Big Buyers Working Together to launch Community of Practice on Heavy Duty Electric Vehicles (HDEV)

The Big Buyers Working Together project is preparing the launch of its Community of Practice on Heavy Duty Electric Vehicles (HDEV). 11 members from 8 different countries will be onboarded to collaborate on challenges related to the public procurement of vehicles used for the delivery of environmental services, particularly street cleansing and waste collection.

The development of this Community of Practice is the result of needs assessment undertaken by the project, giving public buyers the opportunity to indicate their main areas of public procurement interests and challenges, seeking to find innovative and sustainable solutions to current procurement challenges. This assessment showed that buyers looking to purchase heavy duty electric vehicles struggle with a lack of availability and to want to explore retrofitting as an alternative. Public buyers are also interested in developing the charging infrastructure that could contribute to the uptake of HDEVs, and in using hydrogen as an alternative to diesel.

The group’s objectives are to develop procurement documentation through pilots to test and review, gain a better understanding the limitations and considerations of battery technology that will be vital for maximising the longevity of HDEVs, and focus on market engagement with national and international suppliers, both to highlight buyers’ demands, and to get a better view of the available technologies and upcoming innovations.

HDEVs can have significant positive impacts on air quality and carbon emissions, and their successes are highly visible to citizens. As a result, public authorities are increasingly interested in HDEVs; the previous two iterations of the Big Buyers Initiative also had working groups focusing on these vehicles, resulting in a mapping of all available heavy duty electric vehicles and their specifications and a comprehensive analysis of market gaps.

Public procurers interested in the topic still have the opportunity to join the CoP. If you work for a Public Authority, and you think that you could provide added value to the CoP and benefit from it, then you are welcome to express your interest by sending an email to Big Buyers Working Together Secretariat, at big.buyers@eurocities.eu