Insight 06 · EV charging
The depot is the new fuel station.
A diesel fleet refuels in five minutes anywhere. An electric fleet refuels overnight, in one place, through a supply connection with a limit. That one change turns the depot from a car park into an operation of its own: who charges, when, how much, and whether every vehicle leaves ready. This page is about how charging grew from a cable on the wall to a managed depot, what is moving now, the market in a few figures, how a modern depot is run, and what that returns.
Every step moved charging from the wall to the plan.
First a vehicle charged if someone plugged it in. Then the chargers reported, then the supply connection became the limit, then charging followed a schedule. The question each time was the same: will every vehicle leave with the energy its route needs?
Early electric vans and the first wallboxes; charging as plugging in.
A vehicle charged if someone remembered to plug it in.
Public chargers; an open protocol between charger and back office (OCPP, first widely used in its 1.5 and 1.6 versions).
Chargers from different makers reported to one system; sessions became records.
DC fast charging; the first electric delivery fleets; depots with a dozen chargers.
The depot’s supply connection became the limit; load management appeared.
OCPP 2.0.1 with security profiles and certificates; smart charging profiles.
Chargers authenticated; charging shaped by a schedule, not just started and stopped.
Mandated charging infrastructure along major road networks in Europe (from April 2024); megawatt charging for trucks; electric trucks in volume; readiness planning per vehicle and departure.
The depot is run against departures and the supply limit; the charger is the fleet’s fuel pump, and it reports.
The supply limit is the plan.
A depot with thirty chargers and a 400 kW connection cannot charge everything at once; the night is shared out by departure time and need.
Readiness, not just charging.
The question at 6 a.m. is whether each van has the energy for its route, which is a per-vehicle target, not a depot-wide average.
Trucks arrive.
More than 90 000 electric trucks were sold in 2024, about 80 % more than in 2023 and more than 10 000 of them in Europe; their battery packs are roughly ten times a car’s (IEA, Global EV Outlook 2025), and megawatt charging is reaching them.
IEA · Global EV Outlook 2025Public corridors by law.
In Europe, 15 % of the core road network needed 1 400 kW stations by the end of 2025, with 350 kW pools every 60 km by 2030, under Regulation (EU) 2023/1804, which applies from 13 April 2024.
European Parliament · Legislative Observatory · AFIRChargers report, in the open.
A charger’s status, errors, meter values and sessions arrive over a standard protocol; a depot can be read without the charger vendor’s portal.
public charging points worldwide at the end of 2024.
IEA · Global EV Outlook 2025 · chargingas many as at the end of 2022.
IEA · same reportpublic charging points added in 2024.
IEA · same reportmore points added in 2024 than in 2023.
IEA · same reportof the public points are fast chargers.
IEA · same reportstations on 15 % of the core road network (TEN-T) by the end of 2025.
European Parliament · Legislative Observatory · AFIREvery van leaves ready.
Readiness is computed per vehicle against its departure, and a shortfall is known the evening before.
The connection isn’t exceeded.
Limits shared out by need keep the depot under its supply limit and its demand charge.
Failures seen.
A charger that fails more than its siblings, or ignores the limits it accepts, is a fact with a count.
One record of sessions.
Across charger makes, in one place, with the vehicle named.
Solar used.
Charging shifted into the hours the roof produces, where there is a roof.
Fewer surprises on the bill.
The peak is watched as it forms, not discovered on the invoice.
These are the mechanisms; the size of each depends on the depot, its connection and its tariff. We don’t publish savings figures.
- 01
The chargers on one back office
The chargers you have, connected to one system: sessions, nothing controlled.
- 02
The site meter
Load against the supply limit, read beside the chargers.
- 03
Departures and targets
Per vehicle, which turns the list into a readiness board.
- 04
The night’s plan
Confirmed by a person each evening until it has earned trust.
Which radio and which device, for each step: the decision table →
Where we come in
Forty minutes, free, about your depot.
You leave with the five questions answered for one site and our view, in writing, on whether an assessment is worth doing. If you ask, you see the platform running; if you don’t, you won’t. Chirp Technologies advises fleets on this — which chargers speak the open protocol properly, how to size the supply, how to run the night against departures — and built HOLOIN, which runs on your own servers, for fleets that want their depot, their vehicles and their chargers in one place.