The SPIRIT-E project ran between August 2023 and October 2026. Funded by the German federal government and led by the DLR (German Aerospace Centre), this research initiative aimed to identify existing barriers to the electrification of heavy transport and develop practical solutions. On the one hand, the project team followed the approach of opening up private charging infrastructure at logistics sites to third parties, including the creation of booking options (a practice that has already been widely adopted today). On the other hand, SPIRIT-E tested how bi-directional charging and reservable private charging infrastructure could be integrated into existing energy systems to boost sectoral coupling between the energy and transport sectors.
Shell Business Recharge Solutions (SBRS), a Shell Group company, developed the corresponding bi-directional DC charging infrastructure within the project, thus establishing the technical basis for all Vehicle-to-X applications. The consortium also included the Technical University of Munich (TUM) as main partner, the Fraunhofer IEE, the Research Center for Energy Economics, TenneT, Hubject, Consolinno Energy and MAN Truck & Bus.
The solutions were tested in a real laboratory of the logistics company Schmid in Obertraublingen near Regensburg. In spring 2026, the project team carried out the world’s first live demonstration of bi-directional charging for an electric truck. This was an important milestone: electrive livestreamed the demonstration on April 24. You can see the recording here (DE). The star of the show: a MAN eTGX with a usable battery capacity of 480 kWh. Using the SBRS bi-directional DC charging station, this truck returned power to the grid at a rate of up to 350 kW.
After three years of project implementation, TUM has come to the conclusion that electric trucks could open up opportunities to reduce energy costs and relieve financial pressure on logistics companies: “Their batteries can also serve as energy storage for the depot or the public grid.” Within the framework of the project, the university mainly carried out complementary research.
SPIRIT-E also included the integration of mobile batteries into the electricity market: in a specially created test environment, project partners simulated how vehicles could absorb energy at low electricity prices and sell it when prices are higher. “This could provide carriers with an additional source of income in the future,” TUM explained. To make this work, the consortium developed and tested the necessary interfaces between trucks, charging stations, energy management systems, electricity traders and grid operators, including a reservation system for charging stations.
Basically, project participants tested three different bidirectional applications: the truck supplied power to other vehicles (Vehicle-to-Vehicle), supported the power supply of the company’s facilities (Vehicle-to-Site) and returned power to the public grid (Vehicle-to-Grid). Communication between the vehicle and the charging infrastructure was based on the international standard ISO 15118-20.
The TUM Chair of Automotive Technology primarily investigated, as part of its complementary research, whether and how logistics companies can reliably operate their fleets electrically and how the transition can be economically viable. According to the university, the research was based, among other things, on real driving data from six German fleets of heavy vehicles, totaling 2.15 million recorded kilometers. The key findings are briefly summarized below:
- Reservation of charging points: If electric trucks can reserve public charging points on long-distance routes in advance, the reliability of planning increases. The time loss compared to diesel trucks is reduced on average to between 1 and 4 percent, depending on the scenario.
- Joint fleet and warehouse planning: With private charging infrastructure at the depot, a significantly larger portion of the fleet can reliably operate electrically compared to relying solely on public charging. Those that also incorporate photovoltaics and battery storage can save between 25 and 44 percent more than by simply switching to electric trucks.
- Rethink shipping planning: If route planning takes into account charging flexibility, charging processes can be deliberately scheduled during low-cost periods. Depending on the order structure, this reduces total fleet costs.
- Intelligent integration of the tank into the energy system: Intelligent integration into the power grid and the electricity market reduced the total costs of the fleets examined by an average of 1.7 cents per kilometer. With bidirectional charging, the savings were even 6.1 cents per kilometer.
According to TUM, the use of electricity stored in the company’s own facilities is especially promising. “For example, electric trucks can charge excess electricity from a photovoltaic system during the day and supply that electricity again later. This can increase the amount of electricity demand a company meets with its own generation. The vehicles can also cover short-term spikes in electricity demand, helping to avoid costly peak loads,” the researchers said.
The project team considers a potential savings of around ten percent in energy costs realistic. “For a truck that travels 100,000 kilometers a year, that is equivalent to the energy cost of traveling 10,000 kilometers,” they explained. The degree of profit for a logistics company depends mainly on mileage, downtime and electricity prices. Regional transport vehicles, which periodically return to the depot, are especially suitable.
At the closing ceremony, the project team highlighted that the biggest obstacles now lie not so much in technical implementation as in network integration and economic framework conditions. For example, the existing grid connection capacity at many company facilities is insufficient to charge larger electric truck fleets. “Flexible grid connection arrangements, battery storage or shared charging infrastructure can help overcome these limitations,” was the unanimous opinion.
However, there is also a lack of uniform rules for the marketing of stored electricity. Many vendors use proprietary technical solutions that are not compatible with each other. According to project participants, it is also necessary to clarify how tasks and income will be distributed between logistics companies, vehicle manufacturers and electricity marketers.
“SPIRIT-E has shown that heavy electric trucks can be much more than new consumers of electricity. Technically, they can be integrated into the energy system as flexible storage systems. The task now is to standardize and scale the solutions that have been tested and turn them into viable business models. This will require researchers, network operators, industry, the logistics sector and policy makers to work together,” summarized Professor Markus Lienkamp, Head of the Chair of Technology Automotive from the TUM School of Engineering and Design.
tum.de, mantruckandbus.com
