Is the charging infrastructure broken or just built for another era?

By Sebastian Mutsson / Advisor & Cloud, Elonroad / 3 Mar. 2026 / Somewhere in Skåne, South Sweden where energy prices are unreasonably high / - .. -/

Many of us have felt that our current charging infrastructure is inadequate. Charging apps that malfunction, unclear payment flows, chargers that are occupied, out of service or simply fail to deliver the expected power.

But if we lift our gaze and examine the electrification of transport from a systems perspective, the picture becomes more nuanced. What is incomplete is rarely the idea of charging itself, but rather how we have built the energy system, the interfaces, and the behavioral logic around electric vehicle charging. We must not forget that the energy grid and its systems were designed and expanded at a time when our primary transport needs were different.

In commercial operations, this becomes even more evident: charging should not be a time-consuming task. It needs to be a state: something that happens in the background, automatically, securely, and contextually.

At Elonroad, our direction is simple: When humanity moves smarter.

1. The transition is happening – but the friction is shifting
The electrification of transport is one of the largest industrial transformations of our time. For private individuals, it is visible on roads, at car dealerships, and on many driveways. Globally, the electric vehicle market continues to grow rapidly, and public charging points are being deployed at scale.

But for companies, cities, and industries, electrification is not primarily a vehicle issue. It is an operational and systems issue:

• Public transportation requires high availability and predictable charging windows.

• Logistics and terminals require maximum uptime and minimal risk in the workplace.

• Heavy road transport requires power, standards, and an energy model that does not turn routes into charging schedules.

Yet this is often where the debate stops. We discuss chargers; but what we truly need is energy in motion.

2. What’s insufficient is often the electricity, not the charger
When we say that the charging infrastructure is inadequate, we often refer to the private user experience: queues, payment, availability. That is real and important. But at a system level, it is equally relevant to discuss topics like:

• Electricity production and energy transition: Electrification is a powerful tool, but its climate benefit depends on the energy mix and how intelligently we use electricity over time.

• Grid capacity and peak loads: When many vehicles charge simultaneously, peaks arise that drive costs, create bottlenecks, and slow expansion; particularly in depots, terminal areas, and industrial environments.

• Time logic: We have built charging as an activity; “now it is time to charge.” But in commercial operations, time is the most critical resource.

These insights are central in analyses of heavy vehicle depot charging. Electrification is often technically possible, but connection capacity, local grid limitations, and planning become the constraining factors.

3. The outdated interface
To a large extent, we have built EV charging as a copy of the gasoline logic. It’s understandable, since our behaviors and cities were shaped during a century when fuel stations were the norm. But it is also a limitation, and in industrial flows, sometimes directly counterproductive.

In the public charging network, we therefore see two parallel tracks:

- Standardization and simplification of payment and interoperability (to reduce friction). The EU’s AFIR regulation, for example, pushes for “charging operators to enable electronic payment and clearer access”. The next generation of charging, where charging is not a standalone activity but part of the mobility system.

- The second track becomes decisive when we combine electrification with the next wave of innovation: autonomy, IoT, and automation.

4. The top three trends in heavy vehicle charging
For heavy vehicles, development is moving quickly, but the solution is rarely more chargers. I see three trends that stand out:

A) Megawatt charging (MCS) to match heavy cycles
The Megawatt Charging System (MCS) is being developed to charge heavy vehicles faster at power levels that make electrification practical for more routes and longer missions. CharIN describes how MCS may become relevant for other industries, such as maritime and, eventually, aviation-related sectors.

B) Depot dominance - but the grid becomes the bottleneck
Depot charging is often the foundation for electric trucks and fleets. At the same time, depots require smart load management and improved energy planning, since charging peaks drive both costs and expansion requirements.

C) Data becomes as important as hardware
When electric vehicles become part of the energy system, it is not enough to simply “install power.” You need to know how, where, and when charging loads occur, and how they can be controlled.

