The electrification of heavy-duty vehicles is accelerating across Europe, but the rollout of charging infrastructure and grid capacity is struggling to keep pace. The new report, “Spatiotemporal Analysis of Electric Truck Charging Demand in Europe”, provides high-resolution estimates of charging demand for battery electric trucks across the EU-27, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland. The analysis covers both depot-based charging and public en-route charging, and models demand on a hexagonal grid with a spatial resolution of around 17 by 20 kilometers and 15-minute intervals across one week.

The results show that charging demand for battery electric trucks is projected to increase substantially under all scenarios. Under a scenario with supportive policies for battery electric truck uptake, annual charging demand in Europe reaches around 100 TWh by 2035 and rises to around 200 TWh by 2045. The largest demand is expected in major freight markets such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy.

Steffen Link, researcher at Fraunhofer ISI and first author of the report, says: “Our analysis shows that electric truck charging demand in Europe will not emerge evenly across countries or regions. Instead, it will concentrate in specific freight corridors, industrial hubs, and logistics locations. Infrastructure deployment and grid planning should therefore focus on the areas where demand is most certain and most intense. Otherwise, the rapid shift toward battery electric trucks is certainly at risk of being outpaced by the required grid infrastructure to support it.”

Depot charging dominates, but public charging remains important

A central finding of the report is that depot-based charging dominates in all countries and scenarios. In most cases, the combined share of depot charging exceeds 70 to 80 percent of total charging energy. At the same time, public en-route charging remains highly relevant for long-haul transport and can account for 30 to 50 percent of total charging demand in some smaller transit countries.

The study also highlights that there is no uniform European pattern. National freight structures, geographic characteristics, and fleet compositions lead to strongly differing spatial demand patterns and charging profiles. As a result, one-size-fits-all infrastructure strategies are unlikely to be sufficient.

Charging demand concentrates in a few hotspots

Another key result is the strong spatial concentration of charging demand. In many countries, the top 1 percent of regions already account for roughly 25 to 33 percent of total charging energy. The top 10 percent account for between 60 and 90 percent of national charging demand. Most electric truck charging demand is therefore concentrated in a relatively small number of locations – especially along major freight corridors, motorway intersections, metropolitan areas, and industrial hubs.

Hussein Basma, senior researcher at the ICCT and co-author of the report, comments: “The transition to zero-emission trucking will require more than headline infrastructure targets. Policymakers and infrastructure operators need a much more granular understanding of where charging demand will materialize and how it changes over time. Our results show that prioritizing just the top 10% of locations for charging hubs could cover up to 90% of total electric truck electricity demand across Europe. Identifying these priority locations allows for proactive and effective grid planning.”

The study also points to substantial local peak loads. In larger countries with high freight transport volumes, the most heavily loaded areas frequently reach peak charging loads in the range of 20 to 50 MW, usually in areas with a high concentration of logistics hubs. According to the authors, these results underline that future grid challenges are likely to emerge first at specific hotspots rather than uniformly across national electricity systems.

The report concludes that future infrastructure deployment should focus on priority locations, flexible and proactive grid extension plans, and tailored national strategies. In particular, the authors recommend supporting depot charging as the backbone of electric truck charging demand while also ensuring targeted public charging coverage in transit regions.