A casual visitor to the Road Transport Expo held at NAEC Stoneleigh in June might get the impression that most trucks sold today are electric, given the preponderance of new EV models on the OEM stands. The truth of course is very different, with SMMT figures for Q1 of 2025 showing that fewer than 100 of the 10,000 new HGVs registered in the UK were electric.
Quite apart from the cost and productivity challenges of large commercial EVs, charging infrastructure is currently inadequate, with few public chargers available for trucks and operators struggling to secure enough electrical power to charge at depots.
But new markets are always difficult to get started, and several new entrants to the eHGV charging sector are investing heavily. One is Aegis Energy, and it has plenty of HGV experience in the form of co-founder Chris Thorneycroft-Smith, best known as MD of Iveco from 1990 to 2007.
Alongside Chris, director of business development, Kasia Chodurek, pictured, has been with Aegis Energy for over two years, coming from investment firm BlackRock.
“My original background was in finance,” says Chodurek. “I spent about six years at BlackRock where I was working with large pension funds in the UK who use infrastructure in particular to try and get good returns for their members. So, I’ve always had this exposure to infrastructure, sustainability and climate.
“One of our co-founders, Ed Robins, who I met at university, reached out right at the beginning of Aegis Energy to say, ‘would you be interested in coming over and helping us build this company?’
“I also have a very sort of personal connection to transport in that my Polish grandma drove trucks during the war. She was a complete powerhouse. And my uncle drives trucks up in Shropshire, so it’s always been around the family.”
Start-ups in any new industrial sector can be short-lived, especially one like this which will need heavy upfront investment before any profits will be realised. Aegis Energy has received a £100m investment from Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, but greater sums will be needed to build a full UK-wide eHGV charging network.
“I like the idea of building something that really needs to be built, filling a gap that others aren’t necessarily stepping into,” Chodurek says. “When we come to work, it’s making a difference and when you’re building something from the beginning, you really feel like you have the ability to make a big difference.
“But when people say, ‘that’s amazing, you’ve got £100m, that’s such a large amount of money’ I always make the point ‘yes, it’s great, that gets us the initial network of sites to be ready’. But if you do the maths on how many sites are required to get the number of charge points that we need, we’re talking about 60 times the Aegis Energy business plan and that is billions of pounds.
“That’s where having the financial background is helpful because I have high confidence that there are the asset managers out there, like BlackRock, that want to invest in this kind of proposition. They just need good companies with a good plan to back.”
Chodurek is careful not to reveal too many details about the business model Aegis Energy is pitching to investors, as how they will make a profit from these billions of pounds of investment remains commercially confidential. The many variables include not only the infrastructure costs, but the future purchase price of renewable electricity and the price operators can afford to pay to charge their eHGVs. Already early adopters say the high price of electricity at public charge points can challenge the cost competitiveness of EVs versus diesel.
“We talk often about the fact that this is an inevitable transition when we look at the bans on diesel trucks to come in 2035 and 2040,” Chodurek says. “So, there are definitely policy levers and an adoption curve. You can see how it’s playing out in cars and that’s going to have to come to vans and trucks.
“There’s an inevitability about what’s coming and about the amount of energy that’s going to need to be distributed in a different way. In terms of today’s business case, the market’s challenging.
“Private capital can have a slightly longer view, which means that they’re playing this for five, seven or 10 years. We, as a company, are planning to be around for decades. So that’s the trade off – what price does electricity need to be so that we can keep functioning as a business while bringing the cost of charging down for fleets?”
One potential answer is already emerging in the form of Aegis’ Trailblazers initiative (see panel) which aims to start building a base of customers by offering discounts to early adopters who sign up now.
“If you move first, we want to offer discounted charging rates because you’re in a market where the technology is not mature yet,” says Chodurek. “Businesses will be considering both the opportunities and risks associated with the transition, and we want to be with you throughout the whole decision-making journey.
What Chodurek will say is that Aegis Energy is confident that the price of electricity is going to fall as the UK looks to decarbonise the entire grid by 2025 and this reduction should be passed on to operators.
“Obviously price is sensitive to volume,” she says. “So that’s always going to be a dynamic that we’re trying to balance.”
The government’s £950m Rapid Charging Fund set up in 2020 was scrapped in June this year after poor take up and the current government is instead redirecting £400m to urban on-street electric car charging.
