Skip to content
RiDERgy RiDERgy
Smart Charge · S2 · Episode 1 · 2 February 2026 · 53 min

Thomas Ertel - CTO bei JUNA

Die digitale Basis für skalierbaren E-LKW-Einsatz

Transcript

Cleaned up from a machine transcript. Translations are machine-generated and may contain errors.

Welcome to the Smart Charge by RiDERgy Podcast. This is Claudio Geyken, founder and CEO of RiDERgy. This is your show to learn about all things energy management and smart charging innovation for electric vehicles and fleets.

Today I'm speaking with Thomas, CTO of Tuna, the joint venture between Sender and Scania. Tuna offers electric trucks as a service – vehicle, maintenance, energy, charging infrastructure and software all from one source. We'll look at where electric trucks are already economically viable, how depot charging and fast charging on the road work well together, and what operational mistakes you should avoid from the start. We'll talk about what really affects economic viability in everyday operations – utilisation, suitable electricity price windows and properly planned charging windows during shifts. Thomas shows how he quickly connects new locations to the network with pre-configured telemetry,

clear checklists and fixed handovers between fleet management, energy and IT. It gets technical. We also get a sober look at dynamic electricity prices, leasing reality and the question: What does it take for electric trucks to run smoothly in everyday operations? Let's go. Hello, Thomas. Great that you're here today. How are you doing today? Hello. Very well. Thanks for the invitation. Yes, with pleasure. Let's get started. Sure. Feel free to introduce yourself too. You're welcome to go as far back into the past as you like – a bit however you'd normally

introduce yourself. Okay. Hello. I'm Thomas. I'm the CTO at Tuna. Tuna is a company that distributes electric trucks in a service model and offers corresponding consulting as well. Who am I? I'm a qualified graduate in computer science – that's what it was called back then – from here in Berlin, from the university of applied sciences, and afterwards I worked for a long time as a developer myself and then through various positions also moved towards a management career. My last interesting positions were in the field of shared mobility. I was CTO at Free to Move, and also briefly – for a short

time – at Miles and before that at Carpooling. So everything that happened in that whole experimental stage of shared mobility. And then I switched to logistics: to Overfleet, to Sender and now at the joint venture between Sender and Scania, Tuna. Yes, those are exciting positions. Definitely. So, before we really get to Tuna, one more question: how did it come about that you focused so strongly – as a computer scientist – on the one hand: where did your love of computer science come from? That's a skill we need in Germany too. It's good that there are people like you. And on the other hand: how did you end up focusing so strongly on the mobility world? Well, computer science – I used to build a lot of electronic devices myself. That eventually stopped because you could buy them. The classic: take apart a radio and put it back together. And build an electric drum kit or other things from it. That would be cool. And then, as it progressed: then came the first home computers that we

had at home. And then it was more interesting to bend the bits and bytes than to solder hardware onto a board. And that's how I ended up in computer science. And the mobility world was initially more of a coincidence. Before that I also worked at a dating platform in Munich and in fintech. Somehow I became increasingly interested whenever what you do could also be used and touched directly yourself. And that's how something came up at Free to Move with this car-sharing or

shared-mobility aggregator. It was something I could use every morning to get to work – I could complain to myself when we made a mistake. And that's how I came to mobility. And from there to logistics is not far. Whether you transport people or goods doesn't matter to the end users, of course, but it doesn't matter for the development. Exactly. And what do you take away from it? What have you learned from these experiences? I assume there are two or three things that moved you – or maybe a story, an anecdote that comes to mind.

Well, those were different company setups. And there is a difference whether you have a financial investor breathing down your neck who wants to see results for his money, or a large company like Stellantis, which also has to and wants to have a lot of say and thereby changes the direction and demands transparency. Each model has its pros and cons, but each also leaves behind a business learning that you can apply well in the next one. And what experiences or roles did you have in these companies – just so we have an idea of what kind of tasks kept you occupied?

