Wednesday, November 26th, 2025
14 October 2025 | 60+ participants
The ALICE webinar “Driving the Future: From Roadmap to Reality in Electric and Automated Heavy-Duty Freight Transport” gathered more than sixty participants from logistics, industry, and research to discuss how Europe can accelerate the transition towards zero-emission and automated freight transport. The session centred on two major developments: the upcoming Horizon Europe demonstration calls for battery-electric and automated trucks, and the ERTRAC Roadmap – a joint vision for sustainable and competitive long-distance freight.
Opening the discussion, Fernando Liesa, Secretary General of ALICE, situated the webinar within the framework of ALICE’s Roadmap Towards Zero Emissions Logistics. He emphasised three strategic focus areas – road electrification, automation, and emissions accounting – and underlined the growing importance of logistics input in shaping European partnerships and funding programmes.
Andrea Condotta (Gruber Logistics / Vice-Chair of 2ZERO) provided insight into the ongoing restructuring of EU automotive partnerships, which will merge low-emission, digital, and manufacturing streams into a single automotive partnership. He described the shift as an opportunity for logistics stakeholders to influence the design of future vehicles, business models, and infrastructure integration.
From an implementation perspective, Stefanie Van Damme (ALICE) presented the forthcoming Horizon Europe call for large-scale demonstrations of battery-electric trucks, expected to launch at the end of 2025. The call will focus on long-haul cross-border road freight pilots featuring megawatt-charging vehicles, long-haul operations, and coordinated data sharing via a European Data Space on electrification.
Angelo Andoni (ALICE) outlined the large-scale demonstration call under the Cooperative, Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) partnership, expected in 2026. With a budget of €100 million, the initiative will fund three pillars, of which one pillar will focus on logistic demonstration projects addressing automated freight operations in ports, corridors, high-way and logistics hubs, while testing digital and physical infrastructure readiness. The budget foreseen for the logistic pillar is estimated to be around €20 million.
Concluding the session, Isabelle Schnell (Volvo) and Francisca Smith (Université Gustave Eiffel) presented the draft ERTRAC Roadmap, developed in collaboration with ALICE, EUCAR, and ERTRAC. The roadmap sets out research and innovation priorities across five domains – vehicles, energy, infrastructure, digitalisation, and business models – to guide Europe’s transition toward sustainable long-distance freight by 2035. Participants validated early findings through live polling, expressing strong support for automated freight deployment and coordinated investment in charging and digital infrastructure.
The discussion highlighted how collaboration between logistics operators, vehicle manufacturers, and policymakers is essential to turning Europe’s decarbonisation ambitions into operational reality. ALICE members are invited to contribute to the finalisation of the ERTRAC Roadmap, engage in consortium building ahead of the upcoming calls, and stay connected through the ALICE Knowledge Platform and future workshops.
The full workshop report, including detailed figures, policy recommendations, and a complete record of the discussion, is available exclusively to ALICE members via the Knowledge Platform.