“We haven’t received any sort of public money as it was predominantly aimed at cars,” confirms Chodurek. “After more consultations they have pivoted to include more of an accommodation for commercial vehicles, which I think is obviously the right thing to do. The more the government can do around policy levers, incentives and subsidies to help the heaviest part of the market the better, because we do need that encouragement.”
Unlike other charge point providers like Gridserve, Aegis Energy is not directly involved in any of the four £200m government-funded ZEHID projects, though Chodurek says it is “good friends to the consortia”. “We know all the leads and we know a lot of the organisations that are involved, but we are not currently a formal participant of any of them,” she says.
While competition is always helpful there are now around half a dozen start-ups vying to establish themselves in what is still a tiny market, so is there room for all of them to survive and thrive?
“I definitely agree that collaboration is not just a nice value, it’s existential,” she says. “If we don’t talk to Milence and Fleete and all the other sort of people who are popping up in this space, then we can’t coordinate where we actually need to plug the gaps. ZEHID is doing a very good job in creating that kind of infrastructure and highlighting where there are gaps and where people need to do more.
“I don’t think that infrastructure providers will lose out on this market because of competition. That’s not the dynamic we’re in yet. It’s way too early. But competition is helpful because it does keep us on our toes and alive to make changes in pricing, designs, everything.
“If Aegis Energy was doing this alone, I’d be worried that we’d moved too soon.”
The sceptics in the industry still question whether 400,000 trucks can be made zero emission – which currently means battery electric unless hydrogen fuel cells make a late dash on the rails – by the government deadline. But Chodurek remains confident it can be done.
“It’s always difficult to know how fast things will change,” she says. “As humans, we’re notoriously bad at estimating technology change. Twenty five years ago, where were we on technology? The internet was just taking off, we were all on Nokias and Apple had just announced this smartphone concept. So, 25 years on again, I cannot even conceptualise where we’ll be.”
The difference is that this transition isn’t just about developing faster microchips – this revolution will require a lot of digging holes in the ground and putting in big wires and cables to get power from where it is produced into truck batteries.
“There’s a whole bucket of work that sits upstream to where Aegis Energy comes in,” agrees Chodurek. “And Aegis is paying for the upstream electricity grid strengthening needed for our sites. I also hope that the DNOs and government are finding it as urgent as we do to make the energy transition take off.
The urgency required is highlighted by the issues operators have when it comes to getting bigger electrical supplies to depots from their local distribution network operators (DNOs). With its first hub due to open in summer 2026, how has Aegis Energy found those conversations for its planned sites in Immingham, Warrington, Corby, Towcester and Sheffield?
“Part of the reason that Aegis Energy only announced everything at the start of this year is that we’d been in existence for a couple of years before that,” says Chodurek. “But a lot of that was spent doing this work – the initial vetting and engagement with DNOs to say what does power look like in these areas, and beginning that process of getting those connections secured.
“We only wanted to announce things that were real at the start of this year rather than announcing hopes or ambitions. So, we’ve got a bit of a head start to get those connection conversations going.
“We’re building on both greenfield and brownfield land, but these are new developments on new locations. Part of the original vetting process for any plot that we would consider buying and developing was always their grid connection. When it comes to pre-negotiating on any land deal or talking to customers, we look at how much power is there and is that going to be enough for us for the first five years?
“I don’t envy fleets which are installing depot charging at existing sites and have to navigate this because to a large extent it’s a lottery; not just the area you’re in, but it can be even the side of the road that you’re on.”
Which is exactly the business case for public or possibly shared charge points for eHGVs – few of the UK’s 90,000 operators are going to get the grid connections they need for back to base charging in the next 15 years.
But adding extra mileage to divert from a route to a public charging station will only erode the TCO of HGVs. With 8,000 fuel stations in the UK, diesel vehicles can be refuelled just about anywhere, anytime and it’s currently not as easy to find a public rapid charger.
“We wouldn’t want operators to deviate more than 10 miles beyond their normal route,” says Chodurek. “Even that might be too much for some operators.”
So Aegis Energy is open to offering both slower chargers aimed at a park and charge service and megawatt rapid charging for a quick top up during a driver’s break.
“At the moment, the vast majority of the interest has come from the latter camp,” says Chodurek. “But we’re very open to that other model. I think that’s a bigger step for operators to get their heads around because it’s a big shift in the operating model to park and charge overnight.
“The chargers we’ll be installing on day one are 400kW units. That’s at the top end of what most trucks can take at the moment. We keep an eye on megawatt charging but it’s just not really needed at this particular point in time. And we will be looking to phase-in the installation of MCS chargers over time.”