So at Free to Move I was CTO. I came to Free to Move before it was called that – it was called Car2Jump back then, was a relatively small aggregator. And shortly after I started, Stellantis took it over and renamed it. And when it comes to CTO-type tasks: how can you picture what you did there? You're first of all responsible for the entire developer team, which can be between three and 50 people. You first have to find these people, make sure they get up to speed and know how they should develop. Then often you also have to partly supervise product development – that means: deciding and communicating what should be developed, how it should be tested, customer feedback

there was also various company structures. And there is definitely a difference whether you have a financial investor on your back who wants to see results for their money, or a large company like Stellantis that also has to and wants to have a lot of say and thereby changes direction and demands transparency. Each model has its pros and cons, but each also leaves behind business learnings that you can apply well next time.

And what experiences or roles did you have in these companies – just so we have some idea of what kinds of tasks occupied you? So at Free to Move I was CTO. I came to Free to Move before it was called that – it was called Car2Jump back then, a relatively small aggregator. And shortly after I started, Stellantis took it over and renamed it. And as far as CTO-type tasks go: how can you picture what you did there? First of all you're responsible for the entire developer team, which can be between three and 50 people. You first have to find these people, make sure they get up to speed and know how they should develop. Then often you also have to partly supervise product development – that means: deciding and communicating what should be developed, how it should be tested, customer feedback

feedback and the next iteration. So as a CTO, let's say it's maximally 50% a technical position, and the other 50% is divided in different proportions across product, company policy, employee development, and leadership. So it's not easy to get by with just coding. There are people to lead, and also computer scientists – that's not always so simple, especially when they prefer to focus strongly on the product rather than necessarily wanting to cooperate a lot with each other. You hear that pretty clearly. And what's also striking is how quickly development

here or the development of development changes. So things I learned back then are not even taught at university anymore today. Do you have an example? Yes. What does the optimal computer look like? It's round, because that way all the distances to each other are as short as possible on average. Why isn't it round? So it doesn't fall off the table – that was a joke from one of my professors. But just understanding that background, that doesn't exist anymore today. And software development has also evolved extremely. So we still had

learned object-oriented programming, trying to map the real world as much as possible into objects and an inheritance structure. People still do that today, but not necessarily and not everywhere. Well, interesting. Maybe we'll come back to that. But now let's switch to Juna – Juna. How do you pronounce that? Juna, like the name – Juna. What's the background there? When we founded the company – colleagues from Scania and from Sennder – we went looking for a name

and didn't want something like "Alify" or some typical startup name where you might guess something from the name, but in the end it doesn't really say anything. And somehow we came up with Junno, which represents a goddess in various religions. Unfortunately the domain name was already taken, so we decided on Juna. Okay. So with the goddess you're on the right track. Exactly. And the founding – what was the background there, that people from Sennder said, we need to

found Juna? I'm not 100 percent in the picture here. But a major topic was electromobility in the transport industry, and that's something that's not necessarily Sennder's core business. They wanted to put some focus on it without defocusing themselves, and in that case it's a good option to put it into its own company with its own goals. And that's what they did. And maybe, because not everyone knows Sennder and it would certainly make sense in the context of Juna

it also makes sense that everyone understands what it's all about – what exactly does Sennder do? Sennder is a digital freight forwarder. Basically, they make sure that every shipment finds its truck, to put it simply – like Uber for a full truck of stuff. Exactly. And then it was – if I'm interpreting what you just said correctly – now with the shift to e-mobility and the fact that you're transporting things, it makes sense that you also guide those you have as partners by

the hand through this shift to e-mobility. Is that right? Exactly. So just putting a truck on someone's yard for a euro less won't work; it's also about addressing perceived and actual fears and reservations, reducing them or eliminating them with appropriate measures as much as you can. Price of course plays a role – you also shouldn't be more expensive than the others. But electric trucks don't sell themselves on that alone. And what are these fears or problems

and challenges that you've encountered in practice and that then motivated you to say, okay, let's offer a solution? Well basically they're the same as with electric cars: How long does the battery last? How long do I have to charge? What happens if I break down in the middle of the forest? How can I prevent that? With trucks it goes up another level, because then it's not just a family holiday that's at stake, but maybe an important order that, if you break down three times in the

forest, goes down the drain – and half the logistics company might depend on that. And that's why it's even more important to make sure that the operational business not only doesn't suffer damage, but also performs better with the electric trucks. To get an idea – what kind of stakeholders are we talking about? I believe, to my knowledge, most logistics companies that operate trucks are rather very small enterprises. That's then about 90% of the companies that you then – I can't give exact percentages

right now. But then there are the big companies that can buy their trucks themselves and can also make sure they're properly utilised and operated – they have the resources. Sometimes they're not that far along either or have other reasons to put it off for now, and they're also interested in what we do. Then there are the medium-sized freight forwarders that, I don't know, let's say between 20 and 100, 200 trucks. That can already be quite interesting.

