The Real Barrier to Electric Trucks? Power, Not Price

Decade Energy closes a €22M round to fix the grid bottleneck stalling Europe's electric truck revolution

4 May 2026

Buying an electric truck, it turns out, is the simple part. For depot operators across Europe, the harder task is finding enough power to run one. Grid connections are slow to secure, on-site upgrades are costly, and the capital required to bridge both gaps rarely appears at the right moment. Into this unglamorous bottleneck, serious money is now flowing.

On April 23rd Decade Energy, a Paris-based startup founded by the team behind Volta Trucks, closed a €22m funding round. Eiffel Investment Group committed €16m through its transition infrastructure fund, targeting at least 100 megawatts of battery storage across France, representing roughly €50m in total project expenditure. SET Ventures led the remaining capital, aimed at product development and expansion into Germany, the Nordics, and Poland.

The company's model is deliberately simple. It develops, finances, and operates complete energy systems for logistics sites, covering grid connections, battery storage, solar generation, EV charging, and energy management software, all at zero upfront cost to the depot owner. The capital burden shifts; the power arrives. An operational site near Paris, combining storage, solar, and 360 kilowatts of charging capacity, offers proof that the model works outside a spreadsheet.

Decade Energy has completed more than 1,500 feasibility studies across European logistics sites, with over 500 megawatts of capacity under development and 50 construction projects scheduled for 2026. The pipeline suggests that latent demand for depot power is large and, until recently, poorly served.

The investment reflects a shift in where the binding constraint now sits. Vehicle supply has improved; grid access has not. As EU zero-emission zone deadlines draw closer and emissions-based road charges rise, freight operators face pressure to act. Those ready to move are often stopped not by a lack of trucks, but by a wait for a grid connection. Whether Decade Energy's zero-capital model can scale across a continent of varied grid conditions and planning rules is the question its backers are, for now, content to leave open.