Electrifying heavy-duty transport has surprisingly little to do with electricity. We can deliver it, store it, charge with it and drive on it. But then it really starts…
⛽ Slightly simplified, tour planning for smaller logistics operators used to be quite two-dimensional. Where does what need to go, and when. Drive, done.
Now the drivetrain of the tractor unit gets swapped to electric, and that sounds about as easy as changing your shirt. At its core, it actually is. But then the adventure begins, and a navigator is worth gold here.
🔌 Tour planning now sounds roughly like this: where does what need to go, when, with which state of charge, with how much range left, with which break at which point, with which charging power available, in which delivery window, at which electricity price, with which backup if the next charge point is occupied.
Sounds complicated? That’s exactly how many perceive it. Just as tangled as it looks.
🚒 Not every operator has their own experts and a whole project team ready for this journey. Especially the smaller, „wild“ operators stand alone with whatever they’ve always worked with.
⚡ And no Excel sheet, no phone call between dispatcher and driver, no rule of thumb is going to manage that balancing act. Of course the data exists, the trucks can deliver it, and software can turn it into intelligent tour plans. Just not the way it used to be done. What changes here is the operation itself, the processes, the workflows. And with it, how people work.
🤝 This isn’t just switching off the diesel in the evening and rolling out electric the next morning. For some, it’s a change that brings fear and uncertainty. For everyone involved, not just management. And here, consultant-speak and kind words don’t help. People want someone at their side who has lived this and can actually help.
🙊 And what these operators often hear in this situation is something like: „Get yourself a BESS, throw some solar on the roof, here’s our cloud TMS with easy self-registration, and don’t forget, AI does all of it if you attend my masterclass“ …sorted. And the operator just drifts away, or gets stuck somewhere between row 4361 and column NO in an Excel sheet.
🌧️ Meanwhile, the minds of the staff are running wild. In their thoughts, the dispatcher keeps juggling the phone, but now with charge planning on top. And the drivers wonder what happens if they break down or the charging session doesn’t start. In the end, the question „is electrification worth it“ gets answered with „maybe later“. Shame.
So for me: start where the day-to-day operation actually runs. A BESS, a TMS, or whatever else is needed, will pretty much take care of itself once the change is understood and accepted.