And as you said, the small ones – let's exclude the one-man operations, although we'd like to have them with us – the ones that have a small fleet, many of whom are now being driven by their customers to demand electrification and who really don't have the capacity to find an answer to that immediately, who can't experimentally figure it out either, but who need a partner who makes the whole thing reliable or enables them to make it reliable. And so, if I now then

So if someone is in that situation, what is the solution that you can offer them? Well, what we do then is we look at your transport network. That means, over a certain period of time that you want to disclose to us, which routes you drive. And we would analyze the network with our digital tools and first filter out the routes that are really very well electrifiable. These routes are then processed again. That means we combine the ones that can be combined, according to certain criteria that you can set, so that you get as few empty

kilometres as possible, so that you can recharge at charging stations where the price is cheap, where it aligns with driving and rest times. So, if you want, we plan either an example or the entire day for the trucks for you. Most customers don't want that. They want to be in control of their own planning. But then they get a

sample illustration of how the routes should be driven. And of course we can also always go into daily planning if needed. Often that's not necessary anymore. And a big part is – if I understood correctly – it's also the procurement of trucks or charging solutions too – after doing this inventory analysis, in the route analysis, that you also offer that, right? Exactly. So, based on the route analysis, we of course also see which truck is commercially suitable for it. So not

everyone needs the big truck from an expensive manufacturer that can drive 600 kilometres, if with appropriate charging stops that also align with driving and rest times, maybe one with 300, 400 kilometres is enough, which of course also reflects in the price. And we offer a pay-per-use model. That means in the end there are no upfront investments from the customer. We jointly set a mileage target based on the analyses we have. A model that the customer wants. And then the whole thing is paid in a

monthly rate. And does that also include charging? What exactly is included in pay-per-use? Well, charging is not included. The driver is not included either. Everything that belongs to the truck itself is included. So that's insurance, that's fees, vehicle tax and the like, that's a tire package so that tires can be changed accordingly, repair and maintenance is included. And yes, we say the freight forwarder basically pays for the driver and the electricity. And in your planning: how

much is charged at the depot and how much on the road? That really depends on what prices are available there. Depot charging is usually cheaper in most cases, but it doesn't have to be. And we put these parameters into the algorithm and get out at the end where it makes most sense for charging to happen. So if you have 20 trucks but only 5 charging points at the depot, it might be a bit tricky. And we look at what the trucks should drive

and with what capacity they should set off and where they should charge in between and how much they should come back to the depot with. And there are some well-known, prominent examples in Germany that people know – the Electro Trucker or the Nano Jansen freight company. Is that then a target group for you, or how would that differ from what your target group is? Well, I would see them more as partners or colleagues on the same path than as a target group. We're happy to

sell them a truck or give them trucks from us, but I think

they don't necessarily need that. They probably also don't need our planning in that sense because they've already gained a lot of experience themselves. I think collaboration here is better than if we just worked on it from both sides to make the topic public, so that more and more people get interested in it. In the end, it's the shippers, the people who have freight that needs to be transported, who also have to demand the whole thing. That means examples like Nano Jansen freight company

would already be a relevant target group if they knew less, so to speak. But in this case, it's already one of the few companies in Germany that have progressed very far. No. So, as I said, we're happy to give them a truck or five or ten, that's not the issue. I haven't dealt with them myself yet. But I suspect they know how to operate electric trucks. Yes. And if I now analyze the network for them and it turns out that if they do it a bit differently, they can make the whole thing even more efficient, that's also good for them. But I suspect they already know a lot of this themselves.

