The use of electric trucks in urban and regional logistics has great potential to cut emissions in the freight sector and accelerate decarbonisation of transport. A key question for logistics operators is how to optimise truck charging in order to take advantage of lower electricity prices and excess renewable energy on the grid. To avoid the significant costs that result from unmanaged or suboptimal charging, depots will need to identify optimisation strategies now, while they have few electric vehicles in their fleets or are planning their purchase. To do so, it is important for operators to analyse what drives charging costs, beyond the electricity consumption of the depots and fleets.

A joint study from the International Council on Clean Transportation and the Regulatory Assistance Project assesses how logistics operators can charge electric trucks most cost effectively at the depot, while also capturing consumer and grid benefits by optimising their charging processes. This fact sheet provides an overview of the background, key findings and recommendations from the study.