How does the EHAUL battery swap system work?
EHAUL develops fully automated battery swap stations that exchange a heavy-duty truck battery in under 5 minutes. The truck drives into the station, the depleted battery is removed by a robotic system, and a fully charged battery is installed. No driver intervention is needed. The battery connects to the chassis via a quick-contact interface.
The removed battery is charged inside the station while the truck is already back on the road. This decouples charging time, location, and power level from the vehicle operation, which is the fundamental difference from cable charging. Stations run autonomously, 24/7, and are monitored remotely.
Within the eHaul research project, a prototype station was operated for two years in 2024 and 2025, where batteries were exchanged from the side. We are currently developing the second-generation station, in which the swap takes place from below, in line with DINSPEC 91533. Stations can be deployed at logistics hubs, along highways, or as dedicated infrastructure for fleet operators.
How fast is the battery swap process?
The battery swap itself takes under 5 minutes. By comparison, cable charging, even with the Megawatt Charging System (MCS), typically takes 30 to 60 minutes for a comparable energy transfer. The key point is not just the absolute time saving. A swap can take place independently of the mandatory driver rest period, which fundamentally changes how fleets can plan their operations.
Is the system compatible with all electric trucks?
EHAUL stations support a dual mode: battery swapping and cable charging. The system supports tractor units and swap-body vehicles.
For cross-manufacturer compatibility in swapping, we developed DINSPEC 91533, the first European standard for battery swapping in heavy-duty electric trucks. This was a research project jointly led by EHAUL and TU Berlin (UniSwapHD research project) and coordinated by the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN).
What it covers:
1. Applies to battery swapping in heavy-duty electric trucks (excluding the stations themselves)
2. Standardizes battery dimensions and how batteries connect to trucks
3. Follows established safety, security, and occupational health standards
The consortium behind the specification includes CATL, DAF Trucks, Daimler Truck, DHL Group, Iveco, Trailer Dynamics, and TRATON, funded by the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWE). The specification was published in March 2026 and enables future OEM trucks to be designed swap-ready out of the factory.
What does fully autonomous mean for EHAUL stations?
The stations are designed to operate 24/7 without any on-site personnel. The entire process (battery removal, storage, charging, and installation of the charged battery) is automated. Operations, monitoring, and issue response happen remotely. This enables continuous operation and low per-site operating costs.
What problem does battery swapping solve for fleet operators?
Cable charging works well as long as the share of electric trucks in a fleet is small. Most depots still have spare grid capacity for the initial vehicles, and dispatchers can plan routes to ensure that driver rest periods align with charging requirements.
As fleets scale beyond that starting point, two structural problems emerge:
Problem 1: Not all trucks can be charged at the home depot. Grid connection and yard space often fall short, and many vehicles (especially from subcontractors) are only on site for pickup and delivery, not parking. With 5-minute swapping, a truck can start the day with an (almost) empty battery and swap after a short drive, independently of the driver rest period. Importantly, the station does not need to be on the depot itself. A station a few kilometers away is easily reached and sufficient.
Problem 2: Cable charging infrastructure becomes the bottleneck, and a source of inflexibility. Because public charging parks depend on high utilization to amortize, fleets have to reserve slots and stick to them. Traffic delays or shifting loading times, day-to-day reality in logistics, lead to missed slots and cascading delays. A swap blocks the infrastructure for only a few minutes rather than a 30 to 45 minute driver break, which makes rescheduling easier.
How does the TCO compare to diesel and to MCS/CCS charging?
Versus diesel trucks: the battery swap solution offers up to 20% TCO advantage. The savings come from lower energy costs and toll benefits for electric vehicles.
Versus MCS/CCS charging: we assume at least cost parity on pure charging economics, with an expected advantage as fleets scale. On top of that, battery swapping adds operational efficiency advantage that cable charging cannot replicate: under 5 minutes standstill instead of 30 to 60 minutes, swaps decoupled from driver rest periods, and higher asset utilization per truck. This operational advantage compounds the benefits of charging economics.
Battery swapping is structurally favored in scenarios characterized by constrained grid capacity, high fleet utilization requirements, and significant demand charges—conditions typical of scaling electric truck fleets. MCS requires peak power levels of 1 to 3+ MW per charging point, which often triggers expensive grid reinforcement and long permitting timelines. With battery swapping, charging is decoupled from vehicle dwell time and instead occurs during periods of low electricity prices, thereby reducing demand charges and grid requirements.
How does the service work for fleet customers?
Fleet operators do not need to buy the battery. Instead, they use the truck with a battery provided under our Battery-as-a-Service model (BaaS), billed based on actual usage (per kilometer driven or per energy consumed). This turns a large upfront capital expenditure into a predictable per-use cost and lowers the barrier to electric truck adoption, especially for small and mid-sized fleets.
In daily operation, the customer experience is straightforward: the truck pulls into the station, the depleted battery is exchanged for a fully charged one in under 5 minutes, and the truck continues its route. No cable handling, no waiting for a charging session to finish, no coordination with driver rest periods. The energy delivered via the swap is billed separately to the BaaS fee, similar to the energy component of cable charging. Customers pay for the battery usage and for the energy they actually consume, and nothing else.
How does battery swapping affect payload and range?
Without swapping, electric trucks have to cover range with larger and heavier batteries, which directly eats into payload. With battery swapping, operators can use optimally sized batteries and swap them when needed. The result: better payload and more flexible range extension, without every truck having to carry a maximum-size battery.
How is the EHAUL system grid-friendly?
Battery swap stations require up to 80% less grid connection capacity compared to pure cable charging parks serving the same number of vehicles. The reason: batteries in the station can be charged at moderate power over time, decoupled from the instantaneous demand of arriving trucks.