Yes, what I was getting at: are they such an example, such an outlier for you, in the sense that the market – how actually most don't know so well – and that's why they need guidance – whereas such a Nano Jansen hasn't bought your service because they were already advanced? But most are not so far in knowledge that they could handle something like that on their own. I wouldn't call it knowledge right now, because it probably hasn't been the focus so far. But I've also spoken to freight forwarders who have dealt with the topic very well, who have one, two, three trucks in their fleet and operate them on simple routes. So if they have a shuttle from A to B, five times a day, short distance

But most are not so far in knowledge that they could handle something like that themselves. I wouldn't call it knowledge right now, because it probably hasn't been the focus so far. But I've also spoken to freight forwarders who have dealt with the topic very well, who have one, two, three trucks in their fleet and operate them on simple routes. So if they have a shuttle from A to B, five times a day, short distance

So they do it there, they have gotten a taste for it in principle and now want to do more. They also have quite a lot of knowledge about the trucks, about the electric trucks. But we can then help them further in the sense of: let's take another look at this for the rest of your network. Okay. Then the target audience. If they have trucks, then I understand that operationally you could also provide support. Could you shed a bit more light on how you support them in operations exactly.

At the moment we support them with reports. We analyze the driving behavior of the trucks and also their performance and provide the customers with appropriate reports at regular intervals, together with – if they want – our Operations Managers or also people from Commercial Strategy who sit down with them and analyze the whole thing. We can, if desired, analyze the driver's driving behavior. This is not about whether they drive through a red light, but whether the way they drive the truck is effective.

Whether the speed gains they achieve when driving a bit faster actually result in them arriving at the destination faster, or whether more defensive driving enables an additional route without intermediate stops, without charging. Those are the kinds of things we can then give our customers. And of course we can also help with daily planning – digitally by feeding it into the corresponding transport management systems if they want. That makes sense. And on the topic of charging or energy management, for example

also at the depot or on the route, if you want to charge more effectively or efficiently, both price-wise and energy-wise – are you also active there or are those topics you have on your roadmap? So on the price side we have negotiated framework agreements with several providers. That means if someone charges with our trucks there and is part of this framework agreement, they first get cheaper prices. And we also ran an experiment, which was also successful, where we informed the driver about the availability of public charging stations. That means we

then offered a small app via a partner where it says: you should charge at 1 p.m., the probability that something is free there is high. The driver goes there. And then we notice that the charging station is occupied at that time. And we routed him to another charging station. So we're doing things like that right now. We haven't completely rolled it out yet, we just need to see to what extent this as an intermediate step to reservation is really a topic. And for depot charging solutions and the energy management topic –

for that kind of thing we have partners. We also work with partners from the Scania network who like to offer that and have energy management included. We don't develop that ourselves. But of course we would feed these systems with data. That means if we know when the trucks arrive, corresponding slots can be reserved or booked, also at depot charging stations – you have to plan a bit. And a keyword: Scania. So Juna is a joint venture between Sender and Scania. Yes,

50/50 or is it not quite like that? And Scania is then essentially the only e-truck solution, or can you also offer other e-trucks from other providers? No, we offer others too. We are currently vendor-agnostic. We have a set of trucks that we offer, and if we see other options, we are happy to include others as well. I'm not fixated on it. And the CTO – I assume your daily bread is mainly digital tools? How

are you approaching that? How much do you do in-house development? Do you work with partners? Where are the challenges in your daily work? Well, we try not to develop new what others have already developed and what you can use. When it comes to internal processes, sales and so on, we don't develop a CRM from scratch – that exists. Where we put a lot of energy and money in is planning, so the planning tool with which we convince our customers, and where we also do further

route planning. So first this bundling, the analysis of the bundling and then the route planning – those are the topics where we add value when we do it ourselves. And of course in the connectivity of the other systems: that we have equipped everything with APIs, so that you can easily integrate our systems, that you can easily integrate other systems into ours, when we have a new vehicle provider, so that we can transfer their onboard unit data into ours relatively painlessly. That's where we have invested and

will continue to invest. There are various systems for that. Can you break that down a bit? TMS is probably very important there – that you have them, the transport management systems usually have data sovereignty when it comes to route planning for logistics companies. And then the telematics systems, I assume, as the second major component – systems that you then sort of link together. And those are exactly – so we linked the telematics. We see our trucks on our platform there and see what they

The TMS of course doesn't belong to us. And clearly, not every data point in such a TMS is of interest to us that we should have access to, but in most cases it's so that we send data in the direction of this TMS. Once we have planned a truck or a fleet with the corresponding routes, that goes over into the TMS and can be independently continued or managed there.

