CATL and DHL Sign a Deal to Electrify European Road Freight

CATL and DHL Group have signed a new memorandum of understanding to develop green freight corridors in Europe, which in practice means electric trucks running on routes backed by charging stations and battery swapping. It was signed at IAA Transportation in Hanover and builds on a global agreement from 2024, this time focusing on European road freight. It’s a framework agreement, so the details still need to be filled in, but the two companies involved carry a lot of weight in their industries.

Who CATL and DHL Are

CATL is the world’s largest battery manufacturer and holds more than 40 percent of China’s power battery market, and it keeps pushing further into Europe, most recently with a sodium ion storage deal with Alfen that I covered here. DHL Group is a German logistics company and one of the largest in the world, with a stated goal of net zero logistics related CO2 emissions by 2050. Their 2024 agreement centred on carbon neutral logistics facilities and electrifying DHL’s pickup and delivery fleet, so the new one moves the cooperation onto long distance trucks.

The Agreement Covers Trucks, Charging and Battery Swapping

Under the MoU, the two companies will identify freight routes suitable for electrification, talk to vehicle manufacturers about purpose built electric trucks and set up mobile and stationary charging, plus battery swapping pilots. DHL also aims to cover transport within CATL’s European supply chain. Akin Li, executive president of CATL’s overseas business, said European freight electrification takes more than batteries or vehicles alone, since it also needs real logistics demand, charging, energy storage, swapping and lifecycle services.

Charging and energy partners named as potential participants include Quibo Energy and FleetBoost, and on the swapping side there’s Swaptopus, the joint venture CATL and Octopus Energy announced in June to build an electric truck battery swapping network across Europe, as Electrek points out. Other truck makers, infrastructure providers, energy companies and investors can join individual projects as needed, and the specific corridors, investment amounts and launch dates are still to be defined.

Tectrans II Is the Battery Behind the Plan

CATL launched Tectrans II at the same show, a commercial vehicle battery platform that supports both charging and battery swapping. According to CATL’s press release, the heavy duty truck version comes with the figures below.

Support for both charging and swapping is what the pilots in the MoU call for, since neither approach has been proven for long haul freight in Europe yet.

Swapping Makes More Sense for Trucks Than for Cars

I’ve been sceptical about battery swapping for private buyers in Europe, and BYD’s flash charging makes that case even harder, as I wrote in my comparison of flash charging and battery swapping. Trucks are a different story, at least in theory, because a fleet runs fixed routes on a schedule and every hour spent charging is an hour without revenue. CATL’s push into swapping started with cars, as I covered in my look at its swap network plans, and freight could turn out to be the better fit.

CATL’s own CTO, Zhu Lingbo, expects the electrification of commercial vehicles to take more than a decade, and I’d treat that as a realistic timeline for swap stations and purpose built trucks too. Until specific corridors, truck makers and investment amounts are named, this MoU is a statement of intent, and I’ll update this article when they are.

Featured Image: Volvo