Category: News

Road to ETX · Part 5 of 5

Four weeks, four gaps between capable systems: the last ten metres, the open paperwork, the integration a site inherits and the travelling cost of a stop. Part 5 of 5 turns them into five practical questions for the ETX show floor.

By Secu-Tech

Over four weeks, the Road to ETX series has followed the moments in fuel delivery where capable systems stop behaving like one process.

The gaps were not dramatic technology failures. They were ordinary handovers:

• the final metres between a digitally planned route and the physical delivery;
• the difference between the end of product movement and the end of the commercial transaction;
• integration decisions taken upstream and inherited by the site receiving the delivery;
• one interruption creating work across dispatch, service and customer communication.

Each gap points to the same underlying question: does the operational context remain connected as the job moves between people, devices and systems?

ETX opens in Kassel on Thursday 17 September. For fleet operators, vehicle builders, integrators, site and forecourt operators and service organisations, the show is an opportunity to compare answers. These five questions make a useful starting point.

1. Does the delivery remain one event from order to proof?

Ask where the event identity begins and where it is lost.

Can order, vehicle, product, measured quantity, delivery record and customer acknowledgement be associated without manual reconstruction? If an exception occurs, does the later record explain the context or merely show that something stopped?

The aim is not one database for everything. It is one recognisable operational event across the systems that need it.

2. Which part of the driver’s time is skilled work, and which part is system translation?

Safe loading and delivery take time. That work should not be confused with waiting for information, copying values or explaining the same event to several functions.

Ask the supplier to follow a complete shift, not just demonstrate an ideal screen. Where does the driver become the integration layer between systems?

3. Was integration decided before anyone had to live with it?

Protocols, wiring, mounting, power, field devices, regulatory boundaries and documentation should not meet for the first time on a production line, and a site should not discover the consequences one delivery at a time.

Ask which functions are common, which are application-specific, which interfaces are documented and how the system can be extended without replacing its foundation.

4. Does an exception carry enough context for the next decision?

A driver, dispatcher and service technician need different views of the same event.

Ask what remains available locally, what can be shared remotely, how the safe state is defined and whether each role can understand the situation without beginning with another phone call.

5. Can the system fit today without closing tomorrow?

The right configuration is not automatically the largest. Fleets need a platform that fits the current vehicle and process while leaving a realistic path for later functions, interfaces and regulatory work.

Ask what can be replaced or extended, which changes require certification work and which promises are supported by the current product rather than a future roadmap.

See the answer in Kassel

Secu-Tech will present XPULSE live at ETX from 17 to 19 September 2026. The 30-minute XPULSE sessions are designed for practical discussion, with time for vehicle, metering, integration and retrofit questions.

ETX 2026
Messe Kassel, Hall 5, Stand H5-B05
Thursday and Friday: 09:00–17:00
Saturday: 09:00–16:00

The number of 30-minute XPULSE sessions is limited. Visitors with a specific project are encouraged to reserve a time before travelling.

Visitors who cannot reach Kassel can follow the public introduction online from 15 September and request a technical conversation after the show. The first priority in Kassel, however, is to put the questions beside the real platform and discuss the installed environment in concrete terms.

Bring one vehicle architecture, one current interface problem or one retrofit constraint. A focused discussion around a real boundary is more useful than a general tour of features, and it gives both sides a clear next question after the show.

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About Secu-Tech: Secu-Tech has developed electronic systems for the safe handling, monitoring and documentation of liquids and gases in Leobersdorf, Austria, for more than twenty years.

Road to ETX · Part 3 of 5

By the time a delivery reaches a forecourt or depot, the decisions that determine how well it can be checked, matched and closed were taken months earlier, somewhere else. Part 3 of 5 asks what late integration costs the site at the receiving end.

By Secu-Tech

A tanker arrives at a site. Product moves into the tank. A ticket is produced. A gauge reading changes. Somewhere in a back-office system, a delivery is expected against an order.

Four systems have now described the same event, and none of them was chosen with the others in mind.

