Electric heavy-truck fast-charging stations in France, Digi Mart USA News: In the coming years, truck drivers operating electric trucks will no longer have to search at random for a charger at highway rest areas. A new network of fast-charging stations for electric heavy trucks is beginning to take shape along France’s major freight transport routes.
At the center of this effort, ABB E-mobility and Oreve are strengthening a long-standing partnership to deploy high-power charging stations designed first for trucks but still accessible to cars.
These future charging areas are meant to fit into the growing electrification of road freight and the national plan to deploy charging points, with 2035 as the target. Oreve is taking a new step in its charging strategy by placing greater focus on heavy trucks and French freight corridors.
Together with ABB E-mobility, the operator already runs six sites installed three years ago on major routes, including Bourg-de-Péage on the Valence–Grenoble axis, Vénissieux in the Lyon logistics hub, and Pardies in the southwest.
The next phase is expected to add twelve new sites and expand some existing stations, reaching roughly one hundred charging points specifically adapted to the needs of heavy trucks. Once all twelve sites are deployed by the end of 2028, the Oreve network will represent about 18 MW of installed power, fully equipped with ABB high-power chargers.
The technical foundation rests on a unified architecture built around the A400 all-in-one chargers and the modular M-Series platform.
The new sites will start with A400 units, which can dynamically share 400 kW between two charging points. This allows the stations to match the operational stops of trucks while leaving room for expansion as traffic grows.
Starting in early 2027, these stations will be supplemented by the M-Series, a modular system that can upgrade a site from 400 kW to a total power of 1.2 MW. Its power cabinets can supply up to 24 chargers from the same electrical infrastructure, without rebuilding everything at each capacity increase.
The M-Series supports both the current CCS standard and the Megawatt Charging System (MCS), with a first MCS installation planned for 2027 to reach power levels above 800 kW, suited to very fast charging. Key figures include: A400 chargers, with 400 kW dynamically shared across two charging points; M-Series, expandable to 1.2 MW and 24 charging points per site; and liquid-cooled cables, rated up to 600 A on the A400 and 800 A on M-Series OM dispensers.
On both the A400 and the M-Series OM dispensers, the cables are liquid-cooled. They can carry high currents for longer periods, up to 600 A for the A400 and 800 A for the OM units, while remaining lighter and easier for drivers to handle.
This detail matters because heavy-truck charging sessions are long and energy-intensive, and equipment must be manageable on a daily basis.
In the background, the national plan for electrifying the road network foresees nearly 8,000 truck charging points at about 560 rest and service areas by 2035, with roughly 1.6 GW of dedicated power concentrated along the main freight routes. The Oreve stations equipped by ABB will therefore become part of this future network, serving as pilot hubs in areas already strategic for freight transport.
They complement depot charging, which is expected to account for a majority of the energy consumed by fleets, often estimated at around 70 to 80%.
For long-haul operations, delays, detours or exceptional missions, public charging points remain essential. Studies cited by Enedis point to a need, by 2035, of about 10,000 charging points for long breaks, complemented by roughly 2,200 fast-charging points for heavy trucks on the road, of which these new sites represent a first visible step on the ground.
