The Real Decisions Behind Electric Truck Procurement
A Multi-Level Decision-Support Framework for Truck Electrification by Fleet Operators
B.J. Leferink (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
L.A. Tavasszy – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
M.A. van den Broek – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
J.A. Annema – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
Pim Roest – Mentor
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Abstract
Battery electric trucks (BETs) are becoming cost-competitive, yet adoption by fleet operators across Europe remains limited. A key reason is that BET procurement is not a simple vehicle replacement. It changes the wider decision-making context of the fleet operator, requiring alignment between the vehicle, charging infrastructure, grid capacity, routes, customers, contracts, and daily operations. Existing research identifies many adoption barriers and drivers and studies individual electrification issues such as charging, routing, and grid capacity. However, it does not connect these factors to concrete procurement decisions, nor does it treat BET procurement as an interdependent decision-making process from the fleet operator perspective.
This thesis develops a multi-level decision-support framework that helps fleet operators structure BET procurement. The central research question asks how such a framework can guide fleet operators in structuring the interdependent strategic, tactical, and operational decisions of BET implementation across transport profiles, while accounting for adoption barriers and drivers. The study combines a literature review of academic and grey sources, conceptual modelling, and eighteen semi-structured expert interviews conducted in two rounds. Interview data were analysed through deductive and inductive coding, and the interdependencies between decisions were mapped in a directed relationship matrix.
The central finding is that BET procurement is an organisational decision-making problem rather than a vehicle-replacement decision. It introduces fifteen interdependent decisions across the strategic, tactical, and operational levels, three of which emerged only from practice. Charging-related decisions shape many of the others. Adoption barriers and drivers do not act as stand-alone factors but operate through specific decisions, and feasibility is determined by seven operational transport dimensions rather than by broad transport profiles alone. The resulting framework starts with these dimensions as a feasibility check, structures the decisions across three levels, and uses operational experience as a feedback mechanism, turning a vague electrification ambition into a phased, context-specific pathway. The framework is an analytical structuring tool that is grounded in practice but not yet validated in a real procurement process.