Post by Jan Willem de Jong

The International Energy Agency reported an 80% increase in electric truck sales globally in 2024. The reason behind that growth is simple math. Diesel trucking has always been low on upfront cost but expensive to run. Electric is the opposite: higher investment, but the running costs are much lower which makes the total cost over a truck's lifetime cheaper. A transport company charging at its own depot with solar and battery storage pays 10 to 30 cents per kWh, and on the road 40 to 80 cents. A litre of diesel costs over €2. "But my grid connection can't handle that", is what I hear most. As it might be true that without a grid upgrade, you can’t charge more trucks, it’s also true that that’s not the only solution. Take logistics company E. van Wijk, who charges 10 electric trucks on a 240 kW grid connection. How? With smart energy management, in the shape of EMS and BESS. Another example is Oegema Transport, they initially thought they could charge 30 trucks with their grid connection. Their fleet manager Erwin Jacobs recently told me that with optimised energy management, it turned out to be 50 trucks. That's the math we should all be doing.