Heavy Duty Vehicles Public Charging in Europe – 2024 Update
What are the opportunities related to HDV electrification and how are charging services adapting to the needs of this new segment?
At Gireve, we are at the heart of the EV charging industry, empowering CPOs and eMSPs with our seamless roaming platform. Combining marketplace technologies, transaction processing, and data management, our mission is to support stakeholders and accelerate their transition to electric mobility on a global scale.
But we don’t stop there; we process and enrich data on charging stations and driver behaviors. We offer insightful analysis and strategic consulting. We believe that this wealth of information will shape the future of mobility, making it sustainable, innovative, and accessible to all.
This is why we’re sharing a series of insights learned from our data, to foster discussions and learn together.
We are happy to present our monthly publication related to our Data and Consulting department: Beyond EV Charging
Executive Summary
All road transportation is electrifying. This means that after passenger cars and vans, it’s now the turn of Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDVs). Electric trucks will need public charging infrastructure for two main use cases: charging for long-distance travel and charging when there is insufficient infrastructure or space at the depot. The passenger car charging segment has gathered many different actors. This trend is now replicating for HDVs, with numerous new players emerging. This time however, it is mostly large industry players creating subsidiaries or joint ventures, as it is extremely capital-intensive. Charging infrastructure for trucks has started to emerge, and now is the time to facilitate electric truck drivers in finding and using charging stations seamlessly.
Introduction: HDV charging in Europe
Electrification is underway in Europe. Although sales of BEV passenger cars have flattened in the first quarter, more BEV models are available, and the total fleet is still increasing. Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDV) have also seen an increase in the number of models available. Today, more than 15,000 battery electric trucks (EAFO – N2 & N3) are driving on European roads. While most charging for HDVs will occur at depots, public charging is essential to facilitate long-distance travel and those without the right facilities in their depot.
In this paper, we will examine the status of public charging dedicated to trucks and identify the key players in this segment.
Major players overviews
Electric trucks have been a trendy topic for the past few months, as they represent a highly anticipated market shift in transportation. Several players have announced or already launched activities around public charging dedicated to trucks. The visual below aims to represent the players that have positioned themselves in this segment.
As highlighted in this visual, pure HDV charging players have emerged, petrol station operators have positioned themselves strategically, and light vehicle CPOs see an opportunity.
Firstly, the joint venture of the major European truck OEMs, Milence, was created in 2022. This JV aims to deploy and operate 1,700 charge points by 2027 to enhance Battery Electric Truck (BET) adoption. A parallel can be drawn with Ionity in Europe, also OEM’s JV which accelerated fast-charging deployment for light vehicles.
Other notable players in the pure HDV segment include OREVE (part of the Ortec Group), Recharge City, TBL, and Fastcharge. They have all announced plans to deploy charging locations within a few months, spurred by grants from French and Norwegian entities.
Another key part of the pure HDV players are those deploying multi-energy stations such as DCB Charge (NL), Proviridis (FR), and Watt’up (FR). These companies benefit from their experience in deploying gas stations (LNG, CNG) and are now installing a mix of technologies at their new and existing locations.
Petrol stations have significantly entered the HDV segment, especially in the Nordics, where Uno-X, Circle K, and OKQ8 have been leading the way with several stations already in service.
Famous CPOs for passenger cars, like Fastned and Allego, are in the pilot phase and have just announced projects to install fast chargers dedicated to trucks. It seems they will install a few but will still focus on light vehicles as it is their core business, and this market is growing faster for now.
Available public charging dedicated to HDV
We referenced more than 100 MW of public charging infrastructure dedicated to trucks (different from the overall grid connection power). Currently, the average power output is about 300 kW, as operators use the same ultra-fast chargers as for light vehicles (mainly ABB 360, Alpitronic HYC300/400, Siemens Sicharge D, and Kempower Satellites). Below is a map of the truck-dedicated charging infrastructure we referenced in our database, with highlights on a few key actors.
For now, we can see that the deployment of fast charging for trucks is very heterogeneous. Thanks to Aral Pulse, a subsidiary of BP, Germany has several stations covering a significant part of its territory. Aral’s goal was to establish a charging corridor along 600 km in the Rhine Region.
Another notable country in HDV charging is Sweden. Petrol station companies OKQ8 and Circle K have deployed chargers for trucks at several locations. Staying in the Nordics, Norway will see a large part of new chargers in the coming months as Enova, owned by the Ministry of Climate and Environment, has granted €4.15 million to various actors to deploy truck chargers along major corridors in 2023 and just released the second-round winners.
MCS deployment and Tesla's strategy
No Megawatt Charging System is deployed yet, but stakeholders have announced plans for deployment in the coming months.
When discussing fast charging, a prominent name is often mentioned: Tesla. But for now, there is no announcement at this point, especially since Tesla’s semi production in Europe has not started yet.
This map will change significantly in the coming months due to various funding announcements and deployments by all stakeholders. It will be interesting to see how light vehicle CPOs incorporate HDV into their strategies and how many new players focused on HDV enter the segment.
Gireve's services regarding HDV Charging
At Gireve we are at the heart of the EV charging industry. One of our core value is to adapt according to market demand and development.
As part of our continuous effort to improve our services and bring more value to our partners and customers, we are enhancing our datasets with new attributes. HDV charging involves specific constraints and expectations related to the features of the vehicle, its shipment or the needs of the driver. Through extensive research and collaboration with key players in this sector, we have identified over 20 additional attributes and we’re currently collecting and testing this new information to make it available to NSPs and eMSPs.
This new service will help CPOs gain more visibility for their HDV charging sites and ensure BET drivers that they can safely navigate to a location adapted to their needs.
Feel free to reach out so that we can discuss on the topic and work together.
Conclusion
We are still in the early stages of electric truck charging development. MCS is not yet available, and stakeholders are making decisions regarding BET adoption by companies. However, some analyses show that TCO parity with diesel will be achieved around 2027. This will significantly accelerate BET sales, and charging infrastructure must be ready to accommodate these vehicles.
We observe the emergence of new pure players seeing an opportunity, but for actors like Milence shareholders, there is also a necessity to increase OEM sales of BET.
The major pain point for actors of the ecosystem is the sharing of information. This is why Gireve has positioned itself as an intermediary to facilitate data sharing.
