Public Charging Pricing for Heavy-Duty Electric Trucks. Perceptions and Preferences of Swedish Logistics Companies.

Sammanfattning

The transition to heavy duty electric trucks in Sweden depends on how public charging prices are structured, communicated and experienced by logistics companies, not just on the availability of the charging infrastructure. Charging prices are frequently treated as numerical inputs in infrastructure and cost models by earlier studies, however there is less attention given to how logistics companies perceive pricing in practice and what pricing arrangements they consider to be suitable. The paper examines how logistics companies in Sweden perceive the current public charging prices for heavy duty electric trucks. Moreover, which pricing structures they think is best and which pricing-related strategies they suggest that could support further adoption of public charging.The paper adopts a qualitative, exploratory multiple case design. The empirical data were collected with the use of semi structured interviews with respondents from Swedish logistics companies who are involved in heavy-duty electric truck operations and public charging. For data analysis, thematic analysis supported by an analytical framework based on infrastructure pricing literature and Transaction Cost Economics were used. The findings indicate that logistics companies perceive current public charging prices as high, volatile and operationally difficult to manage. The evaluation of pricing is not only through cost per kilowatt-hour, but as part of a wider logistics system in which the waiting time, driver costs, route planning, transparency and cost predictability are crucial. Regarding the most understandable pricing model, energy based pricing seemed to be the chosen one, although companies prefer it to be combined with more stable arrangements like contract based or volume based pricing. Other pricing structures like time-based and multi component pricing are only useful when they are aligned with transport schedules.Public charging seems to be treated mainly as a secondary or backup solution currently, as the study shows, while depot charging remains preferred because of greater control and predictability. In order to support adoption, the companies emphasize predictable contracts, transparent pricing, price stabilisation, regulatory involvement, tax adjustments, unified payment systems and better integration between charging infrastructure and transport planning. As a conclusion for the paper, public charging pricing should be understood as an economic and operational coordination issue as well, instead of only as an electricity cost.