Beyond replacing diesel trucks: how optimized fleet planning increases electrification and lowers transportation costs

This presentation covers a recent study by Einride and Fraunhofer ISI which investigates strategies for electrifying heavy-duty truck fleets in the logistics sector to maximize the electrification rate or minimize fleet-level total cost of ownership (TCO). Using real-world data from over 38,000 shipments in German grocery retail, it compares the conventional 1:1 replacement of diesel trucks with battery electric trucks (BETs) to an optimized transport replanning approach that integrates route and charge planning. Results show that replanning more than doubles the share of electrified transport performance and achieves greater cost savings (up to 8% vs. 3%) while requiring smaller battery sizes. Moreover, it reduces reliance on subsidies and improves utilization. The study concludes that advanced planning software is key to cost-efficient fleet electrification and recommends its broader adoption alongside the development of fleet-level operational capabilities.

Anton Zackrisson  is a PhD Student at Linköping University at the Division of Production Economics and an Industrial PhD Student at Einride; a Swedish freight technology company in the autonomous and electric freight sector. His PhD project "Computational Modeling and Simulation of Large-Scale Electrification of Heavy-Duty Freight" is part of the Triple F (Fossil Free Freight) program financed by Trafikverket.