Reimagining the eMobility Ecosystem for Commercial Trucks: Beyond Bigger Chargers

Imagine a logistics company planning an electric truck delivery from Madrid to Berlin. Today, that journey involves navigating a charging ecosystem where most solutions are still designed with passenger cars in mind, like trying to refuel a commercial airliner at a local petrol station. The revolution that transformed how we charge passenger EVs is about to face its biggest test yet: powering the backbone of our economy, commercial trucks.

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The Passenger EV Blueprint Isn't Enough

Over the past years, the passenger car eMobility ecosystem has matured considerably. We've established clear roles and relationships: Charge Point Operators (CPOs) managing charging stations through Charge Point Management Systems (CPMS), eMobility Service Providers (EMPs) using Customer Management Systems (CMS), and roaming platforms connecting partners across charging networks.

Well-established protocols like Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP), Open InterCharge Protocol (OICP), Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI), and ISO 15118 have standardized technical communication, enabling interoperability between vehicles, charging stations, and various backend systems. This foundation has created a relatively seamless public charging experience for passenger vehicles across Europe, with increasingly reliable infrastructure and more consistent point of interest (POI) data.

But commercial vehicles aren't just bigger cars. They represent fundamentally different operational needs that will transform our approach to charging infrastructure.

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Why Commercial Vehicles Demand a New Approach

Commercial fleet operations run on precision. Every minute a truck spends searching for a charging station or waiting for an available charger disrupts carefully orchestrated supply chains that businesses and consumers depend on. While a passenger vehicle driver might accept the occasional wait or detour, commercial operations cannot absorb this unpredictability without significant costs.

Services that have been secondary in the passenger vehicle segment—reservations, queueing systems, and enhanced POI data—become critical enablers for efficient commercial vehicle charging, especially in heavy-duty and long-haul segments.

Consider this: For logistics companies, the cost of reserving a charging slot is trivial compared to the expense of driver downtime while waiting for an available charger—similar to what we already see in commercial vehicle parking. This shift from opportunistic to planned charging represents a fundamental transformation in how we think about charging infrastructure.

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Building the Commercial Vehicle Charging Ecosystem

While foundational processes like authentication and billing remain important, the commercial vehicle sector brings new operational realities that require:

• Reimagined responsibilities across ecosystem roles

• Deeper system integrations

• Enhanced service offerings that prioritize predictability

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What Fleet Operators Need

Fleet operators bring different priorities to the charging ecosystem:

• Strict planning and route optimization

• Predictable access to charging

• Reliable, transparent cost calculations

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Key questions that matter to carriers include:

• Infrastructure compatibility: Is the charging site suitable for trucks with drive-through capabilities?

• Reservation systems: Can specific timeslots and power levels be reserved in advance? What happens if there's a delay or a blocked charging bay?

• Access control: How does a driver gain access to a secured site for a reserved charging session? How will they be identified as the legitimate user?

Current systems, designed for flexible individual use, can't meet these structured, high-stakes operational demands. The entire ecosystem must evolve to address these needs.

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How CPOs Need to Transform

For Charge Point Operators, the shifting landscape requires new capabilities:

• Advanced scheduling: CPMS must support real-time management of power and time slots to process reservations effectively

• Site access integration: Communication with access management systems will be essential for secured charging locations

• Streamlined authentication: Driver authentication must become seamless, making Plug&Charge functionality a necessity rather than a convenience

• Enhanced location data: Truck-specific details like drive-through capabilities, bay dimensions, and security measures must be standardized and reliable

CPOs may develop these capabilities internally or integrate specialized third-party solutions. For those working with external CPMS providers, these upgrades will be essential to compete in the commercial vehicle charging market.

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The Evolving Role of EMPs

For EMPs focusing on the commercial vehicle segment, requirements are also evolving:

• Enhanced POI data: Access to detailed, truck-specific location information becomes a competitive differentiator

• Fleet management integration: Systems must connect with Fleet and Transport Management Systems (FMS/TMS) to incorporate scheduled routes and vehicle data

• Reservation services: Guaranteeing charging availability at specific times and locations becomes essential

• Real-time driver communication: Integration with onboard systems or app solutions for reservation updates

Like CPOs, EMPs will need to decide whether to develop these capabilities in-house or partner with specialized solution providers. We're likely to see more specialized EMPs emerge, focusing on specific services like reservations rather than attempting to cover the entire service spectrum.

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Interoperability: The Key to Scaling

By focusing solely on providing these new services independently, we risk creating a fragmented landscape where fleet operators must juggle countless proprietary systems and integrations to plan charging stops across Europe. That's neither scalable nor acceptable.

Interoperability isn't just a nice-to-have—it's essential for commercial vehicle electrification. Reservations and truck-specific data must work seamlessly across stakeholders, requiring:

• Shared communication standards accepted industry-wide

• Clear responsibility boundaries between CPOs, EMPs, and platform operators

• Consistent reservation handling including site access permissions

• Trust between partners to enable collaboration and data exchange

The ecosystem must not only agree on who does what, but how we communicate across systems.

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Shaping the Future Together

At Hubject, we're working to facilitate interoperability between ecosystem players by developing an initial minimum viable product (MVP) focused on reservations and POI data management. This foundation aims to improve the reliability of public charging for electric trucks.

Our approach includes:

• Building a scalable, interoperable solution

• Involving key partners early for testing and validation

• Creating technical building blocks that integrate with existing EMP and CPO systems

• Building on established standards where possible and helping close gaps where necessary

We're not just connecting charging networks; we're reimagining the infrastructure that will power the next generation of commercial transportation. The electrification of truck fleets represents one of our greatest opportunities to reduce transportation emissions while creating a more efficient logistics sector.

The commercial vehicle charging ecosystem must deliver the reliability, predictability, and seamless experience that fleet operators need to confidently transition to electric vehicles. The road to sustainable commercial transportation requires solutions specifically designed for the unique demands of this sector, not adaptations of passenger vehicle infrastructure.

Hubject is committed to building this future through collaboration and interoperability.

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