There is no single price tag for electrifying a truck. The cost depends mainly on how far it drives and where it charges.

In short: WDP’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) modelling shows that an electric truck can already compete with diesel at around 75,000 km a year, and the advantage grows with every extra kilometre. Charging at your own depot, ideally with solar power and a battery, lowers the cost further.

There is a second effect, too. Power supply and charging infrastructure are starting to influence how tenants and landlords value a site. This guide explains both.

Lever 1: mileage. An electric truck can compete with diesel from around 75,000 km a year, and the more it drives, the bigger the advantage. Below that, the cost case is weaker on its own, although emissions rules still count. Above it, the numbers increasingly favour electric.

Lever 2: where you charge. Charging at your own depot is on average 5 percent cheaper than charging on the road. The gap grows when the depot uses its own solar power. With solar panels, a battery and smart buying and selling on the energy market, depot charging can come in well below typical public charging rates.

The lower depot price is no coincidence. A depot with solar panels and a battery charges trucks with its own stored power. It avoids buying expensive grid electricity at peak times, and it avoids public charging prices altogether.

It is the same logic explained in battery storage for warehouses. A battery does not only solve a grid problem. It also lowers the running cost of an electric fleet.

The trend points the same way. From 2028, road transport falls under the new European emissions trading system (ETS2), which is expected to make diesel more expensive. Battery prices, meanwhile, keep falling as performance improves.

As more tenants plan electric fleets, sites that already have spare grid capacity, a battery and chargers become more attractive than similar sites without them. They save the tenant the cost and delay of building it all from scratch. Over time, that shows up in demand and lease terms, just as clear height and dock doors already do.

This works both ways. Tenants should count existing energy infrastructure as part of a site’s value when comparing options. For landlords, investing in grid capacity, batteries and charging, as described in our grid capacity guide, keeps a building competitive as the market moves to electric fleets.

Anchor your budget on two numbers: the annual mileage at which electric trucks compete with diesel, and the energy cost you can reach at your own depot compared with grid or public charging. Fleets that drive a lot and return to the depot to charge are the strongest candidates to move early.

Still weighing it up? A TCO analysis based on your real routes and mileage gives a far clearer answer than a price comparison. See six reasons logistics companies hesitate to go electric for how cost fits alongside the other common concerns.