The tank gauge was specified when the site was built or last refurbished. The wet stock and back-office systems arrived with the retail group’s IT programme. The metering equipment on the vehicle belongs to the supplier, not to the site. Each was a sensible decision on its own day, made by a different person answering a different question.

The site was not at any of those meetings. It simply inherits the result, one delivery at a time.

The receiving end has no seat at the design table

Most integration discussion in this industry happens upstream. A vehicle builder decides what talks to what while a tanker is on the line. An equipment supplier decides which interfaces to document. A software vendor decides which formats to export.

The site is downstream of all of it, and its leverage looks small at the moment the hose is connected. But the site is where the consequences are counted, because it is one of the places where the physical delivery and the commercial record have to agree.

When the systems around a delivery were never intended to be combined, the site absorbs the difference. Someone reads a value from one screen and types it into another. Someone photographs a ticket because there is no other way to attach it to the right record. Someone calls the supplier because a number does not match and there is no shared view to look at together.

The site becomes the integration layer, in the same way the driver does on the road. It works, because people make it work. It also hides what weak integration actually costs.

Variance is where the cost surfaces

The clearest example is the difference between what was delivered and what the site believes it received.

A variance can have several ordinary causes: measurement conditions, temperature, timing between a gauge reading and a delivery, an entry made against the wrong tank, or a genuine discrepancy that deserves attention. Distinguishing between them is routine work when the underlying records share enough context, and an investigation when they do not.

The problem is rarely that the number is unknown. It is that the number exists in several places with no reliable way to connect them to the same event. Weeks later, the question is decided by whoever has kept the best notes rather than by the evidence.

That is not a metering problem or a software problem. It is an integration problem, and it was created before anyone at the site was involved.

Retrofit is where it is felt again

Sites change. A new tank goes in, a monitoring requirement appears, a group standardises on a different back-office platform, an operator wants delivery confirmation to reach the system automatically instead of by email.

At that point the question is no longer what the equipment does. It is what the equipment will share, and whether anyone documented it.

Where interfaces are documented and were intended to be combined, this is a project. Where they were not, it becomes a negotiation with the installed base, and an apparently inexpensive original decision can create disproportionate retrofit cost later.

This is also why claims of universal compatibility are unhelpful to a site operator. Nobody needs a supplier who says everything works with everything. What helps is a supplier who can say precisely which interfaces exist, what they carry, and what it would take to connect them here.

Questions worth asking earlier

The site cannot rewrite decisions taken upstream, but it can ask different questions before the next ones are taken, whether it is specifying equipment, agreeing a supply contract or approving a refurbishment:

• Which systems will describe this delivery, and can they be connected to one event?
• Which interfaces are documented and available, rather than theoretically possible?
• When a delivery does not match expectation, what evidence exists without a phone call?
• What can be added in three years without replacing what is installed now?
• Who is accountable for the gap between the vehicle’s record and the site’s record?

None of these questions is about a device. All of them decide how much routine friction a site lives with for the next decade.

The most useful integration question at the receiving end is therefore not whether the systems are modern. It is whether the delivery arrives as information the site can actually use, or only as product plus paper.

Secu-Tech will show its answer at ETX in Kassel from 17 to 19 September 2026.

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About Secu-Tech: Secu-Tech has developed electronic systems for the safe handling, monitoring and documentation of liquids and gases in Leobersdorf, Austria, for more than twenty years.

Road to ETX · Part 4 of 5

A vehicle that stops for thirty minutes can create far more than thirty minutes of work. Part 4 of 5 follows one interrupted delivery through dispatch, service and customer communication, and asks what it would take for an exception to carry its own context.

By Secu-Tech

Early one morning, a loaded vehicle arrives at a customer but cannot begin the delivery.

Within ten minutes, the driver calls dispatch. Within twenty minutes, the next delivery window is already at risk. Service joins the conversation. Customer support prepares an explanation. A second vehicle may need to be rerouted.

The original interruption still sits at one vehicle, but its cost has started to travel.

