New EU research provides key insights into the optimal number and location of public fast-charging stations needed to achieve widespread electrification of long-haul trucks in Europe. Based on estimates of traffic volumes in 2030, 20,000 potential public truck charging stations along major European highways, and a large data set of 1.6 million truck trip combinations. The results show that around 91% of the expected long-haul truck traffic could be met with just 1,000 charging stations equipped with Megawatt Charging System (MCS) sockets.
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from general transport and heavy trucks, all EU Member States must deploy alternative fuel infrastructure in the coming years. This includes the deployment of public fast-charging infrastructure for trucks along highways. EU regulations already set specific minimum targets for public truck charging infrastructure for all EU Member States: for example, Germany must have a total of around 300 charging points by 2030, and more than 2,000 charging points for trucks across Europe by 2030. However, the limited range of pure electric trucks compared to today’s diesel vehicles raises the question of how many fast-charging points Europe needs.
The answer is: around 1,000 charging points to cover almost all truck traffic in Europe
The main findings show that for the electrification target of 15% pure electric trucks in long-haul transport, 1,000 optimally chosen charging points could cover 91% of truck traffic, while 500 charging points could cover around half of truck traffic. The results are surprising, as the number of charging points suggested is less than the minimum infrastructure target required by the EU. Furthermore, the authors assume no garage charging and a realistic range of only 400 km, which some newly launched commercial battery truck models already exceed.
Regarding the optimal locations of charging hubs for trucks in Europe, the study recommends locating charging hubs on routes with heavy traffic and concentrating them at major intersections and corridors. As the network expands, more charging hubs will be added to cover routes with less traffic.
Fewer but more powerful charging stations are needed to enable rapid battery truck conversion.
These results suggest that even fewer charging stations than required by the EU could enable nearly all European truck traffic. However, sufficient grid power will need to be secured for the charging stations that are built, with some stations requiring up to 12 MW of grid capacity to support up to 20 MCS sockets. This highlights the huge energy needs and grid infrastructure required to support large-scale electrification of the European commercial truck industry; a challenge that some European governments are already actively addressing.