Vital EV and Spirii join forces to help electrify truck sector
Vital EV has joined forces with Danish software provider Spirii to help accelerate the electrification of the truck sector by allowing fleet managers to open up their charging network through the Occulus charge management portal.
By opening their chargers up to the public, truck operators reduce the financial burden of their charging infrastructure by enabling an alternative revenue stream, while the industry as a whole benefits from a greater number of HGV-accessible public charging points.
The European electric truck market is expected to grow to 400,000 registrations a year by 2030; up from the current 4,000 units, and the UK is expected to ban the sale of diesel trucks up to 26t by 2035, with a outright ban on all weight categories by 2040.
In addition to the increased cost of the electric trucks, which are estimated to be as high as three times that of their diesel counterparts, the cost of the ultra-rapid EV chargers required for their larger batteries is a growing concern among truck operators.
Charger speed is directly related to the cost of the charger as more power modules – one of the costliest components of a DC EV charger – are required to enable the faster charging speeds. The number of publicly-accessible charging points is also a challenge, which has led Vital EV and Spirii to join forces and offer this unique solution.
Alex Rae, Managing Director of Vital EV, explained:
“As a specialist in EV charging infrastructure, Vital EV is proactively developing solutions that mitigate the challenges of electrifying the truck industry”.
“We are proud to be working with a globally-renowned software company on this exciting project that both reduces the financial burden for fleets and increase the number of publicly-accessible chargers for electric trucks”.
Tore Harritshøj, CEO of Spirii, added:
“Our joint solution enables public access to chargers at strategically selected times, with flexible pricing options. Considering the high demand, I believe that operators who adopt this approach and open their charging facilities to the public will likely draw a large number of users and, as a result, generate additional income.”
In November last year, Vital EV announced that it would be one of the first EV charging providers to offer a MegaWatt Charging System (MCS) which has been designed specifically for electric truck operations. With charging speeds of up to 1,200kW (1.2MW), an MCS can add up to 372 miles of range to an average 26t rigid truck in just 30 minutes*.
*Based on an average truck energy consumption of 0.62miles/kWh.
Image courtesy of Vital EV.