This is the organisational ripple of an unexplained stop. It moves from the driver to the people who replan, diagnose and communicate. Each function spends time on the same event from a different position, often with different information.

The vehicle may be stationary. The business is not.

A stop is a chain of decisions

Every interruption requires decisions:

• Can the delivery continue safely?
• Is the cause local, procedural or technical?
• Can service resolve it remotely?
• Does the customer need a new delivery window?
• Which later stops must be moved?
• Does the event indicate a recurring issue?

Those decisions become slower when the context is trapped in the vehicle or distributed across several systems.

A raw code alone is rarely enough. Dispatch needs operational impact. Service needs device and state information. The driver needs a clear next action. Customer support needs a reliable time expectation. Management may later need to know whether the event was isolated or part of a pattern.

The same exception therefore has several legitimate views. The answer is not to display every technical detail to everyone. It is to preserve a common event and provide the relevant context to each role.

Context should travel with the exception

An interruption is easier to handle when it answers basic questions immediately:

• What process was active?
• What changed?
• Which conditions were present?
• What safe state was reached?
• What action has already been taken?
• Who needs the information next?

This does not require the vehicle to depend on permanent cloud connectivity. The local system must remain able to operate and move to a defined safe state. Connectivity should carry the event and its context when available, support controlled diagnostics and prevent every person from beginning the investigation at zero.

Clear local operation and useful remote context are complementary, not competing, requirements.

Diagnose the ripple, not only the device

Service data is often evaluated through the device: fault frequency, component state and repair. Operations experience the same event through the route: delay, replanning, customer impact and follow-up work.

Bringing these views together changes the improvement question.

Instead of asking only why the device stopped, the organisation can ask:

• Why did the event require three phone calls?
• Which information was missing from the first call?
• Could dispatch distinguish a short interruption from a cancelled delivery?
• Could service see the relevant state without asking the driver to describe it?
• Was the completed event recorded well enough for later analysis?

The objective is not to promise that systems never stop. Industrial equipment, field devices and human processes all encounter exceptions. A more credible objective is to make the exception understandable, locally safe and operationally containable.

When context travels with the event, the cost is less likely to continue moving through the organisation long after the original interruption.

The same principle improves later learning. A consistently recorded event can be reviewed across operations and service without turning a single driver’s recollection into the only reliable source. Patterns can be discussed with evidence, while isolated incidents remain identifiable as isolated incidents. That is a more useful starting point for maintenance and process improvement than a list of unexplained stops.

Secu-Tech will show its answer at ETX in Kassel from 17 to 19 September 2026.

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About Secu-Tech: Secu-Tech has developed electronic systems for the safe handling, monitoring and documentation of liquids and gases in Leobersdorf, Austria, for more than twenty years.

Road to ETX · Part 2 of 5

The product is in the tank and the truck is on its way. Commercially, the delivery may only have begun. Part 2 of 5 asks why a delivery can end in minutes at the customer and remain open for weeks in the office.

By Secu-Tech

One afternoon, the physical work is complete. The hose has been disconnected, the delivery ticket has been produced and the tanker is moving to the next stop.

Weeks later, the same delivery is open again.

A quantity has been queried. The customer has a photographed ticket. The office has a record from the order system. The measured value sits in another source. Someone asks the driver what happened, but the route now contains dozens of later stops and the details are no longer fresh.

Nothing about this situation is dramatic in isolation. It is a familiar email thread, a short call, a copied attachment and perhaps a credit note. Yet it shows a fundamental divide between the physical delivery and the commercial transaction.

The physical event ends when the product has moved safely. The commercial event ends only when order, measured quantity, delivery record, customer acknowledgement and invoice agree.

Four records are not the same as one event

Many processes create several records around one delivery. That is not automatically a problem. Different systems have different legal, technical and business responsibilities.

The problem begins when the records have to be reconstructed manually because they do not share a clear event identity or enough common context.

A ticket may show the quantity. The planning system knows the order. The vehicle knows the compartment and product. The customer has a signature or a query. If these pieces cannot be brought together quickly, a straightforward question becomes an investigation.

