March 14, 2024
Paris, 14 March 2024 - ENEDIS, TotalEnergies, VINCI Autoroutes and six European manufacturers - Iveco, MAN Truck & Bus France, Mercedes-Benz Trucks, Renault Trucks, Scania and Volvo Trucks - have joined forces to assess the needs and challenges of the electrification of long-distance road haulage and, more specifically, of roaming charging on France's main roads.
In France, road transport currently accounts for 90% of freight flows and 7% of greenhouse gas emissions. To meet the decarbonisation targets set by the public authorities, manufacturers have embarked on the development of battery-electric heavy goods vehicles, the main zero-emission exhaust technology. The success of this electrification depends on the appropriate deployment of the infrastructure needed for roaming charging. The study, announced in September 2023, is based on detailed modelling of the road network and an analysis of traffic flows, HGV stopping points and the electrification of the fleet by 2035 in France.
Five lessons for decarbonising heavy goods mobility and planning the region:
- Charging infrastructure: 12,200 charging points will be needed just to charge HGVs on the road at 519 service and rest areas - 10,000 for use during long breaks and 2,200 for short breaks with fast charging.
- Network power requirements: by 2035, roaming charging of heavy goods vehicles alone could represent energy consumption of 3.5 TWh/year (compared with France's annual consumption of around 615 TWh in 2035) and a peak power demand of 1.1 GW. These significant requirements can be met by the electricity grid, provided that the work is anticipated and planned.
- Pooling charging infrastructures: the study highlights the very high degree of complementarity between charging needs, which do not occur at the same time, with peak weekends for cars and working days for HGVs. The annual power peak is essentially due to the recharging needs of cars. There is therefore a real advantage in sharing grid connections between these uses, to limit investment in the electricity network.
- The investment needed in the electricity network is estimated at €630 million between now and 2035. This estimate (excluding investment in recharging stations and lay-bys) takes into account, in an optimised way, the sharing of roaming recharging needs between heavy and light mobility. Around sixty source stations will need to be reinforced or created: this programme, which does not pose any major technical difficulties, needs to be anticipated as of now, given the timescales of several years required to complete some of the work.
- Land issues: the deployment of infrastructure will also reduce the number of parking spaces available for heavy goods vehicles, creating potential land shortages. While long-distance electric HGVs will still only account for 12.5% of the fleet by 2035, at least half of all HGV parking spaces will need to be equipped with charging points on a quarter of all road sections.
Three recommendations to meet the challenges of this transition
The conclusions of this study should provide industry players
(public authorities, network managers, charging and road
infrastructure operators, hauliers and logistics companies, HGV
manufacturers, chargers) with a reliable vision and estimate, on a
national scale, of the power, energy, number of charging points and
infrastructure work required for the rapid electrification of
long-distance road transport.
CSIAM[1], as the representative of the international manufacturers present
in France, believes that this study is a major step forward in
planning investment in roaming charging infrastructure, which is a
prerequisite for the successful electrification of long-haul heavy
goods vehicles. In addition to these results, all the partners
recommend the following actions:
- Establish a shared and enforceable planning and roadmap, specifying the developments to be carried out on the electricity networks and road infrastructure by 2027, 2030 and 2035, in line with future regulations (such as the European regulation on the deployment of infrastructure for alternative fuels);
- Introduce regulatory, administrative and financial measures that will make it possible to anticipate requests for work, speed up administrative procedures and optimise pooled investment in service areas, by specifying the role and responsibilities of each player;
- Introduce simple and consistent incentives, avec une visibilité sur le long terme, pour encourager , with long-term visibility, to encourage private investment in the development of battery-electric HGVs and charging infrastructure.
To download
Report: Electrification of long-distance heavy mobility (PDF -
8.16 MB)
Electrification of the long-distance heavy-duty vehicle fleet
(PDF - 8.29 MB)