This is precisely the type of systems issue addressed by VGI (Vehicle-Grid Integration): smart control, standards, cybersecurity, and integration between vehicles, charging, and the power grid.

5. Elonroad’s perspective: Bring the energy to the vehicle

• Ports and logistics terminals (24/7 flows, costly downtime, limited space)

• Public transport hubs and depots (predictable cycles and need for robust operations)

• Industrial and utility areas (slow-moving vehicles, repetitive routes, predefined stops)

At Elonroad, we often describe how strategically integrated charging rails can enable efficient energy management, and how our system can help optimize energy use and reduce the need for large batteries.

In logistics and distribution, one often underestimated factor is reducing peak loads. This can mean smaller transformer requirements and more cost-efficient power contracts, while also improving safety by eliminating trip and collision risks associated with traditional cable handling. For slow-moving vehicles, rails are placed where they spend the most time. Positioning can be based on vehicle movement data to maximize uptime.

7. The IoT era: charging as context, not as a ritual
When we talk about IoT and automation, it ultimately means the world is becoming more context aware. Even if we are not fully there yet, we are moving in that direction:

• The vehicle knows where it is and what it is doing.

• The infrastructure knows what resources are available and what is happening.

• The energy system knows when electricity is expensive, cheap, scarce, or abundant.

In such a world, the logic of charging naturally becomes:

• Charge when it is smart, not only when the battery is low.

• Charge where the flow exists, not only where the charger happens to be installed.

• Charge a little and often, instead of rarely and a lot.

Here we see a clear risk in getting stuck in what I would call first-generation electrification: if we build the entire system around charging parks with manual stops, we risk cementing an infrastructure that is expensive to scale and difficult to harmonize with autonomy and automated logistics.

8. Charging without data is only half the solution
Electrification on an industrial scale is not merely a hardware issue. It is a systems issue where energy, operations, and economics are interconnected.

At Elonroad, we describe our digital platform as a system layer that combines road data from sensors with a cloud-based architecture and an application supporting access, vehicle, and charging management.

The digital solution is important for two reasons:

• Operational control: To see, understand, and manage charging as part of operations and not as a separate event.
  

• Scalability and integration: A decoupled, cloud-based system architecture is not a trend; it is a fundamental requirement to enable integration with fleet management systems, energy systems, partner solutions, and customers’ own data and IT environments.

When data becomes part of the charging system, we can build more proactive capabilities, such as predictive maintenance logic, emissions data tracking, and decisions based on real context rather than assumptions.

9. Is the charging infrastructure broken?
If we mean: “Is every charging session simple, seamless, and reliable for everyone?” - then the answer is: not yet.

But if we mean: “Is the direction wrong?”
- then the answer is rather: the direction is right, but the model needs to evolve.

We are in the middle of a transition from an era where energy is collected at a point - to an era where energy is delivered as a service within the system.

For passenger cars, public charging networks are often sufficient. But for industrial mobility and heavy logistics, an additional layer is needed:

• Automation (charging without manual steps)

• System optimization (reduced peak loads, improved energy economics)

• Integrated infrastructure (charging where the flow exists)

• Digital control (real context, integration, cybersecurity)

This is where we believe electrification can take a major step, from infrastructure that merely enables, to infrastructure that accelerates.

10. The next step: build the future of charging in real flows
The futuristic aspect of dynamic and automated charging is not that it is science fiction. The futuristic aspect is that we dare to rethink charging as an interruption.

We already see where it begins: in ports, terminals, depots, and dedicated areas where the impact is directly measurable in uptime, safety, and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).

And we see how standards and ecosystems are moving toward higher power, better interoperability, and smarter energy integration; from MCS development to VGI programs and data-driven planning.

So the question is not whether charging works. The question is: does our charging model work in the world we are moving toward?

At Elonroad, we want to help build that world; a new network for efficient charging and mobility, where people and goods move smarter, and where energy is integrated, automated, and data-driven.