Key Takeaways
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Electric trucks are no longer a pilot program. In the US, a single year of electric truck sales recently surpassed the cumulative total of the previous seven years combined, according to the IEA Global EV Outlook 2025. In Europe, nearly 24,000 zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles were registered in 2025, a 60% increase over the prior year, according to the ICCT Race to Zero: European Heavy-Duty Vehicle Market Development Quarterly.
But accelerating vehicle sales is only part of the story. Behind every new electric truck is a set of infrastructure challenges that remain unsolved for many operators. Power demand, site design, grid interconnection, and multi-location charging management all present distinct hurdles. These challenges differ in kind and scale from those faced by charge point operators (CPOs) with passenger vehicles or light commercial fleets.
The State of MHDV Electrification: US and Europe
In Europe, binding CO2 reduction targets for heavy-duty vehicles are creating a regulatory floor for adoption. The EU’s CO2 emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles set interim benchmarks for 2030 and 2035, making zero-emission trucks a compliance requirement rather than an option. According to the ICCT Race to Zero: European Heavy-Duty Vehicle Market Development Quarterly , nearly 24,000 zero-emission heavy-duty vehicles were registered across Europe in 2025, with zero-emission trucks reaching a 4.5% sales share — up from 2.5% in 2024.
In the US, federal incentives have supported early adoption. The US Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulation, adopted by California and several other states, requires manufacturers to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission trucks and buses each year. The United States DOE SuperTruck Charge program has directed USD 68 million specifically toward large-scale public charging infrastructure for MHDVs along key freight corridors.
Despite this momentum, charging infrastructure deployment in both markets is lagging behind vehicle adoption. In the Driivz 2025 State of EV Charging Network Operators Survey, energy constraints at charging sites were cited as the top challenge by 46% of respondents, and every respondent indicated that grid capacity would affect network expansion in the coming year: 82% expected some impact, 10% anticipated a significant impact, and 8% anticipated a minor impact.
For MHDV operators, the grid challenge is especially acute. Charging infrastructure for passenger EVs is built around power levels measured in kilowatts. MHDV charging operates at an entirely different scale.
MHDV vs. Light-Duty EV Charging: Key Differences
| Characteristic | Light-Duty EV | Medium- and Heavy-Duty EV |
| Typical charging power [a] | Up to 350 kW (CCS DC fast) | Up to 3.75 MW (MCS standard) |
| Typical battery size [b] | ~65 kWh (global sales-weighted average) | ~800 kWh (reference long-haul truck) |
| Grid connection requirement [a] | Standard low-voltage connection | Medium-voltage; dedicated transformer required for MCS |
| Energy demand per vehicle [c] | Baseline | Equivalent to approximately 60 light-duty delivery vans |
[a] CharIN, Megawatt Charging System (MCS) specification, charin.global
[b] IEA, Global EV Outlook 2025, iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025
[c] DHL Supply Chain, The Green Corridor Challenge case study, June 2025
Navigating Fleet Power Demands with On-Site Energy Management
What can fleet operators do to charge more vehicles without upgrading their grid connection?
The scale of power demand from MHDV charging creates an immediate challenge for depot operators. A DHL Supply Chain case study illustrates the scope of the problem directly: a single MHDV truck requires as much electricity as 60 parcel delivery vans, because of higher mileage and greater average electricity consumption. When a depot operator begins replacing diesel trucks with electric models, the site’s power draw can increase by orders of magnitude.
Managing this load without triggering costly grid upgrades requires active energy management. The core tools available to fleet operators are load shifting, dynamic power allocation, local battery storage, and renewable energy integration.
Load shifting means scheduling vehicle charging to avoid peak demand periods. When a fleet’s charging management platform can read each vehicle’s required departure time and battery state, it can distribute charging across the available window to minimize peak draw. This avoids the demand charges that utilities levy on high-peak consumption.
Dynamic power allocation goes further. Instead of assigning a fixed charging rate to each charger, a smart energy managementsystem continuously adjusts charging power across all active sessions based on the available grid capacity at that moment. Smart energy management offers a path to expand charging capacity within existing grid limits by leveraging local battery storage and renewable sources to avoid expensive infrastructure upgrades.