It is indeed a very innovative topic. Are you actually the only ones working on this or are there also competitors? And how do you differentiate yourselves? Well, the topic is currently being looked at by a lot of companies, and there are competitors. There is the big provider who is becoming increasingly successful. There are also many small companies doing similar things. At the moment we have the advantage that we come from two worlds: from freight management at Sennder and from the manufacturer,

the truck manufacturer Scania. That means we can basically offer services around the truck and around freight and can also partly use the transport database. For example, we can fill an empty return trip with freight from Sennder if both sides want that. That way you're more efficient, because many people may not know that many trucks drive around empty because

when they've completed an order, they have to go back – without a load. And I saw that you also did a partnership with Eco Movement at some point. Can you say a few words about that? It was about charging, public charging stations or data from charging stations. So we're still a customer of Eco Movement to get this data. Personally I believe that in the medium term this data will be generally available and that the quality will be accordingly

such that it can be used by many parties. I think you can't monetize the data itself in the long term, but rather the services you develop around this data. And that's where I see the real value of partnerships like with Eco Movement: when it comes to reservations and the OCPI interfaces are really all addressed, so that you can monetize the data better through such services – from both sides, us using it, and from companies

like Eco Movement providing it and additionally adding reservation or centralized billing on top. At the moment, if you charge at five stations, you get five invoices. That's a lot eventually. Yes, not optimal. And are you already integrated and operating your solution across Europe? Well, we're operating in several EU countries. At the moment that's Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. We have further countries on our roadmap where we're also already opening offices.

And we do it country by country. Yes, I understand. And I also saw that you published something with Transinfo. Can you say more about this case study or the cooperation? You mean this cooperation with return freight – I think that was also with Sennder. Exactly. So we had a customer in the area around Neuss who was doing exactly what you said before: he drove his load there and came back empty. And there

we were able to find another customer through the Sennder network, Nestlé, who booked the corresponding return loads. And suddenly the TCO calculation for the customer looks completely different. So if it barely paid off before, afterwards it becomes really profitable. And then there's also the topic of route planning. Many are worried that they'll lose time there, which of course is very critical in logistics. However, the E-Trucker also shows, at least from the videos and

also from talking to them, that these 45 minutes, after which you have to take a break anyway, are actually enough for charging – the 45 minutes – and that it actually works without any problems. Is that also your experience, that you shouldn't worry about losing time with route planning when you drive electrically? Well, you lose time somewhere if you have to take a break. And if you take the break while you're not charging, then you've definitely done something wrong

somewhere. I think the key thing is that you really plan these charging stops – also in terms of timing, realistically: How much power comes out? How much power comes in? How long does the truck have to stand there? And to what state of charge do I need to charge it there, depending on what it's supposed to do next? If you plan the whole thing properly with technical tools, on a daily or weekly basis, then you don't lose time there, you just combine two activities. And do you also see opportunities

from the fact that electric trucks are no longer so loud, that you could also drive at night? Is that a topic that concerns you as well? Oh, I hadn't even thought about that. That's an interesting question, that you'd have more degrees of freedom then. But is the night driving ban really only because of the noise? Yes, that – I'm not that deep into it either. But that's at least something I've seen that concerns the industry a bit, that it could be an opportunity.

That is true. But they are really nice and quiet, you can say that. That definitely improves quality of life. And what are some other topics? You also said it's such a package – the maintenance. Do you already have data points on that? For example repairs or maintenance, how electric trucks compare to diesel. I don't have data on that. Well, what happens with such a ramp-up is that you naturally have certain framework conditions that

that you have to meet first. So then probably an electrician and not a diesel technician needs to be in the workshop. Otherwise, I haven't heard of any negative maintenance experiences. On the contrary, the trucks went in for maintenance and were back out quickly. I haven't looked at the financial framework conditions now. On the other hand, maintenance is included in our package, and we haven't had any surprises so far. So no negative ones. No. One point that's definitely interesting about your model is,

that the acquisition costs for an electric truck are still two to three times higher compared to diesel. Because you do it via a leasing fee and the TCOs are then lower in operation, you can simply manage it more easily. How is it nowadays? Do most logistics companies buy a truck or do they lease them more? So I don't have the statistics myself. But from what I've heard, trucks are leased or partly bought. The

