by Walther Ploos van Amstel
One of the most common objections to battery-electric trucks is charging infrastructure. Long-haul electrification, the argument goes, would require huge charging parks everywhere and grid reinforcement across the board, so hydrogen or e-fuels must remain essential. A new report from Fraunhofer ISI and the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) suggests otherwise. Demand clusters in …
The commercial vehicle industry is at an inflection point. A new factbook from BloombergNEF, produced with the Smart Freight Centre, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, and Traton, offers the clearest picture yet of how fast electric trucking is scaling, and where the friction still lies. For transport and logistics managers weighing fleet …
Europe’s transition to zero-emission mobility is well underway, but progress is uneven — and without solid data, that unevenness is easy to miss. That’s the gap Transport & Mobility Leuven (TML) is closing for the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA): building on an earlier gap analysis, TML is now developing a set of key performance …
A new McKinsey report by Matthias Kässer, Tobias Schneiderbauer and Henrik Becker delivers a sobering reality check for anyone tracking freight decarbonization in Europe: despite nine years of model launches and more than 45 zero-emission (ZE) truck models now on the market, new registrations of ZE trucks remained below 5 percent as of 2025. That’s …
The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), working with leading EV deployment practitioners, has published nine principles to close a structural gap: vehicle electrification is outpacing utilities’ ability to energize the charging infrastructure that supports it. Left unaddressed, this mismatch risks higher electricity prices, slower EV adoption, and the erosion of public support for electrification. …
The transition to electric urban freight vehicles is often presented as a straightforward vehicle-replacement exercise: replace diesel vans and trucks with electric ones, and emissions disappear. In reality, the challenge is much broader. Vehicle range, charging time, route planning, grid capacity, and charging infrastructure all become critical operational variables. A recent Italian study examines one …
On 30 January 2026, through the distribution market sector of Transport en Logistiek Nederland, we made an inspiring company visit to Lidl Netherlands in Almere. The visit focused on their sustainability vision and the layout of their charging yards. Lidl demonstrated how they have structurally integrated electric transport into their logistics operations and how charging …
AMS Institute, in collaboration with Amsterdam GVB and TU Delft’s public transport operators, has explored the integration of new electric bus chargers into the existing but underutilized energy infrastructure: the metro grid of the Noord-Zuidlijn in Amsterdam. The project devises a strategy to alleviate grid congestion, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and minimize energy costs while …
Is it possible for flexible applications of infrastructure to help cope with the demand for space? In a new paper, researchers tried to answer how different forms of flexibility can impact the societal costs of infrastructure development on passenger transport hubs. The value is used to determine these impacts for an explorative research option. This …
In the Netherlands, until 2030, € 625 million in investments is needed for logistics charging infrastructure on private premises (just for logistics companies alone). The logistics sector is facing a significant sustainability challenge. As of 1 January 2025, 30 to 40 Dutch municipalities will introduce zero emission (ZE) zones. At the Climate Summit in Glasgow, …