One area of the electrification of the trucking industry that seems to be causing a lot of concern is how the vehicles are going to be charged. NACFE tried to shed some light on that topic in our two recent electric truck bootcamp trainings. In both training session No. 2, Charging 101—Planning & Buildout, and training session No. 3, Charging 202—Power Management & Resilience, we gathered together some experts to help address concerns about how we are going to get medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles charged.

Perhaps one of the biggest takeaways from the two training sessions is that when it comes to electric trucks and electric truck charging, we need to talk about the ecosystem. This includes utilities, OEMs, charger manufacturers, charging management companies, energy management, software, Internet of Things, networks, communications, and service providers, and more.

By engaging with all these stakeholders when first looking at deploying electric vehicles, fleets are more likely to have a positive experience and will do a better job of selecting the right number of charging stations and the right kilowatt level for charging. Factors that need to be considered when making that decision include the number of vehicles that will need to charge, the number of miles driven by each vehicle, the hours available for each vehicle to charge, the state of charge of the vehicle when they begin charging, times of day each vehicle will be available to charge and electric utility rates at various times of the day.

As with most things in trucking, there is no one right answer that will work for all fleets. Each fleet’s unique operating characteristics, including the regions they operate in and their access to charging stations, all have to be factored into the electric vehicle deployment equation. And there will likely be adjustments fleets might make to those operations to help.

Things are further complicated by the fact that in the early stages of EV deployment all fleets will still be operating gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles, which means they need to focus on both overall fleet management and energy management.

These challenges are not unsurmountable and there are a host of people out there who are willing— and excited—to help push the electrification of commercial vehicles forward and do so in a way that results in a decent ROI for fleets.

The best advice I took away from the two bootcamp trainings is that we all need to take a systems approach to electric vehicle charging and work together as partners sharing information and best practices as we move through the “messy middle” to an electric future.