big advantage from their perspective for current trucks is that you basically already know what the life of this truck will look like when you purchase it. So you know: I buy myself a new vehicle, drive it for three years, then it goes to another carrier who maybe doesn't want a new vehicle, has its second life there, and after a certain number of years the whole thing is sold again and probably goes somewhere else where maybe the technical requirements aren't as high or the

safety requirements – and you basically always know what the next step is. That of course gives a sense of security for your own investment. With an electric truck, it's now difficult for a normal customer to achieve a high residual value. So to say: "Bank, please finance this vehicle at a residual value of, I don't know, a third of the purchase price." I think that will still be a bit difficult, because the bank can't really assess that at the moment either. And how does the TCO work out in your calculations –

diesel versus electric truck – for a logistics company? So our goal is for our customers that it always comes out better in the direction of electric trucks. And those are also the kinds of calculations and planning that we're currently offering our customers. And that's great. If that's already possible today, then you wouldn't have to hesitate anymore as a logistics company. You save real money and don't have to come up with so much capital. And how can you imagine that? In which use cases are those distribution transport –

where you always drive the same routes in the region – or already long-distance routes or both? Well, it's naturally the distribution transport. It's also bundled routes with multiple stops, so round trips that don't necessarily have to belong to just one customer.

And there are already also some long-distance routes, where of course the main difficulty is finding appropriate return freight. If that's found, then it also works on long-distance routes. And especially there, the driving and rest times, as you mentioned, actually come in as an advantage. If he has to stand still anyway, he can also charge. Regarding charging parks: do you have specific partners that are charging park operators? Do you have one or many, or

did you more make partnerships with charging cards? Well, we've done everything. We have partnerships or framework agreements with the corresponding CPOs – so what people used to call gas stations. Exactly. And we also offer unified payment solutions. However, both of those are also still a development area, I think for everyone there are still further – how do you say – convenience features to build in. So to make that accessible to the broad masses and to simplify it. And do you have – there is currently, and this is something that's really occupying the industry, things like Milence – charging point operators, CPOs that focus solely on trucks – and then the question of whether you can also use car charging points, which are also 350-kW charging points. Where do you stand on that? Can you use both? Should you rather stick to Milence and dedicated electric truck charging points?

Well, in the end it's a question of price and space availability. If I can charge well at the Lidl parking lot and Lidl doesn't object, you can do it.

But of course that's really not a business model. If there are these large providers and the price is right there too and space availability is there, then that's of course the first choice. But there are also car charging spots where a truck without a trailer can park and charge very well. Then the question is: how available are they? What are you blocking if you do that? And what do you do with the trailer in the meantime? It has to park somewhere too, of course. That means those are also

things that we like to look at in detail and give the corresponding recommendations to customers. And how do you see the Megawatt Charging topic? Is that a game changer or just a development that makes better things but doesn't really make a big difference? Well, my personal opinion is: it will make a difference. But it can also be misused. It will probably also be a bit expensive, and it also has some impact on battery health. That means,

If you charge the truck at full power all the time and maybe even charge it so much that you don't even need it, that's certainly a bit of a waste, you'd say. That means, where it really makes sense, where you really need a full battery again quickly and you do it regularly, that's great. I probably wouldn't put it in the yard. And dynamic prices, so that the electricity exchange prices, which change every fifteen minutes, are also used at the charging station, either publicly or at the depot – is that a topic you see coming?

Well, whether it happens will probably be decided by certain regulations rather than by the providers. I think it definitely has advantages. The electric trucks do consume a certain amount of energy. That means if you can control that through pricing, it's good for the grid. On the other hand, if you can use cheap electricity through clever advance planning, it's good for the carrier and

good for the grid. That means, in the end, if that's possible, it's definitely a win for everyone. And reservability – that's also a topic. The certainty that the vehicles will be charged again is something that concerns many people. I think the charging point operators are still a bit reluctant. How do you see that topic? Well, good. I understand that it's not entirely straightforward technically and that it doesn't get easier when everyone is doing their own thing.

