Economical Assessment of Heavy-Duty Battery Electric Trucks inSweden

Sammanfattning

Motivated by the high upfront costs of Battery Electric Trucks and the need for a rapid electrification of freight transport, this thesis develops and applies a tailored Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model to evaluate the economic viability of heavy-duty Battery Electric Trucks (BETs) in Sweden’s freight sector. First, a comprehensive literature review synthesizes prior TCO frameworks, identifying key cost drivers such as battery size and charging lifecycles, charging infrastructure costs, fuel and maintenance costs, and highlights gaps in Swedish specific assumptions, such as driver costs. Thereafter an abductive research design combines this review with empirical data: daily driving logs from a Swedish freight fleet provided by VTI’s partner, Swedish specific parameters from the ASEK framework and information from industry experts . A Net Present Value based TCO model is constructed, discounting capital- and operational expenditures while also incorporating end-of-life residual values for the vehicle and battery. Monte Carlo simulations of four representative route classes capture variability in daily driving distances and charging stops. Results show that BETs achieve lower TCO/km than diesel trucks for short- and medium-haul operations (≤ 238 km/day), driven by reduced energy and maintenance costs, higher residual values and purchase subsidies. Long-haul use cases remain very sensitive to high public fast-charging costs. Sensitivity analyses reveal that electricity price and the studied analysis period significantly influence competitiveness and that current subsidies are mainly effective in short haul driving profiles. Benchmarking against international studies confirms alignment with broader European and international findings when Swedish data is applied.