Local battery storage plays a complementary role. A battery system at the depot can be charged from the grid during off-peak hours and discharged to power vehicles during periods of peak demand. This reduces the site’s peak draw from the grid, lowers demand charges, and creates flexibility to participate in demand response programs. The DOE SuperTruck Charge program has identified on-site solar arrays and battery storage systems as essential components of grid-resilient MHDV charging sites.
Managing Charging Across Multiple Locations
How do fleet operators coordinate EV charging when vehicles charge in multiple locations?
MHDV electrification does not occur at a single location. Fleet vehicles charge at the depot when returning overnight. Some drivers charge at home between shifts. Others need to top up at public charging hubs along their routes. Each of these environments presents different infrastructure, different cost structures, and different operational requirements.
Managing all three charging environments requires a single, unified software platform. This is essential for maintaining control and visibility over fleet energy use and billing across various sites. When using high-power public charging, the platform must facilitate seamless roaming and support the advance booking of high-power charger slots to guarantee long-haul reliability, a complexity unique to MHDV operations.
The three MHDV charging environments present distinct requirements:
- At the depot: Operators need to prioritize which vehicles charge first based on their next scheduled departure. Energy planning tools that can allocate available power across all charging points based on departure times and battery levels prevent situations in which a vehicle is not ready when operations require it. Depot charging is also where demand charge management has the greatest impact, as simultaneous charging of many vehicles creates large, controllable loads.
- At the driver’s home: For fleets that allow or require drivers to charge their vehicles at home, the operator still needs visibility into charging activity and a mechanism to reimburse drivers for the energy costs. Without this, home charging is either financially penalized for drivers or creates uncontrolled costs for operators.
- At public charging destinations: When a vehicle needs to charge en route or at a delivery destination, the driver must be able to access any compatible public charger and have the charging session billed to the fleet. For heavy-duty vehicles in particular, this depends on roaming agreements between charging networks, as well as support for booking specific charger capacity in advance at locations where heavy-duty vehicles are accommodated.
For the heaviest vehicle classes, the Megawatt Charging System (MCS), developed by the CharIN industry consortium, is designed to support charging power far beyond what existing light-duty charging infrastructure can deliver. MCS requires a direct connection to the medium-voltage grid and dedicated transformers, so it cannot operate via standard fast-charger connections. Real-world MCS deployment is underway: in the US, the DOE SuperTruck Charge program is funding MCS-capable hubs along major freight corridors, while in in Europe, Milence has deployed MCS-capable hubs at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, Zwolle, and Landvetter as part of its work to complete the first MCS corridor connecting Antwerp to Stockholm.
In Europe, the EU Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) requires member states to deploy publicly accessible high-power charging infrastructure for heavy-duty vehicles at regular intervals along the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) core network. This regulation provides a defined deployment timeline for European fleet operators. In the US, corridor charging development relies more heavily on project-by-project federal funding, making the infrastructure buildout less predictable for operators planning long-haul routes.
For fleet operators, the practical implication is that managing charging across these environments requires a platform that can see and coordinate all three scenarios — depot, en route, and at home — in a single view.
What This Means for Fleet Operators
The market signals point clearly in one direction. MHDV electrification is accelerating, regulatory requirements are tightening on both sides of the Atlantic, and vehicle model availability is expanding. The infrastructure challenge is not a reason to delay, but it is a reason to plan carefully.
Fleet operators who approach MHDV electrification with a clear infrastructure strategy are better positioned to avoid the delays and unplanned costs associated with unmanaged deployment. Grid capacity is a real constraint. Managing it with smart energy tools rather than waiting for grid upgrades enables earlier deployment without the uncertainty of utility interconnection queues. Coordinating charging across depot, home, and public environments reduces operational complexity and improves visibility into total energy costs.
The infrastructure exists, or is being built. The question for fleet operators is whether their charging management approach is ready to make use of it.
Learn more about our integrated solutions on the Driivz electric vehicle charging and energy management platform for fleet operators page. For a complete guide to infrastructure strategy, download the ebook The Path to Successful Fleet Electrification.
