Quantifying the impact of fleet planning re-optimization on truck electrification in distribution logistics

Abstract Electrifying heavy-duty truck fleets is critical for decarbonization, yet several cutting-edge approaches are based on historical diesel plans which do not account for electric truck characteristics. Such one-to-one replacement of diesel trucks without adapting operational plans may thus underestimate the technical and economic feasibility of battery electric trucks. To better understand the potential for fleet-level optimization, we compare a one-to-one replacement strategy against a holistic re-optimization approach that jointly solves for fleet composition, shipment-to-vehicle allocation, vehicle routing, and charge scheduling. Using real-world data from German grocery logistics (~38,000 shipments), we find that re-optimization unlocks significantly higher electrification potential and economic performance. It increases the electrifiable payload from 48% to 85% and doubles the fleet-level cost reduction (7.0% vs. 3.5%) compared to the optimized diesel baseline. These results demonstrate that maximizing electric fleet viability requires moving beyond simple hardware substitution to fundamentally restructuring operational logistics.