Depot charging under real-world conditions: Spedition Stickel's e-truck fleet

From PV refuser to e-truck pioneer

When Christian Stickel's daughter asked him a few years ago what he actually did for the environment, the company boss was stumped. The next question was not long in coming: why he did not operate a photovoltaic system on his company premises. "At the time, it did not make economic sense," recalls the managing partner of Spedition Stickel, based in Nagold near Stuttgart. His daughter's persistence and later the energy crisis fundamentally changed his view on the topic of sustainability, reports electrive.net.

Today, the Baden-Württemberg-based company with around 100 employees, a fleet of currently 69 trucks and an annual turnover of €15 million counts among the pioneers in the use of battery-electric trucks among German medium-sized businesses, and is participating in a NetzeBW real-world laboratory on grid-friendly e-truck charging.

Funding landscape as a game changer

Initial discussions with energy supplier EnBW had already taken place back in 2020. At the time, the recommendation was still to wait: the technology was still too expensive for a medium-sized company. "When the state of Baden-Württemberg later launched funding programmes for charging infrastructure and vehicles, the starting position changed," electrive.net quotes the managing director.

Stickel and his team then began detailed planning, analysed peak loads, developed a concept for the power supply and applied for funding for ten e-trucks. With success: according to the company, it received total subsidies of around €240,000 for building up the charging infrastructure on the company premises. The state also funded the purchase of the e-trucks: Stickel received between €75,000 and €85,000 per vehicle.

Depot infrastructure: 1,000 kW transformer and eight charging points

At the end of 2024, the first six electric Mercedes eActros600 went into operation, followed a few months later by four MAN eTGX. Behind a dedicated 1,000 kilowatt transformer, four rapid charging stations with a total of eight charging points are available according to the company: two Alpitronic chargers, each with up to 400 kW of output, whose power can be split arbitrarily, as well as a system from manufacturer Kempower, which can be flexibly extended by a further six charging points.

Intelligent load management controls the power flows and distributes the available connected load across the trucks. This is crucial because a 1 MW connection quickly reaches its limits when several vehicles are charging simultaneously, comparable with larger wallbox installations and load management in the commercial sector.

Grid-friendly charging in the real-world laboratory

According to a report by electrive.net, Stickel is participating in a recently launched NetzeBW real-world laboratory on grid-friendly e-truck charging. Such projects typically focus on the question of how charging power and grid load can be intelligently coupled without slowing down transport operations.

From regional traffic all the way to Bremen

Stickel now uses the vehicles both in regional traffic and on longer routes. After initial experience in short-haul transport, the company gradually ventured into routes to Düsseldorf, Bremen or Bayreuth with its MAN eTGX Ultra-Lowliner trucks. Charging along the way takes place at rapid charging parks with up to 400 kW of output. The legally required driver breaks could often be combined with charging times. Although planning is more complex than with diesel operation, in practice the journeys now function reliably.

Customer requirements as an accelerator

In addition to its own sustainability ambitions, customer requirements also played a role in the decision to purchase electric commercial vehicles. The haulage company works for car manufacturers and suppliers such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche or Bosch. "Tenders increasingly contained requirements for low-emission transport," reports Stickel. For one client, the planned use of e-trucks even became the entry ticket for working together. The decarbonisation of the supply chain is thus increasingly becoming a competitive factor for logistics service providers.

What the Stickel experience means for other fleets

The haulage company deliberately decided against a cautious entry with a single vehicle. "We wanted to implement the large-scale solution in order to be able to evaluate organisational processes, driving profiles and economic viability more quickly than with a single test vehicle," Stickel is quoted as saying. The example shows: anyone wanting to integrate e-trucks into existing routes from day 1 cannot avoid forward-looking load management and grid connection planning.