Industry
e-HGV Transition
How Optrak helps fleet operators plan the switch to electric HGVs and CGVs — sorting real rounds by EV suitability with physics-based consumption and in-route charging, sizing depot and en-route charging, and running mixed diesel, EV, and alternative fuel fleets through the transition.
Last updated: 2026-08-11
Switching a fleet to electric heavy goods vehicles looks like a procurement decision — choose the trucks, build the chargers, swap them in. In practice it’s a planning decision. The hard questions are which of your rounds an EV can actually complete under real load and weather, how many vehicles that justifies, and what charging to build where — and all three are routing problems, not spreadsheet ones.
Optrak answers them by running your actual schedule of work through the same optimiser that plans your operations, with physics-based energy consumption and in-route charging built in. The result reflects how your fleet really runs, so the fleet-size and infrastructure decisions are defensible to a finance director and a 3PL customer alike.
Where Electrification Decisions Go Wrong
The economics of an electric truck are the reverse of a diesel one: the money is in the purchase, not the mileage. Per kilometre, an EV charged at the depot almost always runs cheaper than the equivalent diesel. So every kilometre moved onto an EV saves money, and an EV doing a short easy day is the most expensive vehicle in the fleet — you are paying the capital and collecting almost none of the running-cost saving. The economics reward working each EV as hard as its battery safely allows.
Operators who commit to EVs without modelling the real operation tend to end up in one of two places.
The cautious operator buys fewer EVs than the operation could support and puts them on short local routes, so range is never a worry. But short routes mean few kilometres at the lower per-kilometre cost, so most of the saving never happens; decarbonisation runs slower than it needs to; and a scope-3 or 3PL sustainability commitment gets harder to hit, because the long rounds stay on diesel — where the mileage and the savings are.
The optimistic operator buys against a max-range figure, then discovers the range variance due to load can be as high as a factor of two. The cost shows up as stranded vehicles, missed deliveries, and lost credibility with customers, planners, and drivers.
Doing nothing has a cost too, and is very easily overlooked: contracts that require modelled CO₂ reporting remain out of reach, ESG pressure against a fleet with no credible roadmap, and the running inefficiency of diesel rounds an EV with one planned charge could have done at lower per-mile cost. In short, competitors will be able to run at lower cost, have more opportunities available, and present a more positive image.
Start From the Work You Already Do
The way out of both failure modes is to model the operation as it actually runs. Optrak’s EV transition planning takes your existing schedule and categorises every round by EV suitability:
- Depot-only EV — completes within usable single-charge range, on overnight charging.
- One-in-route-charge EV — exceeds depot range but works with a single planned mid-round charge.
- Marginal — feasible only under some payload and weather conditions; modelled summer and winter.
- Diesel or alternative fuel only — not EV-feasible under any modelled configuration; the round stays on diesel, HVO, CNG or LNG.
Because these categories come from the same optimiser and the same data that produce your daily plans, it reflects your operation’s real structure rather than an abstraction of it.
Plan to the EV’s Capability
Sorting the rounds answers the feasibility question: which of the ones you run today an EV could take over. Checking an existing plan for EV feasibility is what a standalone EV planner does, and it is worth having. But it leaves the plan exactly as it was — a plan built around diesel vehicles, for which range was never worth a thought.
The savings question is different. If the economics reward loaded kilometres, the best transition plan is unlikely to be your current one. Optrak can rebuild the rounds around what the EV can do: lengthen an EV’s day up to the limit of its range with the safety margin intact, move stops across from diesel rounds so the electric vehicles carry the mileage and diesel takes what is left, and add a planned in-route charge where the extra kilometres pay for it. Same work, same customers — but more of the fleet’s kilometres on the vehicles that run them cheapest.
Knowing the Real Range
A transition plan is only as good as its range model. Optrak’s EV consumption model computes energy use per leg from the physics — mass, gradient, drive cycle, start time, and weather — using the framework developed at Cambridge’s Centre for Sustainable Road Freight. This is what captures the factor-of-two variation a max-range assumption misses: a heavy payload up a long climb in winter has a very different demand to the same distance empty on a mild day, and only one of them might be feasible for a given battery.
Going Beyond the Range of Depot Charging
For rounds that exceed the range of a single fully charged battery, Optrak plans in-route charging as part of the route itself — a charging stop placed as a constraint during route construction, scheduled around the driver’s legally required break, and sized to the minimum top-up needed plus a safety margin rather than a blanket charge to 80%. This is what turns “EVs aren’t viable for that route” into “that route runs on an EV with one planned stop,” and it’s why longer regional work doesn’t have to default to diesel.
