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Real Numbers From Real Depots: What Electrification Actually Costs

By BEV Ready · July 20, 2026

Table of Contents

The four scenarios below are illustrative composites built from common patterns we see in depot capacity screens, not disclosures of specific customer data. They're presented to show how differently two depots with similar-looking fleets can turn out once the electrical capacity question is actually answered.

Why an Industry Average Won't Help You

Ask "what does it cost to electrify a 20-vehicle depot" and you'll get an answer that sounds precise and means almost nothing. Two 20-vehicle depots can land on completely different sides of the cost and timeline spectrum, because the number that actually drives cost isn't fleet size — it's the gap between what the fleet needs and what the site's existing electrical service can already deliver. That gap is specific to the site, not the fleet, which is why industry-average cost figures are directionally useless for any individual project.

Scenario 1: The Depot With More Headroom Than Expected

A regional parcel operator planning to electrify 18 delivery vans assumed a six-figure service upgrade was inevitable, based on a worst-case simultaneous-draw estimate. A capacity screen modeling realistic return times and an 11-hour overnight dwell window found the site's existing 400A service had enough headroom to support the full fleet with managed charging alone — staggering sessions by departure time rather than arrival time. No utility upgrade was required. The entire electrification budget shifted from infrastructure to charging hardware and software, and the project timeline dropped from an estimated 14 months to under 4.

Scenario 2: The Depot That Needed Managed Charging, Not an Upgrade

A municipal fleet operator with 35 light-duty vehicles and a tighter 6-hour overnight window found that unmanaged charging would exceed site capacity by a wide margin — but managed charging alone closed roughly three-quarters of that gap. The remaining gap was small enough to be covered by a modest behind-the-meter battery sized specifically to that shortfall, avoiding a full utility service upgrade application entirely. The mix of managed charging plus a right-sized battery came in at roughly a third of the cost of the utility upgrade path the operator had originally budgeted for.

Scenario 3: The Depot That Genuinely Needed a Service Upgrade

A logistics operator planning to electrify 60 medium-duty trucks at a single hub found that even with aggressive managed charging and a realistically modeled dwell window, average demand alone exceeded the site's existing service capacity — not just the peak. No amount of scheduling or battery buffering could close a gap of that size. In this case, the capacity screen didn't avoid the utility upgrade — it confirmed the upgrade was genuinely necessary, and did so early enough that the utility application was submitted 11 months before the first vehicles were scheduled to arrive, rather than after.

Scenario 4: The Small Fleet on the Constrained Site

Not every large gap belongs to a large fleet. A last-mile operator electrifying just 8 vans at an older urban facility found the site's service was smaller than typical for even that modest fleet size, with minimal existing headroom after baseline building load. Managed charging closed part of the gap, but a service upgrade was still required — a proportionally larger intervention, relative to fleet size, than the 60-vehicle depot in Scenario 3. Fleet size alone would have predicted this as the easiest of the four scenarios. The site's starting capacity made it the most constrained.

Scenario 5: The Mixed Fleet Under One Roof

A distribution operator running 12 cargo vans, 8 medium-duty box trucks, and 3 yard tractors out of the same facility faced a capacity problem that couldn't be reduced to a single vehicle type multiplied by a single charger rating. The vans drew 19.2 kW each on Level 2, the box trucks needed 60 kW DC fast chargers, and the yard tractors charged at 30 kW but ran two shifts with a much shorter dwell window between them.

A single worst-case estimate — summing every charger at full power — produced a number north of 700 kW, well beyond the site's 500A service. But the three vehicle classes operated on completely different schedules: vans returned between 4–7pm and sat overnight, box trucks returned by 6pm with departures at 5am, and yard tractors rotated between a day shift and a night shift with a 90-minute changeover window.

Modeling each class against its own return time, dwell window, and energy requirement — then layering the three profiles on top of each other — showed that the peaks didn't stack the way a flat sum implied. The van charging peak fell in the early overnight hours, the box trucks peaked in the late evening, and the yard tractors drew consistently but modestly across both shifts. The realistic combined peak, with managed charging sequencing across the three classes, came in under the site's existing capacity — but only when the charging schedule was designed around the mixed profile rather than treating every vehicle as identical.

This is the scenario that a single-vehicle-type model misses entirely. The capacity math for a mixed fleet isn't harder because the numbers are bigger — it's harder because the shape of demand changes when different vehicle classes with different schedules share the same connection.

The Pattern Across All Five

None of these five outcomes could have been predicted from fleet size alone. Each one turned on the same variable: the gap between realistic peak demand and the site's actual, existing electrical capacity — a number that has almost nothing to do with vehicle count in isolation and everything to do with the specific site and the specific operating pattern.

The common thread isn't the outcome — the outcomes are all different. It's that all five operators got a clear, actionable answer before committing capital, instead of after.

Find Out Which Scenario You're In

Every depot's capacity gap is different, and the only way to find out which of these scenarios your site resembles is to run the numbers for your specific fleet and facility — not to extrapolate from an industry average or someone else's case study.

Try the BEV Ready feasibility calculator — free, no account required.

FAQ

How much does it cost to electrify a fleet depot? It depends almost entirely on whether the site's existing electrical capacity can support the fleet or needs a utility upgrade. Two depots with identical fleet sizes can have very different costs and timelines depending on their starting electrical capacity — which is why a site-specific capacity screen, not an industry average, is the only reliable way to estimate cost.

Is a small fleet always cheaper to electrify than a large one? Not necessarily. A small fleet on a site with very limited existing capacity can face a proportionally larger upgrade cost than a large fleet on a site with ample headroom. Fleet size matters, but the site's starting electrical capacity is often the bigger cost driver.

What's the fastest way to estimate depot electrification cost before a full engineering study? A directional feasibility screen — fleet size, vehicle type, and depot configuration run against the site's likely service capacity — can produce a rough cost range and infrastructure tier in minutes, without a stamped engineering study. It won't replace a full study before construction, but it's typically accurate enough to inform an early go or no-go decision.