Late questions are especially expensive because context decays. The people who were present move on. The vehicle continues its route. A temporary exception may not be visible in the final document. The longer a transaction remains open, the more work is required to rebuild what was obvious at the delivery point.

This is not simply a paperwork problem. It is a process-design problem.

The record should begin when the event happens

A better model starts with one operational event that produces consistent information for the systems around it. That does not mean forcing every system into one database. It means ensuring that the delivery can be recognised as the same event across metering, vehicle, customer proof and office processing.

The distinction matters. A large central system can still receive incomplete or ambiguous data. A modest local system can create valuable continuity if the event is captured clearly, linked to the right context and passed onward through defined interfaces.

Traceability also requires restraint in language. No industrial event record should be called legally immutable or “court-proof” without specific technical and legal validation. The practical target is clearer: relevant process, status, operator and diagnostic information should be available for reconstructing what happened.

For the driver, this reduces the need to explain old stops from memory. For the office, it reduces the time spent matching documents. For the customer, it shortens the path from question to answer.

Closing the business event

The most useful performance question may therefore not be how quickly the hose is disconnected. It may be how quickly the delivery becomes a closed, consistent business event.

Ask:

• Can the order, vehicle, product, quantity and proof be associated without manual detective work?
• Is an exception recorded with enough context to be understood later?
• Can the office see the same event that the driver completed?
• Does a customer query begin with shared facts or with four competing documents?

The delivery should not have two endings: one at the customer and another weeks later in administration.

Secu-Tech will show its answer at ETX in Kassel from 17 to 19 September 2026.

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About Secu-Tech: Secu-Tech has developed electronic systems for the safe handling, monitoring and documentation of liquids and gases in Leobersdorf, Austria, for more than twenty years.

Road to ETX · Part 1 of 5

Fuel logistics has digitalised its planning, routing and billing. Then the truck arrives, and the most important ten metres of the supply chain can still depend on paper, memory and phone calls. Part 1 of 5 on the gaps between capable systems, and what closing them would change.

By Secu-Tech

A dispatcher watches a tanker move across a map. The route is planned, the vehicle is on time and the customer is expecting the delivery. Data has already passed through an order system, a planning tool and the vehicle’s telematics.

Then the dot stops at the delivery point.

From the office, the last ten metres can become strangely quiet. The hose is connected. Access to the tank is checked. Product moves. A measured quantity is produced. A ticket is issued and a signature is collected. These are the moments in which product, customer and proof finally meet, but they are also the moments most likely to disappear between systems.

The journey to the customer may be visible almost minute by minute. The delivery itself can still rely on a person reading one screen, entering a number into another device, explaining an exception by phone and carrying a paper record back into the billing process.

Each individual step may work. The meter measures. The vehicle system controls. The driver knows the procedure. The office software creates the order and invoice. The problem is not necessarily a weak component. It is the handover between capable components.

The gap is small at one stop and large across a network

At a single delivery, copying a value or making one clarification call may not look significant. Repeated across every stop, route and working week, these small breaks become an operating model.

They consume driver time, but the cost does not remain with the driver. Dispatch waits for an answer. Customer service explains a delay. Administration reconciles a ticket. Service personnel try to understand whether an interruption was caused by process, equipment or missing information.

Significant operational losses can accumulate in these ordinary transitions. They are difficult to see because no single system records the whole cost.

This is why “more data” is not a sufficient answer. A vehicle may produce large amounts of data and still leave the decisive delivery context fragmented. What matters is whether order, vehicle, product, metering event and proof remain connected as one operational sequence.

Continuity has to reach the delivery point

A connected process does not mean that every function must depend on a permanent network connection. Local operation remains essential on a vehicle. Connectivity should preserve context, support synchronisation and make the right information available to the people who need it without making the physical delivery dependent on ideal reception.

It also does not mean replacing every working component. Many fleets operate mixed vehicle generations and supported equipment from different suppliers. Continuity has to begin with the installed environment, not with the assumption of a completely new fleet.