To ensure maximum resilience of its power supply, Aegis Energy is installing battery storage at all its sites.
“There’s a couple of reasons for that,” says Chodurek. “First, it’s just a sensible investment for risk mitigation. We need to make sure that these sites have contingency for power because if the grid was to go down one day, we can’t have a blackout. So, a battery on every site is a non-negotiable investment for that reason.
“In terms of the payback, it also just helps to be able to download the power when it’s cheap overnight, store it and then discharge it when it’s slightly more expensive in the day. So, you can also help keep costs down for customers, and potentially do a little bit of energy trading that helps pay back the cost of that battery.”
Aegis Energy’s planned sites range in size from three to eight acres and can have up to 80 van charging bays and 30 or 40 HGV chargers. To electrify all of those on day one would require huge power capacity for a demand that is not yet there.
“It’s a classic chicken and egg scenario!” laughs Chodurek. “We’re not in the mindset of build it and they’ll come. We want this to be a collaborative exercise with customers so we know who is coming and how they plan to use the site to make sure that what is installed on site matches the local use cases. That might be cold chain trucks which need a connection for the fridge as well as for the tractor unit. But we need to work with fleets in advance to get these sort of criteria set.”
To further offset the risk of opening five new zero emission charging stations, Aegis Energy will also be offering HVO and biogas. And maybe even later hydrogen.
“Every hub will have HVO as well as electric charging for vans and trucks,” confirms Chodurek. “And then we’ve got the ability to install biogas CNG and hydrogen refuelling. When I say the ability, we put it in our planning applications for all sites and we’ve designed the sites so we know which part can be accessible to gas grid connections.”
Chodurek says she finds it “unfortunate that hydrogen is sometimes such an emotive topic”.
“We’re all adults and I think that we all want the best outcomes,” she continues. “From the Aegis point of view, this is a debate that we don’t feel the need to get too involved in. We talk about the readiness to serve it if it develops and that’s always been the way we want to work with operators. If we had someone turn around tomorrow and say ‘I’ve got a meaningful number of trucks that I want to buy and I want hydrogen refuelling’, absolutely, we’re keen to have that conversation. It’s all demand-led for us. We’re not in a position where we want to preach about what we think hydrogen could and should be for the UK.
“Getting the transition underway is to say there are going to be different energy types that work for different fleets and use cases. We just want to enable as much of that activity as possible, as quickly as possible.”
AI versus eHGVs
Demand for renewable electricity to move the whole UK economy away from fossil fuels by 2050 is going to be enormous – and one sector that is growing rapidly is data centres to power the other revolution sweeping the world – AI.
But Chodurek is not worried about competition for scarce power.
“I think data centres are as scared of road transport as road transport might be scared of data centres,” she asserts. “These are the two big power draws that are coming. We all know this. AI and data centres are going to require a huge power capacity.
“But road transport is the other big sector that often gets talked about whenever people are saying ‘what do we need to be ready for?’ I don’t see it as a super competitive tension with us going up against Google. It’s ultimately working with the DNOs to try and get the connections that people need at the time that they need them.”
Trailblazers get early adopter benefits
To encourage operators already dipping a toe into electrification to sign up to Aegis Energy the company has launched Aegis Trailblazers.
This offers a range of incentives for fleet operators who will commit early to clean refuelling. These include discounted electric charging rates that can be competitive with depot infrastructure, tailored support including decarbonisation advice, networking opportunities and the chance to help shape Aegis Energy’s infrastructure plans, from fuel options to driver welfare facilities.
The first member is Wordsworth Excavations, a South Yorkshire-based earthworks contractor which has signed up to use Aegis Energy hubs to charge its growing fleet of eHGVs. It currently has two Volvo electric trucks in operation and is exploring how it can electrify more of its fleet in response to rising demand from customers in the construction sector.
Craig Lofthouse, plant manager at Wordsworth Excavations, says: “Adding electric HGVs to our fleet has been a source of great excitement for our customers and has led to conversations with construction businesses who are looking for more sustainable partnerships. This is clearly the direction of travel for the industry, and we want to be at the forefront of it, but ambition only gets you so far without the right infrastructure.
“It’s refreshing to see Aegis Energy acting now and investing in the future, building clean refuelling hubs that are fit for our needs and located along major transport corridors. The support and influence that comes with being an Aegis Trailblazer will help us expand our electric HGV fleet and explore decarbonising our vans, too.”
