is vital to the company's push to reach net-zero carbon

emissions by 2040.

So far, a little more than 1% of the 23,761 trucks that

serve the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex are zero-emission

vehicles - including 201 electric rigs, Long Beach port

spokesman Lee Peterson said.

"Heavy-duty trucking is a particularly difficult area to

decarbonize," said Udit Madan, Amazon's ( AMZN ) vice president of

worldwide operations.

Amazon ( AMZN ) has rolled out more than 13,500 Rivian

electric cargo delivery vans across the country since 2022. The

transition to electric semi trucks will be a heavier lift,

largely because their bigger batteries require more intensive

charging infrastructure.

Amazon ( AMZN ) is still on a learning curve with electric big rigs,

said Madan, who oversees Amazon's ( AMZN ) growing logistics network.

The manufacturer of Amazon's ( AMZN ) electric drayage trucks will

continue working with the company and JB Hunt, which

provides drivers for the rigs, throughout the deployment, said

Keith Brandis, vice president of partnerships and system

solutions at Volvo Trucks North America.

"We'll still have some lessons learned through this whole

process," Brandis said.

Meanwhile, the ports, private companies and truck owners are

racing to build heavy-duty chargers to support the transition to

zero-emissions vehicles.

In the near term, Amazon's ( AMZN ) electric port trucks will charge

at an offsite facility operated by Forum Mobility, a startup

that counts Amazon's ( AMZN ) Climate Pledge fund among its early

investors. On May 15, Forum Mobility will break ground on a Port

of Long Beach depot that promises to deliver high-speed charging

for hundreds of drayage trucks each day.