The useful question is therefore not “How digital is our logistics chain?” It is more specific:

Does the delivery remain one process from the order to the proof, or does it dissolve into disconnected moments in the last ten metres?

That question affects fleet operators, vehicle builders, system integrators and forecourt operators alike. Each sees a different part of the handover. None can solve it alone if the systems around the delivery were never intended to share enough context.

Over the coming weeks, this Road to ETX series will examine four of these operational gaps: the last ten metres, the paperwork that remains after the delivery, the integration decisions taken upstream and inherited by the site receiving the delivery, and the cost that keeps moving when a system stops.

Secu-Tech will show its answer at ETX in Kassel from 17 to 19 September 2026.

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About Secu-Tech: Secu-Tech has developed electronic systems for the safe handling, monitoring and documentation of liquids and gases in Leobersdorf, Austria, for more than twenty years.

Germany’s tanker truck industry is grappling with challenging conditions, but it is also demonstrating its potential through innovative approaches and by pursuing opportunities in the market.

Many tanker-truck manufacturers in Germany are currently reporting difficult operating conditions that are placing considerable pressure on their competitiveness.

Three factors stand out in particular: the challenging economic situation affecting important customer groups, sharply higher costs, and an excessive regulatory burden that, despite political assurances to the contrary, has yet to ease.

Weak Demand

According to industry sources, demand for new tank vehicles is at a low point. One key reason is the difficult market situation among many mid-sized mineral oil distributors. End consumers are highly price-sensitive and, particularly when it comes to heating oil, are postponing orders in the hope that prices will fall again. When that might happen, however, is impossible to predict with certainty. A surge in demand is therefore expected in autumn, as customers seek to fill their tanks for the coming winter.

The mineral oil business, however, performed poorly in the first half of the year. According to the latest figures from the Working Group on Energy Balances (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Energiebilanzen) (), mineral oil sales declined across all segments, in some cases significantly. While gasoline consumption fell by just 0.6 percent, demand for diesel dropped by nearly 6 percent- a decline likely reflecting  the weak performance of the wider economy. Sales of light heating oil fell by more than a third compared with the previous year.

Against this backdrop, many mineral oil companies are postponing orders for new tanker vehicles. It remains to be seen whether demand for new vehicles will pick up again in the autumn, alongside the mineral oil market. Periods of weaker demand are nothing new in this business, but the decline in heating oil demand is particularly pronounced this year — and it’s weighing on sentiment. Compounding the issue, the slowdown in demand in the energy market is accelerating consolidation in the mineral oil sector, meaning that there will simply be fewer companies that might need new tanker vehicles in the future.

Specialized segments,such as vehicles for cryogenic gases or liquefied petroleum gas, are likewise suffering from the weak performance of the wider economy.

Costs and Red Tape

As in other sectors, costs in tanker vehicle manufacturing continue to climb — for materials, components, chassis, labor, and energy. These increases are feeding through into vehicle prices,prompting customers to scrutinise purchasing decisions very closely. The upshot: competitive pressure in vehicle manufacturing is continuing to intensify.

Companies in the sector also report that the bureaucratic burden remains persitently high. Since many requirements originate at the EU level, the impact extends beyond the domestic market to export business as well.

Outlook

Despite these challenges, tanker vehicle manufacturers are looking ahead. They see further growth potential  in the airfield vehicle segment. There also appears to be an initial project underway to develop an electrically powered mineral oil tanker—   more detailed information may become available at the forthcoming ETX in Kassel.

Compared with previous years, some manufacturers are also taking a more optimistic view of their prospects for recruiting skilled new talents amid a shifting labor market.

Views on the export business remain mixed. At the same time, the defense sector is once again gaining relevance for vehicle manufacturers as well — helping to offset, at least to some extent, declines in other areas.

ETX – The Energy Transport Xchange
17.–19. September 2026 | Messe Kassel, Hall 3, 4, 5
www.etx-energylogistic.com

Jetzt Ticket sichern

Amid severe fluctuations in fuel pricestriggered by the Iran war, the transition to alternative drivetrains is gaining serious traction, including for commercial vehicles. But where does the transition actually stand today?