I think it makes sense to approach the whole thing in a somewhat structured way. It will be necessary. We can't – since charging does take a bit longer than refueling – maintain the number of charging points so that every truck can be fully charged within an hour. That alone makes sense. And then there is a certain time span that you can plan ahead for. So I think it will be a topic, it will remain a topic. And

there will be agreement on it and it will be implemented. And that's not really your specific topic then, because you plan routes more than you navigate – and in practice you also want to offer this payment and reservation function? No, I can't say exactly right now whether we want to offer that as well. But it's definitely an important part of operations for a truck like that. And if our customers need support with that, we'll carefully consider whether

whether we do it ourselves or not. And if we don't do it ourselves, others will do it, and then we'll partner with them. And in route planning – how deep do you go? If you look at the technology, you can look arbitrarily deep: What's the charging power of a charging point or the charging power of the truck? Accordingly, you also have to factor in breaks or arrival times at the customer. How deep do you dive into that? Well, our

planning tool can already handle that very detailed and calculate it. We deliberately allow a certain level of imprecision so that this bundling algorithm can also show us things that aren't immediately obvious. If the warehouse opening hours are somehow all day, then we initially include the whole day in the planning. If it turns out in the end that one load needs to arrive before another, even though the warehouse is open, then of course that's a constraint. We have to deal with that and we can

handle it. If we don't have those constraints, we leave it free because that opens up completely different combination possibilities – so answer a question as precisely as necessary. And charging curves and topics like that – that would be calculating too deeply, right? Not really. But we're currently missing the data for that. That means we have to assume – let's say – a positively rated worst-case scenario. That means if we don't have data, we have to rely somewhat on what's in these Eco-Movement

and other data sets. Once we have our own operational data, we'll naturally include that too: What do we know about what comes out of the socket? And how long does it take to fully charge the truck for the corresponding next route? So we do factor that in, but we're currently missing really precise data to plan it down to the minute – which isn't necessary in the current case anyway. You can go arbitrarily deep with things like pre-conditioning or what load management might have available in terms of power on site. If a charging point can provide 350 kW, but many charging points at a location are occupied, then not every charging point can necessarily deliver full power – those kinds of issues will definitely become relevant. Exactly. And at the depot charging points, where customers build their own charging park, there's usually software included that maps exactly that. And then we can have the corresponding data and use it for

planning. At the gas station around the corner, it gets a bit more difficult. You don't have all the data available so easily. And on the subject – you already mentioned it – at the depot, there's the issue of grid connection capacity. Is that an area where you see a risk that the ramp-up of electric trucks could fail because you need so much power that nothing is available for the charging parks or the depots? Failure is a strong word,

but yes, it's definitely a topic. Where we see potential challenges is with grid connection capacity at depot sites. Is that an area where you see a risk that the ramp-up of electric trucks could fail because you need so much power that there's nothing left available for the charging parks or for the depots? Failure is a strong word,

It is definitely a topic. And we have already spoken with customers where we offered a certain number of trucks and identified that we could offer more based on planning. You can also charge a larger fleet with detailed planning and so on. That means if all vehicles are plugged in at 6:00 PM, it doesn't mean they all get the same amount of electricity at 6:00 PM, but rather that can

happen in stages. And there is a lot of optimization potential there – which might not allow 100 trucks, but maybe 50. There is room for maneuver. And the topic of bidirectional charging – that is also very exciting, what opportunities that will bring in the future, also for logistics companies. How do you see that topic? I actually see it as an opportunity, especially for topics like grid stability and energy prices. I have also heard from logistics companies quite often: if there is electricity in there, it stays in there

and gets transported – that's how I make my money. I think it is ultimately just a commercial calculation. Which doesn't mean we want to set up trucks as energy storage everywhere. But where it really makes sense to smooth out peaks – if the truck really doesn't have to drive, if you can plan routes differently – and expand the planning with additional components, it can make sense. I think right now the focus is first on the trucks themselves and the planning and route planning. And the rest will

not happen by itself – we will work on that afterwards. And on the topic of what is occupying you as CTO of the company right now in terms of challenges – what is relevant now or what will be exciting in the coming months? Well, what has impressed me a lot in the IT technical area is how far you can already use AI to write code. When I was studying, people always said: you don't need to study, computers will be able to do that soon. Now I'm over 50 and they are starting to be able to do it. Of course, that is also an opportunity for small teams like we have to move much more than was possible before. I think that is technically one of the interesting challenges for the next two to three years. And what concerns me in terms of electric trucks is what huge impact they can have on the energy transition if we can create better utilization and use of resources with the trucks

