Route Analysis

Charging vs swapping: decide by duty cycle, not by camp

Europe’s truck industry is splitting into two alliances — megawatt charging (Milence: Daimler, Traton, Volvo) and battery swapping (CATL’s Qiji ecosystem, with the Swaptopus UK venture as its Western template). Both claim victory. The honest answer: it depends on your duty cycle, and the deciding variable is utilisation.

The framework

Duty cycle	Typical profile	Winner today	Why
Depot-based single shift	Regional distribution, <300 km/day, overnight parking	Depot charging	Cheapest energy (depot vs public fast charging can differ 3–4×), no infrastructure dependency. This is where ~30% of 2025’s EU e-truck sales went.
Corridor double shift	Antwerp–Rotterdam class routes, ~150,000 km/yr, two drivers	Swap is competitive	Downtime costs dominate: minutes matter when the truck earns around the clock. Our corridor modelling shows swap edging charging on 8-year TCO at high utilisation.
Port drayage (short-haul)	Terminal shuttles, low daily km, queue time	Usually charging	Swap is not automatically superior here — low utilisation kills swap-station economics. Station utilisation below ~20% loses money; that is the iron rule.
Long-haul international	600+ km/day, cross-border	Public megawatt charging (building out)	AFIR is forcing corridor coverage roughly every 100 km; MCS hardware is arriving. Swap networks are years from comparable European coverage.

The two camps, fairly stated

Charging (Milence alliance). Four hubs in Belgium already, EU co-funding of over €111M, and the Antwerp Ketenis hub (20 bays, CCS 400 kW) open to all brands. The case for charging: no battery-standard lock-in, works with every truck on our Evidence Files page, and infrastructure is being built with public money today.

Swapping (CATL Qiji / Swaptopus). CATL built 1,325 swap stations in China in a single year and targets 900 Qiji stations by end-2026; the 50:50 CATL–Octopus venture plans UK super-hubs from 2027, doubling as grid-trading assets. The case for swap: three-to-five-minute turnaround, battery-as-a-service pricing that cuts the sticker shock, and grid-revenue upside for station operators. The case against: standard control. Milence and the European OEMs oppose the CATL standard on openness and IP grounds — a fleet that buys in is betting on one supplier’s network.

Our editorial position

We take neither camp. We publish the utilisation maths: below the threshold, swap economics fail regardless of technology promises; above it, swap can beat charging on corridor duty. When a swap station or an MCS hub opens on your route, we will measure it — and report what we find.

Questions to ask any swap provider before signing

Who owns the batteries and what is the per-km service price? What happens to my contract if the station network stalls? Which other truck brands can use the same station? What is the battery residual and degradation guarantee (in writing, SoH-defined)? What grid revenues offset my fees?

The evidence library

Sixteen deep case studies — ten Chinese regions (Yantian port, the 1,250 km Hurong corridor, Tangshan, Ordos and more), the UK Swaptopus venture, and five European/American markets — in our Case Studies library.

Sources include our corridor TCO research (2026), CATL/Octopus venture announcements (2026-06), Milence public filings and ACEA/ICCT market data. This page is not sponsored by any infrastructure provider.