Car registrations point to a clear trend: demand for battery-electric drivetrains is rising. According to the Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt (KBA) in Flensburg for the first half of 2026, the share of newly registered EVs increased by around 48% year-on-year, representing almost a quarter of all new car registrations. Hybrids fared even better, accounting for almost 40% (a +9.8year-on-year increase). Both drivetrain types are benefiting from currently high fuel prices as well as new government subsidies introduced this year, alongside an increasing availability of more affordable EVs on the German market. Therefore, Germany’s new-car registrations are very much in line with the wider European trend.

According to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), , the strong growth in new EVs over the first five months of 2026 was, on a European scale, primarily driven by three countries,: Italy (+75.7%), France (+55.4%) and Germany (+40.9%).

In the long term, however, ongoing operating costs will be among the factors determining how many electric vehicles actually attract buyers. A key factor of this is the cost of charging at public charging stations, as the opportunity to charge at a domestic wallbox – ideally using self-generated solar power – is highly limited, particularly in urban areas. And those traveling longer distances must rely on public charging infrastructure anyway. There, prices vary significantly and depend heavily on the vehicle owner’s contract status. Anyone wishing to charge completely independently at a fast charger can face rates of up to 85 cents per kWh. At this price point, travelling by EV becomes an expensive undertaking – and can end up costing more than driving a conventional diesel or petrol car, even with considering today’s high pump prices.

For commercial vehicles, the market presents a somewhat different picture: 92% of newly registered trucks in Europe were powered by diesel fuel in the first quarter of 2026. In Germany, this applied to 91% of new trucks. This highlights a significant difference between trucks operating over long distances and buses, many of which are used in urban public transport. Of the latter, nearly 35% were newly registered with an alternative drivetrain in the first quarter of 2026 – both on an European scale and within Germany.

Given the high proportion of conventional internal combustion engines among trucks, the widespread deployment of renewable fuels like HVO becomes all the more critical if the transport sector’s climate targets are to be even remotely achieved.

The necessity becomes even more apparent when looking at Europe’s total vehicle fleet: roughly 96% of trucks in the European Union run on diesel, while only 0.3% are electric. This is according to figures from trans.iNFO, one of Europe’s largest online news portals for the transport, freight and logistics industry.

Bottom line: The conflict in Iran and its impact on the oil markets have made logistics more expensive. Diesel prices have still not returned to pre-war levels, and Germany’s newly introduced “12 o’clock rule” pricing regulation for fuel stations hasn’t changed this either. However, the transition away from the internal combustion engine will a lengthy process for commercial vehicles just as much as for cars.

Renewable fuels are therefore indispensable – not least because of the increasing age of the vehicles on the road. In Europe, the average age of a truck stands at around 14 years (almost 10 years in Germany), while passenger cars average almost 13 years (10.9 years in Germany as of 1 January, 2026).

Electric trucks are slowly gaining traction across various sectors. In the mid-sized energy trade, however, they are still the exception.

Large haulage companies have already begun to electrify their truck fleets step by step. The currently high fuel prices could provide an additional incentive for fleet operators to consider switching. Although diesel prices fell by saround 12 percent in May compared to their peak in April of this year, according to the ADAC, the national average is still nearly 30 cents above the level at the beginning of the year..

In addition, substantial subsidies are still available for the purchase of electric trucks – covering up to 80 percent of the additional cost of a battery-powered truck compared to a conventional diesel. Following renewed approval by the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV) was able to extend the directive on the promotion of commercial vehicles with alternative, climate-friendly driving systems and the associated refueling and charging infrastructure (KsNI Directive) through the end of 2026, as reported by NOW, the National Organization for Mobility Transition. What comes after that is not yet known. Electric trucks are also exempt from road tolls, and the charging infrastructure is expanding, although many (potential) users would say nowhere near fast enough.

