Companies that want to help see this expansion through have already positioned themselves accordingly. One of them is Milence, the joint venture founded by Daimler Truck, the Traton Group (which includes MAN and Scania, among others) and the Volvo Group to develop a high-performance charging network for heavy-duty trucks and buses in Europe. The aim is to set up 1,700 charging points all over Europe within five years – initially with eight points per location that will feature both the current CCS charging standard and the forthcoming Megawatt Charging Standard (MCS). The battery of an electric truck can be charged in about 90 minutes with CCS. With the much faster MCS, however, the charging time will be reduced to 30 to 45 minutes even for the giant batteries of 40-ton trucks – which happens to correspond to the legally mandated break time for drivers. The daily ranges of long-haul trucks will thus increase to over 1,000 kilometers. Apart from Milence, other companies are also expanding the charging infrastructure for electric trucks; the mineral-oil corporations Shell and TotalEnergies, for instance, are already preparing for the post-fossil age in this way. TotalEnergies is also planning a joint venture with Air Liquide, which aims to set up a network of hydrogen filling stations for heavy-duty commercial vehicles along important European transport axes.
That said, stationary charging isn't the only option for electric trucks. Pilot projects are also testing charging during driving via overhead lines or induction through the road surface. It has already been proved that these technologies work and are capable of high levels of efficiency. What still needs to be clarified is whether they can also be attractive in economic terms. It's also conceivable that several different solutions will exist in parallel in the future.
