The logistics sector is a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, with road freight transport accounting for a large share of these emissions. Electrification with battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) is a promising solution to reduce emissions from road freight transport. The role of logistics actors in the adoption of BEVs, in particular heavy-duty BEVs (HBEVs), has received limited attention in the literature. Especially road hauliers – as vehicle owners and those responsible for transport execution – require more focus when it comes to the adoption of HBEVs. 

This licentiate thesis addresses these gaps through its purpose to explore road hauliers’ adoption of HBEVs. Two research questions were formulated to answer the purpose:

• RQ1: Which factors influence road hauliers’ adoption of HBEVs?
• RQ2: How do road hauliers respond to influencing factors?

The thesis is grounded in the green logistics literature, with particular emphasis on logistics actors and electrification. Complexity theory is used as a complementary theoretical perspective to enrich the analysis. The thesis purpose was approached through an exploratory research design, supported by a mixed-methods approach to answer the research questions. Qualitative case studies and semi-structured interviews in a Swedish context were the main methods employed which aimed at providing an in-depth understanding of hauliers and the factors influencing their adoption of HBEVs. Descriptive analysis of register data and statistics from Swedish public authorities complement the qualitative data by providing insight into the development of early road freight electrification with HBEVs at an aggregated Swedish level. 

Findings related to RQ1 show that the haulier faces numerous influencing factors in HBEV adoption including both challenges and enablers. Many of these influencing factors have been acknowledged by the literature on light-duty BEVs especially in the form of challenges such as short range and its impact on transport operations, investment costs, and the lack of public charging infrastructure. The findings of this thesis expand the literature by highlighting a combination of technology-dependent factors and context-dependent factors for hauliers’ HBEV adoption. An important context-dependent factor is the haulier’s customer as well as the haulier’s own strategic positioning on the transport market. These aspects have received little attention in the electrification literature. The findings also indicate that the large number of influencing factors and their dynamism lead to high complexity for hauliers in HBEV adoption. The results indicate that the complexity for hauliers is likely to shift as electrification progresses. 

Findings related to RQ2 show that hauliers respond to influencing factors through risk and cost management, through careful operational planning, collaboration with partners, learning, as well as by employing various strategic approaches. These responses are at the same time ways to manage the complexity of electrification by either reducing or accommodating for complexity. Leasing HBEVs – instead of purchasing them – is one way for the haulier to reduce risk and avoid the uncertainties stemming from future costs, technological development and transport demand. Depending on the haulier’s strategic positioning, there is not just mere reaction to electrification’s challenges but also more active engagement by seizing strategic opportunities, for instance, by making investments that open new sources of income. With the haulier’s perspective as a starting point, findings point to the adoption of road freight electrification being characterised by bottom-up self-organisation through interactions between individual actors in local contexts. Top-down control mechanisms such as policy and regulation also play a role but appear to be more secondary. 

This thesis contributes to the field of green logistics in terms of adding knowledge to the gap on road hauliers as important logistics actors. It also contributes to the electrification literature by addressing the gap on logistics actors’ perspectives, specifically by providing insight into HBEV adoption by combining findings from hauliers that have adopted HBEVs and those which have not. Managerial contributions include guiding hauliers and other logistics actors in navigating HBEV adoption, particularly its complexity, and raising awareness of hauliers’ conditions among stakeholders such as customers and policy makers. Finally, this thesis contributes to the complexity literature by applying a theoretical perspective that is rarely used in logistics research and operationalising it in a new empirical context.