Sizing the Charging Infrastructure
The categorisation of routes is also an infrastructure plan. The depot-charged rounds determine how many depot chargers you need and at what power, against the overnight charging window. The in-route-charge rounds can be looked at for clustering, telling you whether to secure access at one motorway-services site, or negotiate a network-wide agreement. As the UK’s ZEHID programme and its successors build out dedicated heavy-vehicle charging at strategic locations, the potential for in-route charging options is expanding — and Optrak integrates with charging networks where their APIs allow.
Mixed Fleets and CO₂ Reporting
Transition is rarely all-or-nothing. Optrak models diesel, EV, HVO, CNG and LNG together with vehicle-specific cost and CO₂ profiles, producing per-route figures that sum across the schedule. A plan can run all of them side by side, with the balance shifting year on year as the fleet grows and the charging network matures. The same mixed-fleet CO₂ output gives a credible, falsifiable basis for scope 1 and scope 3 reporting — the kind a 3PL customer or an ESG investor can rely on.
How Optrak Fits the Transition
The thread through all of it is a single idea: plan the transition with the platform that runs the operation. Consumption modelling, in-route charging, infrastructure sizing, and mixed-fleet costing aren’t separate scenario tools bolted on the side — they’re the same optimiser and the same data model that build your daily routes, which is what makes the transition numbers credible rather than aspirational. Standalone EV scenario tools can check the plan you already run; rebuilding the plan around what the EV can do is an optimiser’s job, and it is where the savings are.
Related
- EV transition planning — sorting the schedule and sizing fleet and infrastructure
- EV modelling — physics-based per-leg energy consumption
- In-route charging — charging stops as constraints inside route construction
- The Optrak data model — the single optimiser behind operational and strategic planning
Frequently Asked Questions
Is switching to electric HGVs a procurement decision or a planning decision?
Any vehicle procurement question should be considered as both a procurement and planning decision. The planning side is where it usually goes wrong. Buying electric vehicles is straightforward; but knowing which of your rounds they can actually do under real load and weather, how many you need, and what charging facilities to build, is a routing problem. Get the planning wrong and you either tie up capital in under-used EVs or strand vehicles far from home unable to fulfil their orders and complete their routes.
How do I know which of my rounds an EV can actually do?
The best way to evaluate EV capabilities and requirements is by running your real schedule of work through a planning model, rather than a simplified max-range assumption. Optrak’s EV transition planning sorts your existing rounds into those which can be serviced by depot-charged EVs, one-in-route-charge EVs, marginals, and still-diesel categories. The consumption model used needs to understand the same physics-based variation in range, which can be as much as a factor of two across payload, terrain, and temperature.
Should I just put EVs on my existing routes?
That is the natural first step, and sorting the rounds tells you which ones qualify. But an existing plan was built around diesel, for which range costs nothing to ignore. EV economics are the other way round — the capital is expensive, the kilometres are cheap — so the better plan usually changes: EV rounds extended up to the limit of the safety margin, stops moved across from diesel rounds, an in-route charge added where the extra kilometres justify it. Optrak re-optimises the plan around the EV’s capability rather than only checking the old plan against it.
What is the difference between depot charging and in-route charging?
Depot charging covers rounds that return overnight and recharge at base — most urban and regional multi-drop work can rely solely on depot charging. In-route charging adds a planned mid-round charge top-up to extend the range of an EV beyond that of a single full charge. Optrak plans those in-route charges inside the route as a constraint, scheduled around the driver’s break and chosen on a cost and time basis.
How many chargers do I need, and where?
This comes out of sorting the rounds. Depot-charged rounds set how many depot chargers you need and at what power capacity, to sufficiently charge vehicles during an overnight window. The in-route-charge rounds, examined for geographic clustering, show whether to secure access at a single motorway-services location or negotiate a charge-network-wide agreement — and provide evidence for informed infrastructure investment rather than guesswork.
Can I run a mixed fleet of diesel, EV, HVO and gas vehicles during the transition?
Yes. Optrak models diesel, EV, HVO, CNG and LNG together with vehicle-specific cost and CO₂ profiles in a single planning session, producing per-round cost and emissions analysis that sum across the schedule. HVO is useful as a near-term step on rounds that aren’t yet EV-feasible, because it goes into a diesel truck as it stands; gas vehicles are a different purchase but already part of some fleets. A transition plan can carry the whole mix at once and shift the balance as the fleet and the charging network mature. Strategically Optrak can be used to create a path-to-electrification plan, a far more feasible and cost-effective way to reach EV transition goals than a wholesale switch.
What is ZEHID and does it matter to my fleet?
The UK Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator (ZEHID) programme is building dedicated heavy-vehicle charging sites at strategic motorway and depot locations. As that network and its successors grow, in-route charging moves from an edge case innovation to a mainstream standard for regional and longer-haul work — which is exactly the round set a depot-only plan leaves on diesel. Optrak integrates with charging networks where APIs are available.
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