not happen by itself – we will work on that afterwards. And on the topic of what is occupying you as CTO of the company right now in terms of challenges – what is relevant now or what will be exciting in the coming months? Well, what has impressed me a lot in the IT technical area is how far you can already use AI to write code. When I was studying, people always said: you don't need to study, computers will be able to do that soon. Now I'm over 50 and they are starting to be able to do it. Of course, that is also an opportunity for small teams like we have to move much more than was possible before. I think that is technically one of the interesting challenges for the next two to three years. And what concerns me in terms of electric trucks is what huge impact they can have on the energy transition if we can create better utilization and use of resources with the trucks

can – utilize the trucks better themselves. And I think that's also a kind of preparation for autonomous driving in freight transport. Those are the topics that continue to make it interesting for me. So do you see autonomous driving for trucks as something you see for yourselves as a topic in the medium term or even in the short term already? I don't see us implementing that at Juna – I think that requires a few more resources than we have. But because we

the utilization and planning of trucks as well

make foreseeable, we're also factoring in some uncertainties for autonomous driving. And if it's only partial routes – so if it's the motorway section or from warehouse A to transshipment point B, where autonomous driving is already possible and permitted, like Mercedes with Level 3 on the motorway for example – then, instead of the charging process, the autonomous tractor unit is simply uncoupled and the Juna tractor unit is screwed on in front. Then I think that's a step in that direction. And

If anyone is interested in learning more about Juna, what are the ways to reach you? Of course, you can first visit our website: juna.com. You can find me on LinkedIn under my name with Juna. And if you're in a hurry: my email address is thomas.erl@juna.com. Alright. And then – one last message you'd like to share with the listeners? Well, what I've learned is: framework conditions change. But I particularly like one of Juna's values – it's called: Keep on

Tracking. For me, that simply means: never give up. In that sense – thanks for the conversation. You're welcome, thank you. Three clear insights from the conversation: First, process beats technology – fixed charging windows coupled to driving and rest times make shifts plannable and reduce ad-hoc stops. Second, link data, don't just collect it – combine transport management systems, telematics and charging data: route times from the transport management system, state of charge, consumption and odometer from telematics, plus availability and tariffs via Eco-Movement for example – result: reliability and lower costs. Third, shift risks, start faster – eTruck-as-a-Service bundles vehicle,

energy and service into plannable OpEx, accelerates entry and scales rollout. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast, leave a short review and share the episode – until next time.

Episode notes

In dieser Folge sprechen wir mit Thomas Ertel, CTO bei JUNA, über die praktischen Voraussetzungen für den erfolgreichen Einsatz elektrischer LKWs im Logistikalltag. Thomas gibt Einblicke in seinen Werdegang vom Informatiker und Entwickler über Führungsrollen in der Shared-Mobility-Welt (u. a. Free2Move, Miles) bis hin zu Freight-Tech und seiner heutigen Rolle bei JUNA, dem Joint Venture von Sennder und Scania. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Frage, warum E-LKW-Einführung weniger ein Fahrzeugthema ist – und vielmehr eine Planungs-, Daten- und Operations-Aufgabe. Key Topics We Cover - Vom Entwickler zum CTO: warum Technologie nur die halbe Miete ist - Was JUNA ausmacht: E-LKWs als Service kombiniert mit operativer Beratung - Die größten Hemmnisse für Speditionen: Reichweite, Ladezeiten, operative Risiken - Routen- und Netzwerkanalyse zur Identifikation elektrifizierbarer Strecken - Bündelung von Touren und Ausrichtung auf Lenk- und Ruhezeiten - Pay-per-Use-Modelle und was im Service enthalten ist - Integration von Telematik- und TMS-Systemen über APIs - Ladeökosysteme, Datenqualität und die Rolle von Reservierung - Warum Elektrifizierung ein Systemproblem ist – nicht nur ein Batterieproblem - Ausblick: KI-gestützte Planung und Vorbereitung auf autonomes Fahren im Güterverkehr Why This Conversation Matters Thomas macht deutlich: E-LKWs skalieren nicht durch bessere Batterien allein, sondern durch verlässliche Planung, saubere Daten, integrierte Systeme und klare Prozesse. JUNA verbindet OEM-Know-how mit Logistikverständnis und digitalen Tools – und schafft damit einen realistischen Weg für Speditionen, elektrisch zu fahren, ohne ihr Tagesgeschäft zu gefährden.