Feasibility study · 2026
Analyst of record
A twenty-seven-truck haulier on a net margin near one percent, asking whether four distribution tractors could go electric without changing how the business runs.
trucks in the operation, four in scope
kilometres covered in the analysed year
DKK annual fleet saving, no subsidy in the base case
year payback on the two-truck phase
The brief
The operator runs a dual-depot distribution business at a net margin of roughly one percent. At that margin an investment case does not get the benefit of the doubt: a saving that only appears under favourable assumptions is not a saving, it is a risk transferred onto the owner.
Four tractor units were in scope. Between them they covered more than 500,000 km and burned close to 200,000 litres of diesel in the year analysed. The evidence base was twenty-seven months of telemetry, a full year of ERP cost accounting and GPS route data.
The study went through seven numbered versions, a forensic audit, an independent validation pass, a Monte Carlo risk analysis and a formal forecast evaluation before it was presented.
Deliverables
Purchase premium, chargers, energy, servicing, road and weight taxes and residual value, discounted to present money, with consumption derated for the Nordic climate and maintenance modelled on a curve that doubles across a truck's life.
Every day of measured telemetry tested against the charging window actually available at the depot, at a 20 percent state-of-charge floor, to count the nights where the truck could not be made ready for the next day. That count, not a manufacturer range figure, drives the feasibility verdict.
Three and a half years of metered load data across both sites, resolved to the overnight window that constrains everything, producing the amount of charging each depot can host today with no grid investment and what an upgrade would add.
A two-by-two model rather than a full conversion: two trucks first, covering about 96 percent of depot operations with no operational change, then a decision point before the second pair.
The whole thing compressed to what the chief executive needed in order to decide, and presented directly.
Actions
Problems and solutions
Every project has these. They are more informative than the finished result, so they are on the page.
Problem
The phased alternative turned negative above a seven percent discount rate. The full conversion looked better on paper, but not for a reason that would survive scrutiny.
Solution
Reported plainly, in the study and to the chief executive. A marginal case dressed up as a strong one does not survive the first serious question from an owner who knows their own business. The recommendation kept the phased model and stated the discount rate at which it stops working, so the decision was made with that number visible rather than buried in a sensitivity tab.
Problem
Maintenance had been modelled across earlier versions at a flat rate that the fleet's own accounts did not support.
Solution
Rebased it from 0.75 to 1.60 DKK per kilometre, built from real fleet maintenance accounts and following an empirical curve that roughly doubles over a truck's life rather than a flat annual figure. The change made the case worse and was applied everywhere anyway, including retrospectively across the earlier documents.
Problem
The second depot looked like it should be part of the answer, and the client expected it to be.
Solution
The analysis showed it rescues only six to seven percent of the problem days, because most were mid-route range days that a second depot cannot fix. It was reframed from a payback item to a redundancy decision, and priced separately as optional. Presenting it as part of the return would have quietly inflated the case by about DKK 300k of capital doing almost nothing.
Problem
Nobody would guarantee what an electric tractor is worth after eight years, and the number moves the case substantially.
Solution
Modelled at zero. The conservative choice was to assume the asset is worthless at the end and show that the case still holds, then list the residual as the open risk to be closed with a manufacturer guarantee before capital is committed.
Outcome
Concept approved by the chief executive, with real-world testing requested before capital commitment. The saving stands at roughly DKK 853k a year across the fleet with no subsidy in the base case, and 454 tonnes of CO2 a year on the lead truck alone. A single-truck variant was also taken through to a conditional go, at a 12.2 percent internal rate of return and a positive net present value at a seven percent discount rate over ten years.
What it took