“This changes everything” - megawatt charging for long-haul passes the test

Fleet operators don’t have to believe in electric trucks yet, but many of the barriers that once justified waiting are beginning to fall away. For years, heavy-duty electrification has been stuck in a familiar loop: operators reluctant to invest without high-power charging infrastructure in place, and infrastructure providers unwilling to build it without enough electric trucks on the road. It’s a well-worn chicken-and-egg argument that many in the industry have grown tired of hearing.

But at Kempower’s MCS Live Winter Days event in Norrköping, Sweden, there was a growing sense that this stalemate may finally be starting to break. More than 80 participants gathered at the newly inaugurated Alfredsson Transport charging site to see first-hand how megawatt charging systems (MCS) are moving from concept to operational reality. With hardware live, trucks on site and OEMs demonstrating interoperability, the message from the event was clear: MCS is no longer theoretical but finally happening.

Kempower’s chargers have now delivered thousands of MCS sessions and tens of megawatt-hours of energy, with public sites operating in every Nordic country, and the UK. “What we are seeing now is that MCS is here. It’s live, it’s public and it’s working,” Kempower vice-president of product Antti Vuola (pictured right) said. “This is no longer about pilots in isolation but real operations.”

Christian van der Star, project manager vehicles at PostNord, Sweden, reinforced that message from the operator perspective. The company already has a fleet of 1,000 trucks, including 41 electric HGVs, and plans to purchase 31 more this year. But he told MT that he’s now revising his strategy, based on what he heard at Norrköping.

“We have to start implementing MCS,” he said. “We’re buying trucks now to use for the next 10 years, and in five years MCS will be everywhere. What’s been said today has changed everything for us.”

Van der Star also revealed that the Mercedes eActros 600 currently gives them a step ahead in range, while Volvo and Scania are releasing comparable e-axles only later this year or early next year. “The range is substantially more on the Mercedes,” he said.

However, grid capacity still remains a major barrier, with some upgrades taking up to two years, while land availability for charging hubs is limited. “You don’t want to build a charging hub in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “And putting a charging station in a truck park takes too much space.”

The economics also need to make sense first, with total cost of ownership (TCO) being key. Charging publicly can be 70% more expensive than depot charging, meaning the financial case for fleets evaporates if relying on public infrastructure. “We charge at the depot, which is half the price,” Van der Star said.

In the UK, one of the most high-profile examples of megawatt charging remains the DP World site, which features 12 MCS chargers alongside eight CCS units, delivering a total site capacity of around 11MW. These are hybrid sites, combining CCS, MCS, energy storage and on-site generation to maximise utilisation and return on investment.

That flexibility, Vuola argued, is critical: “It’s not about building MCS-only locations. It’s about creating sites that work commercially today while being ready for the next generation of trucks.”

The momentum is now being reinforced by new UK deployments. Earlier this month, the eFREIGHT 2030 consortium formally opened the UK’s first megawatt-scale electric HGV charging hub at Kuehne+Nagel’s East Midlands Gateway site, using Voltempo’s HyperCharger technology. The hub is the first of 25 planned megawatt-scale sites nationwide and forms part of the government-backed Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator (ZEHID) programme. It is capable of delivering up to one megawatt of power per vehicle.

Gridserve also opened two public electric HGV charging hubs this month and is set to open another seven this year, as part of the ZEHID-backed Electric Freightway project.

Vuola reiterated that OEM production timelines, secured infrastructure financing and standardised communication protocols are now aligning: “This year has been about proving that everything works together - trucks, chargers, software and infrastructure,” he said. “What we are now seeing is OEMs preparing production vehicles and infrastructure providers preparing sites. That’s why we believe 2026 will be the year of MCS.”

Crucially, the long-awaited MCS communication standard was finalised late last year, enabling genuine interoperability. At the Norrköping event, multiple OEMs including MAN, Volvo and Scania, were present to demonstrate that their trucks can now communicate reliably with megawatt chargers.

Chicken meets egg

James Purton, Kempower’s global strategic account manager (below), summed up the shift succinctly: “This is the chicken meets the egg moment,” he said. “For the first time, fleet operators can see that the trucks are ready and the infrastructure is ready at the same time.

“The trucks and charging hardware have successfully demonstrated communication and charging via an MCS connector, meaning significantly higher charging speeds can now be expected of up to 3.75 megawatts. For the time being, charging speeds remain at around one megawatt, which is approximately 143 times faster than a typical UK home EV charger. At these speeds, trucks can recharge sufficiently within the mandatory 45-minute driver rest break.”

The news will give confidence to operators, Purton said, and flick the switch on investment. Large operators such as Alfredsson Transport, Amazon and Kuehne+Nagel are already running pilots because they can afford to absorb early risk. Their role is to prove that electric HGVs can meet delivery schedules, maintain uptime and make financial sense.

“Once they’ve proven the concept, and that the vehicles work, the chargers work and deliveries are made on time, we’ll see wider fleet adoption,” Purton added. “Time is money in this industry.”

For UK readers, one of the most relevant discussions centred on grid constraints, which are widely regarded as the biggest barrier to large-scale charging deployment. Purton warned that relying solely on grid upgrades can delay projects by anything from six months to two years.

The workaround increasingly being adopted across Europe is battery-backed charging. Falling battery costs mean energy storage can be deployed faster and more cheaply than grid reinforcement, allowing sites to be built sooner and in better locations.

“Batteries are effectively subsidising the grid,” Purton explained. “They allow operators to build now rather than wait, even if the return on investment takes longer.”

Despite political uncertainty and shifting targets, both Vuola and Purton returned to a consistent theme: profitability. Major fleets are not investing in electric HGVs out of ideology, but because the numbers are beginning to stack up.

“If it makes financial sense, fleets will move,” Purton said. “That’s why companies like Amazon and Kuehne+Nagel are doing this. Profitability is what drives adoption.”

For UK operators watching from the sidelines, the message from Norrköping was not that the transition will be easy, but that it is now tangible. The infrastructure is being built, the trucks are coming, and the long-standing chicken-and-egg dilemma is finally beginning to loosen its grip.