The commercial transport sector has passed the point of no return. We are no longer debating whether electric heavy-duty trucks are viable; they are already rolling off production lines and onto European motorways in record numbers. Yet as vehicle availability matures, the central bottleneck of the transition has shifted to the roadside in the form of charging infrastructure. To maintain momentum, fleet operators and charge point operators (CPOs) must balance ambitious long-term electrification goals with immediate, flexible operational strategies.
Market momentum meets infrastructure bottlenecks
The latest market figures for the first half of 2026 are encouraging, though not straightforward. Despite geopolitical uncertainty, the European commercial vehicle sector held up well. New EU truck registrations rose by 9.8 percent to nearly 172,000 units, driven primarily by an 11.1 percent rise in heavy-duty trucks.
From liability to asset – the new economics of fleet charging
More importantly, the adoption of zero-emission technology is accelerating. Registrations of electrically chargeable trucks grew by 47.7 percent over the same period, reaching a 4.8 percent market share. This expansion is heavily concentrated, with three markets accounting for 74 percent of all electric truck registrations in the EU: Germany (+88.5 percent), the Netherlands (+44.5 percent) and France (+43.7 percent). The same trend shows in light commercial vehicles, where electric van sales rose by 41.6 percent, reaching a 13.2 percent market share.
While these figures show that fleet operators are ready to electrify, overall market uptake still lags behind the trajectory required by climate targets. What holds it back is less the vehicles themselves than the enabling conditions, above all the speed and accessibility of charging infrastructure.
The subsidy paradox: high demand, bureaucratic deadlocks
The economic case for electric trucks is also getting stronger. Rising diesel prices and road toll exemptions for zero-emission vehicles in key transit corridors are pushing total cost of ownership (TCO) towards parity with diesel faster than anticipated. For a low-margin sector like logistics, these operational savings can make a real difference.
However, the industry is now caught in a “subsidy paradox.” While government grants are important for offsetting initial capital expenditure, the administrative rollout can unintentionally freeze market activity. Germany recently provided a clear example. The Federal Ministry of Transport launched three funding calls totalling around €300 million, part of a broader €1 billion, four-year charging initiative. All three calls were heavily oversubscribed, revealing strong underlying demand.
Corporate fleets lead EV uptake as costs near half
While this shows that transport companies actively want to electrify, it also highlights the drawback of grant dependency. Thousands of operators who came away empty-handed are now left in limbo, delaying site development as they wait for the next funding round. To avoid stalling operational progress, transport firms cannot afford to rely solely on government subsidies; they need business models that make financial sense on their own merits.
Depot-to-depot charging and the utilisation imperative
Building out comprehensive, publicly accessible motorway charging hubs is essential, but it will take years to reach full density. In the interim, private and semi-private depot charging must serve as the backbone of heavy electric transport. For depot infrastructure, site utilisation is the most important factor in return on investment (ROI). A high-power charging hub that sits idle overnight or during off-peak logistics shifts is stranded capital. To solve this, some operators are turning their depots into multi-tenant hubs, charging their own fleets while opening spare capacity to external haulage companies through public roaming agreements.
Maximising site utilisation requires hardware that can adapt to a changing fleet mix. For now, the industry is seeking interim solutions to deliver higher power, such as “double-gun” CCS charging (using two CCS2 connectors simultaneously on a single vehicle), a method gaining traction in markets like China. However, for long-haul efficiency and heavy-duty transport, the Megawatt Charging System (MCS) is the long-term answer. Capable of delivering more than 1 MW of power through a single connector, MCS allows heavy trucks to recharge for the next leg during mandatory 45-minute driver breaks.
Two developments on either side of the Atlantic are moving MCS closer to wider use. US operators are preparing for long-haul megawatt corridors, while early European deployments show how MCS can coexist with today’s CCS standards.
Making depot electrification a reality
At the Alfredsson Transport depot in Norrköping, owner Erik Alfredsson has built a site that serves his own fleet and also offers a public megawatt charging stop for external hauliers passing through Sweden. Powered by a 1.2 MW Kempower Power Unit and a distributed charging architecture, the site hosted one of the industry’s first public MCS sessions using the official MCS communication protocol.
Sweden – first-of-its-kind EV charging sidesteps the usual grid limits
During the session, the site split power dynamically between two trucks, delivering a peak of 728 kW (at 1,000 A) to an MCS-equipped Scania truck via a Mega Satellite, while also charging a second truck via standard CCS, for a combined output of 864 kW. Using smart charging software such as Kempower ChargEye, operators can prioritise MCS-equipped long-haul trucks to make the most of 45-minute breaks without denying service to CCS vehicles.
Rather than waiting years for costly grid upgrades, the depot added a 1.2 MW Polarium battery energy storage system (BESS) and a 400 kW solar park. An energy management system coordinates the grid, solar and BESS to shave expensive demand peaks, maximise on-site use of solar power and take part in local energy markets, lowering operating costs while generating additional revenue.
The path forward
The transition to electric trucking is moving from early-stage testing to commercial scaling. But as the first-half figures and recent funding delays show, success will not belong to those who wait passively for public infrastructure or government grants to remove every obstacle.
Charging in Europe shifts into mass-market mode
Operators who act decisively but flexibly will lead the next phase, by building scalable depot infrastructure today, optimising site utilisation through shared access models and deploying charging systems that bridge current CCS needs and the coming megawatt era. (Moritz Vornfeld, hcn)