Even a tanker delivering heating oil or diesel to customers could, in principle, run on an electric drivetrain today, provided the relevant hazardous goods regulations are amended accordingly.

So, the option is there. But what is the situation in practice in the mid-sized energy distributors sector?

As for now, electric trucks remain the exceptionThere are a small number of battery-powered vehicles are known to be used for the delivery of wood pellets, and a handful of electric aircraft refueling tankers have begun appearing at airports.

Why, then, haven’t conventional distribution vehicles, the kind that deliver heating oil to residential customers, adopted electric drive systems?

There appear to be several practical reasons. Despite subsidies, acquisition costs for an electric truck are still higher than those of conventional diesel vehicles, and there’s lingering uncertainty about what used electric commercial vehicles will actually be worth down the line.

Furthermore, we must not overlook the broader situation energy traders are facing right now. Cost pressure is mounting across the board. Route planning could get more complicated with electric trucks . And with the sharp rise in oil prices, customers are holding back back on orders, leading to an extreme slump in heating oil demand. Under such market conditions, competition is particularly fierce and margins shrink.

In this situation, many mid-sized fuel distributors are carefully assessing whether they can or should invest in a new vehicle that costs significantly more than the one it’s replacing.

And there’s one more thing worth considering: if you keep running your existing diesel truck on renewable fuels like HVO, you can still achieve meaningful reductions in CO₂ emissions without the capital outlay of new technology. Even if this option doesn’t receive the political recognition it deserves. In fact, it’s a genuinely open question which drivetrain actually delivers the better overall carbon footprint: one that runs on renewable fuels, or a battery-electric truck drawing power from a grid that still generates close to half its electricity from fossil fuels.

E-Lkw nehmen in verschiedenen Bereichen langsam Fahrt auf. Im mittelständischen Energiehandel sind sie aber noch die Ausnahme.

Es gibt bereits große Speditionen, die ihre Lkw-Flotten Stück für Stück elektrifizieren. Die aktuell hohen Kraftstoffpreise könnten dabei für Fahrzeugbetreiber ein Anlass mehr sein, über einen alternativen Antrieb nachzudenken. Denn obwohl der Dieselpreis im Mai gegenüber den Höchstwerten aus dem April dieses Jahres um rund 12 Prozent gefallen ist, liegt er im bundesdeutschen Durchschnitt nach Angaben des ADAC immer noch knapp 30 Cent über dem Niveau von Anfang dieses Jahres.

Zudem gibt es für die Anschaffung von E-Lkw noch erhebliche Fördermittel – zumindest bis zu 80 Prozent des Mehrpreises eines batteriebetriebenen Lkw gegenüber der klassischen Diesel-Variante. Nach einer erneuten Genehmigung durch die Europäische Kommission konnte die Richtlinie über die Förderung von Nutzfahrzeugen mit alternativen, klimaschonenden Antrieben und dazugehöriger Tank- und Ladeinfrastruktur (KsNI-Richtlinie) des Bundesministeriums für Digitales und Verkehr (BMDV) bis Ende des Jahres 2026 verlängert werden, wie man bei der NOW, der Nationalen Organisation für den Wandel in der Mobilität, nachlesen kann. Wie es weitergeht, ist allerdings noch nicht bekannt. Außerdem sind E-Lkw von der Maut befreit und die Ladeinfrastruktur wächst, wenn auch aus Sicht vieler (potenzieller) Nutzer zu langsam.

Und selbst ein Tankwagen, der beispielsweise Heizöl oder Diesel zum Kunden bringt, könnte nach der entsprechenden Anpassung des Gefahrgutrechtes heute mit einem Elektromotor unterwegs sein.

Die Option ist also da. Aber wie sieht es in der Praxis im mittelständischen Energiehandel aus?

Hier sind E-Lkw bisher die Ausnahme. Bekannt ist eine begrenzte Zahl batteriebetrieber Lkw, die zur Auslieferung von Holzpellets genutzt werden. Erste Flugfeldtankfahrzeuge fahren ebenfalls mit Elektromotoren.