Further grid-friendly functions:
1. Battery-to-battery charging: load balancing within the station
2. Peak shaving: avoiding expensive demand peaks
3. Bi-directional station-to-grid services: feeding energy back into the grid when needed
4. Direct feed-in: connection directly to PV or wind farms, bypassing the distribution grid
5. Dynamic pricing optimization: charging when electricity is cheap and green
The reduced grid connection also shortens permitting times and lowers investment costs, both critical given the current bottlenecks in grid expansion.
How space-efficient are the stations, and how well do they scale?
EHAUL battery swap stations are approximately 45% more space-efficient than conventional cable charging infrastructure with comparable charging capacity. Because trucks leave within minutes, far fewer dedicated parking slots need to be maintained. This is particularly attractive for logistics hubs and highway rest areas with limited space.
Scaling is equally flexible. A larger grid connection or an expansion of battery storage space allows the same station to serve significantly more trucks per day. To increase capacity further, a second lane with an additional swap robot can be added to the existing station, without building an entirely new site.
An automated swap station with additional batteries must be much more expensive than cable charging.
The objection usually comes in two parts: robotics cost and extra batteries. Neither holds at scale.
On the batteries: the batteries in the station are not idle extra capacity. Each battery completes its full cycle life, delivering approximately 1 million kilometers of productive transport work—comparable to a battery permanently installed in a truck. The station batteries are an upfront investment, not an additional cost per km.
On the overall economics: battery swap stations need only about one-fifth of the grid connection capacity and significantly less power electronics per vehicle served. The savings on grid connection, transformers, and charging hardware more than compensate for the swap robotics and the upfront battery stock. On top of that lower footprint, gentler charging cycles (longer battery life), and the ability to use dynamic electricity prices.
At low level of electric truck penetration, cable charging can keep up on cost. For the structural electrification of entire fleets, battery swapping is the structurally more efficient solution.
You can just solve the grid problem with local battery storage at cable charging parks.
That is a reasonable bridge solution to get the first electric truck fleets up and running today. At scale, it runs into limits:
1. Charging hardware (fast chargers, cables, MCS handling) remains expensive and has to be provided per charging point
2. Double battery cycling (once in the stationary storage, once in the vehicle battery) increases energy losses and accelerates aging
3. Two separate battery systems per charging point instead of one integrated asset
Battery swapping combines all of these. The station batteries are the vehicle batteries. No duplicate asset, no duplicate cycle. This is significantly more resource-efficient, both in raw materials and in system energy losses.
Battery swapping only works if all OEMs use the same battery.
This is not true. With DIN SPEC 91533 we have laid the foundation for cross-manufacturer compatibility in heavy-duty truck battery swapping. Our infrastructure is designed to handle multiple standardized battery types in parallel, so different OEM batteries can share the same station.
This is forward-compatible by design. Battery technology will continue to evolve, with future generations using different cell chemistries and formats. The swap system is built to integrate successive battery generations within the same station, rather than becoming obsolete with each new generation.
Battery swapping is just a transitional technology, until faster charging and better batteries arrive.
This argument underestimates several structural advantages that persist long-term:
1. Grid connection remains the bottleneck. Even as battery capacity grows and charging power increases, available grid power in Germany and Europe will not scale at the same pace for the foreseeable future. Every kW that does not need to sit at a charging park is a structural advantage. And even the biggest future batteries need to be charged at some point, so the grid question does not disappear with battery progress, it just shifts.
2. The argument for Flash Charging or even higher-power charging reinforces the case for swapping, because it makes the grid problem more acute, not less. The higher the peak power, the harder the grid constraint.
3. Decoupling charging time and location from vehicle operation is economically superior regardless of charging speed. Charge when electricity is cheap, operate when the battery is full.
4. Battery life. Moderate charging power in the station buffer extends battery lifetime compared to repeated high-power charging.
5. A stationary truck does not make money. The 5-minute standstill is operationally superior even today, and this effect will only grow. Autonomous driving will eliminate driver rest periods as a natural charging window, at which point any extended cable charging session becomes pure opportunity cost. A swap station keeps the truck earning.
6. Every swap truck is also a charging truck. Our stations support dual mode. The infrastructure does not become obsolete, the two approaches complement each other.
Battery swapping is therefore not a bridge, but a structurally complementary pillar of the charging infrastructure for electric heavy-duty transport.
Where is EHAUL today, and when will stations be available commercially?
We are currently developing the second-generation battery swap station. The groundwork was laid in the eHaul research project at TU Berlin, where a prototype station was operated for two years in 2024 and 2025. The prototype validated the core technology in daily operations. Building on these learnings, the second generation is being designed around the DINSPEC 91533 interface (swap from below) and developed for commercial deployment.
First commercial deployment: we have partners in place to build the first two stations in Germany, operating a fleet of 40 trucks from a European OEM. The launch is expected for Q4 2027. This fleet demonstration serves as the validation step before broader rollout.
Operators, infrastructure partners, and fleet customers interested in early deployment beyond the initial stations are welcome to get in touch.
EHAUL is the official spin-off of the BMWE-funded research projects eHaul (launched November 2020 at TU Berlin) and UniSwapHD. Within the eHaul project, Europe’s first fully automated battery swap station for heavy-duty electric trucks was developed and has been in daily operation since November 2023, supporting two years of continuous practical testing. The UniSwapHD project concluded the standardization work with DINSPEC 91533, with the final event held on 13 March 2026.
CEO and Co-founder Jens Jeratsch led both research projects at TU Berlin and drove the development of DINSPEC 91533, the first European standard for battery swapping in heavy-duty commercial vehicles.
