Turning Challenge into Opportunity 2025

–DP World reported deploying the largest electric freight-mobility fleet in the Middle East through its partnership with Einride, as part of its equipment-electrification programme. In March 2025, DP world expanded electric freight operations at Jebel Ali Port with Einride, rolling out an electric, digitally orchestrated road-freight solution to decarbonize port- related trucking.53 Battery-electric holds the edge on efficiency and early adoption The supplier calculus is pragmatic: for those seeking to decarbonize, battery-electric trucks are the most efficient pathway available to reduce emissions in the near-term, not because other pathways are impossible, but because electrification combines fast-improving vehicle availability, clear energy-efficiency advantages and a developing infrastructure trajectory that eases future planning. Additionally, the broader EV passenger-vehicle industry’s scale supports BET adoption via improvements in cell density, thermal control and cost reduction that spill into the MHD segments. When suppliers compare pathways, system efficiency is a key discriminator: electricity is used directly in BETs, translating into motion with substantially fewer conversion losses than routes that convert electricity into hydrogen or e-fuels before it reaches the wheels. Moreover, BEVs’ “power-to-wheels” efficiency is placed far above hydrogen and e-fuels – fewer megawatt-hours must be generated and delivered per tonne-km moved.54 A recent analysis concluded that drivetrain efficiency for BEVs reached 70-90%, compared to substantially lower efficiency for fuel-cell systems due to hydrogen production and conversion processes, once the end-to-end energy pathway is considered.55 That efficiency edge compounds with falling battery costs and improved power electronics to create a powerful case for BETs – specifically when duty cycles are repeatable (hub-to-hub, back-to-base) and where depot charging can be sequenced with operations.56 The road freight ecosystem continues to grapple with well-known challenges: limited charging infrastructure, difficult grid connections, high cost of new assets and insecurities regarding total cost of ownership. John De Dryver, Strategy and Sustainability Manager, Kuehne+Nagel Navigating roadblocks Interviews with suppliers illuminate that a dominant limiting factor for electric adoption in 2025 is not whether an electric truck can move freight – it is whether there is enough powerful, well-placed infrastructure to keep it moving. Coverage is improving but still thin on long corridors, reflecting a need for public tenders – or for coalitions between OEMs and utility providers to move first and fill obvious gaps. However, adding plugs is only half the job: multi-megawatt depots and high-throughput hubs increase strain on the grid, dragging substation upgrades, interconnection queues and tariff exposure into the critical path – unless utilities are able to co-plan from day one. Even when steel is in the ground, operations can decide the economics. Many fleets are treating charging as a software-defined flow problem – coordinating arrivals, state-of-charge and price signals across trucks and nodes. In a large-scale simulation of Sweden’s road network, a distributed truck-station coordination scheme cut average waiting times materially – this dictates the difference between making or missing utilization targets.57 Complementary analyses show that managed charging and onsite distributed energy resources (DERs) can trim fleet power bills by up to 30%, while depot-level optimization can avoid majority on-peak charging, cut peak load rates and reduce variable energy costs.58,59 As previously highlighted, vehicle capability continues to improve – yet range, payload, climate and route profile still define what’s bankable, which is why hub-to-hub and back-to- base lanes keep leading early scale. Finally, the maths of adoption still leans on utilization. Logistics providers and truck operators voice concern about a material TCO gap and capex premium versus diesel in many long-haul cases, without incentives. This gap closes as trucks run hotter, batteries get cheaper and tariffs are optimized. The through-line for operators is not simple but becoming clearer: design lanes for utilization, co-plan sites with the grid and use policy tailwinds to pull parity forward – the trucks are ready enough, but the system around them decides the pace. Turning Challenge into Opportunity: Supplier Voices from Heavy-Emitting Sectors 24