Warum aber haben klassische Verteilerfahrzeuge etwa für die Endkundenbelieferung mit Heizöl noch keinen elektrischen Antrieb an Bord?

Offenbar stehen dem verschiedene ganz praktische Gründe entgegen. Die Anschaffungskosten für einen E-Lkw bleiben trotz Förderung höher als für das klassische Dieselfahrzeug. Überdies bestehen noch immer Unsicherheiten mit Blick auf die Restwerte gebrauchter Stromer.

Zudem darf man die derzeitige Lage der Energiehändler nicht außer Acht lassen. In allen Bereichen steigt der Kostendruck. Auch könnte die Tourenplanung unter Umständen mit dem E-Lkw komplizierter werden. Hinzu kommt: Durch die stark gestiegenen Ölpreise halten sich aktuell die Kunden mit Bestellungen zurück, was zu einem extremen Einbruch der Heizölnachfrage geführt hat. Unter solchen Marktbedingungen ist der Wettbewerb natürlich besonders hart, die Erlöse sinken.

In einer derartigen Situation prüfen viele Mineralölmittelständler sehr genau, ob sie sich jetzt ein neues – und dazu noch kostspieligeres – Fahrzeug leisten können und wollen.

Und schließlich: Wird der bisherige Diesel-Lkw ohne teure Investitionen in neue Technik mit regenerativen Kraftstoffen betrieben – etwa mit HVO – können die CO2-Emissionen ebenfalls erheblich gesenkt werden, auch wenn das politisch nicht in gleichem Maße anerkannt wird. Dabei ist es durchaus strittig, welcher Antrieb die bessere CO2-Gesamtbilanz aufweist: der mit erneuerbaren Kraftstoffen oder der batterieelektrische, dessen Strom hierzulande noch immer zu fast 50 Prozent aus fossiler Energie erzeugt wird.

There are already a number of practical ways to reduce CO₂ emissions in the logistics sector. In this and upcoming newsletters, we explore various sustainable drive energies.

HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil)

Fueling conventional diesel trucks with HVO is arguably one of the simplest and — at least in terms of initial investment — most cost-effective ways to advance climate protection in road transport.

Since 29 May 2024, HVO has been officially approved for sale as a pure fuel (HVO100) at public filling stations in Germany. Since then, the network of stations offering this alternative fuel has been steadily expanding. The legal basis was created by the inclusion of “paraffinic diesel fuel” in the 10th Federal Immission Control Ordinance. At the pump, this “green” diesel is labelled “XTL” — an abbreviation also found on vehicle fuel caps to indicate compatibility with this fuel.

XTL stands for “X-to-Liquid,” signifying that the synthetic paraffinic diesel can be produced from a variety of feedstocks (X), such as biomass or waste oils.

Because HVO is drop-in compatible, it can be blended with conventional diesel fuel to DIN EN 590 in varying proportions. Classified as paraffinic under EN 15940, HVO burns cleaner than its fossil counterpart and, as a pure fuel (HVO100), reduces new CO₂ emissions by up to 90% compared to conventional diesel.

Seamless in operation

For logistics operators, a truck running on HVO performs exactly like any standard diesel vehicle — no compromises. Most modern diesel trucks can be fueled with HVO100 without issue, and technical retrofitting is generally not required, though manufacturer approval is still recommended.

Neste, for example — the world’s leading producer of sustainable fuels — offers Neste MY Renewable Diesel™, a product that meets the specifications of both ASTM D975 and EN 15940 and is, according to the manufacturer, fully compatible with all diesel engines.

HVO is being adopted by a growing number of users — including companies that produce sustainability reports and are actively working to reduce their carbon footprint. Public fleet operators such as municipalities can also meet the requirements of the German Clean Vehicles Procurement Act (SaubFahrzeugBeschG) simply by fueling their fleets with HVO100.

Conclusion

HVO is a sustainable fuel that requires no investment in new vehicle technology, making it a highly practical and impactful way to significantly reduce the emissions of existing fleets. Supply is secure.