Bootcamp Training

The Electric Depot Bootcamp is a 10-part educational series on factors needed to successfully scale electric trucks in fleet operations — hosted by the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) and RMI — for fleet managers, utility planners, policymakers, and more. Run on Less – Electric DEPOT (RoL-E DEPOT) this September is focused on fleet depots with 15 or more electric trucks. The Electric Depot Bootcamp is designed to help the entire electric truck ecosystem understand what it takes to move to wider deployment of EVs and is designed to: 

• Increase industry awareness of the various entities that need to work together to overcome the challenges of widespread EV deployment
• Provide professional development opportunities to decision-makers at all stages of their electrification journey
• Synthesize quick takeaways and recommendations from NACFE and RMI’s electric truck work to date
• Convene fleets, truck makers, utilities, regulators, NGOs, charging manufacturers, to discuss best practices for scaling EVs at fleet depots.

The Electric Depot Bootcamp will be conducted via virtual trainings held biweekly from April through September 2023 leading up to RoL-E DEPOT. The Bootcamp is free to attendees thanks to the generous support of RoL-E DEPOT sponsors. Each training will be recorded and available for viewing via the links below after each session is completed.

Attendees can demonstrate comprehension of the material — via optional online quizzes following each training — and have the opportunity to earn digital badges that recognize their expertise and which can be shared via attendees’ social networks. Badges are available for those who complete one, five, or 10 trainings via runonless.com. Participation in the quizzes and badging system is not required for participation in the Bootcamp trainings. For questions related to the Electric Depot Bootcamp, see our FAQs. For any additional Bootcamp questions, please contact Rachel Ellenberger.

Speakers will share the best practices for the emerging necessary relationships between electric utilities and trucking fleets. What is working now in the early stages and what are ideal long- term future relationships.

Infrastructure and truck costs are increasing rather than decreasing putting even more focus on available grants and incentives to help early adopter fleets make the financial case for investing in electric trucks.

Truck OEMs and their component suppliers continue to mature the performance, cost, reliability, durability and specification availability of their trucks. Experts will share future enhancements and anticipated timing.

Most commercial vehicle charging in 2023 is limited to 150, maybe up to 350 kW, but faster charging is coming. Experts will discuss the opportunities and challenges of moving to much faster charging speeds to help in vehicle utilization.

Vehicle range is currently —and will always be — a concern of electric trucks given the cost, size and weight of batteries. Cold weather, heavy loads, and more challenging topography require more battery capacity. Experts will offer options such as en route, extreme fast and wireless charging as well as other strategies to get more miles out of these trucks.

Planning for resiliency is just part of trucking. Given existing power demands and grid capacity challenges many electric truck depots are considering microgrids. Renewable energy generation, battery backups even onsite electric generator sets are all options to improve resiliency.

Local, state and federal regulations are in the press all the time. Experts will help clarify the various laws and regulations to help fleets, manufacturers and others understand how they affect their business in various regions.

As higher numbers of electric vehicles are deployed at each site, the need to manage the charging becomes even greater. Leaders will share the current and future state of using software to more effectively manage charging events.

Experts will share thoughts on scaling charging equipment from a few to a dozen of chargers and ultimately to 100% of a site’s needs.

Lessons learned for depot site planning for different phases of electric vehicle deployment as well as how to best manage the construction phase will be discussed. Special focus will be on construction while concurrently continuing all logistics operations.