Suggested Citation:
Wang, Guihua, Marshall Miller, Lewis Fulton (2023) The Infrastructure Cost for Depot Charging of Battery Electric Trucks. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-23-63

Electric vehicle (EV) depot charging provides fleet operators with an opportunity to convert to a zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) fleet. This study considers two example cases: a fleet of medium-duty delivery trucks and a fleet of heavy-duty short-haul trucks. In both cases, trucks are charged at a depot by direct current (DC) fast chargers (50 kW, 150 kW, or 350 kW), and we estimate charging infrastructure cost as a function of the EV fleet size. Results indicate that per-vehicle infrastructure cost will decrease substantially as the fleet size increases, though infrastructure cost is very sensitive to charger utilization rates. The higher the charger utilization, the lower the infrastructure cost will be, as the depot will need fewer chargers installed given a certain number of vehicles being charged. Therefore, one cost reduction strategy is to improve daily utilization rates to reduce the charger count demand and eventually reduce the infrastructure cost (the capital cost). Finally, results show that the annualized infrastructure cost is dwarfed by the annual cost of the electricity dispensed to the EV fleet.