Lukas Lukoschek, co-founder of Kabisa, discusses how electric trucks can reduce freight emissions, improve air quality, and lower operating costs. He also explores the challenges of electrifying freight transportation and how Kabisa is expanding electric vehicle adoption and charging infrastructure across East Africa.
Freight corridors are designated pathways used for the transportation of commercial goods. Billions of tons of cargo are transported around the world via freight corridors each year and this number is continuing to climb with the increasing popularity of e-commerce and home delivery services. Currently, freight transportation makes up 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and this number is expected to double by 2050. Switching from powering freight transportation with diesel to electricity can help cut down on these emissions.
Compared to other freight transportation methods, like ships and trains, trucks create the most emissions. They can emit more than 100 times more carbon dioxide than ships that carry the same amount of goods and travel the same distance. Due to this, trucks are the cause of 65 percent of freight emissions, despite carrying less than a fourth of the world’s cargo.
Other than carbon dioxide, diesel trucks also emit black carbon, which is the black plume of smoke that comes from a truck’s tailpipe. Black carbon is another kind of climate pollutant and is linked to the fast melting of ice-covered areas, like glaciers, as well as health problems in humans. These health issues disproportionately impact low income communities and communities of color due to their proximity to major highways, freight depots, and ports.
In 2019, approximately 91 percent of America’s transportation was dependent on oil and transportation was responsible for 70 percent of all U.S. petroleum consumption. Oil prices tend to be more susceptible to fluctuations than electricity, which has historically had lower and more stable prices. Electric trucks also have zero tailpipe emissions, like carbon dioxide and black carbon. This can play an important role in helping the environment and improving air quality, especially around major cities, highways, and ports.
Despite common misconception, electric trucks are now able to meet the demands of freight operations as stated by the North American Council for Freight Efficiency. A battery electric truck can drive 465 miles on a single charge and can cover 3,676 miles in 18 days while spending only 13 percent of its time charging. Many companies, like Volvo, Daimler, and Scania, are continuing to work on improving electric trucks for long-haul transportation and private investors, like Kabisa, have been installing more charging infrastructure for freight fleets. Since 2022, large operators like Amazon, UPS, and FedEx have begun successfully rolling out thousands of electric delivery vans and freight movement trucks and in 2025 sales of electric heavy freight trucks almost tripled.
This real-world performance data establishes that electric trucks are suitable for freight use. Electric trucks also have lower operational costs than diesel trucks, with heavy-duty electric vehicles reducing operating costs by 25 percent when compared to diesel and medium-duty electric vehicles reducing operating costs by 50 percent.
Despite the benefits, the adoption of electric trucks remains slow, with electric trucks only encompassing 1.1 percent of new heavy-duty trucks sold in Europe as of 2024. According to the Hewlett Foundation, high upfront costs for new electric vehicles and charging infrastructure are the biggest barriers to electrification. The initial investment in electric trucks can be two to three times that of traditional diesel trucks. This high cost is largely due to expensive batteries. Luckily, the prices of batteries are dropping and have decreased by approximately 87 percent from 2010 to 2019. The cost of batteries is projected to decline even further over the following years while their changing speeds are continuing to improve.
Various components other than batteries, like electric motors and system management devices for electric trucks, also pose cost challenges. However, their prices are also predicted to decrease as manufacturing efficiency of electric trucks continues to increase. On top of the high cost of new electric vehicles, the U.S. also has a 12 percent excise tax on the sale of new heavy-duty trucks. This can add an additional $21,000 to the cost of purchasing new trucks and trailers.
Electric charging infrastructure is a second major barrier to the adoption of electric trucks. Installing new charging stations takes a lot of time, money, and careful planning. The creation of electric charging infrastructure is currently much more complex than installing diesel fueling stations. Without sufficient charging infrastructure, demand for electric trucks remains low and with low demand, investment in charging infrastructure is slow to increase. Charging larger class vehicles can also require several hours, which is inconvenient and impractical.
The trucking industry and freight operations have long been designed with diesel trucks in mind. The diesel truck market is also a lot more mature than the electric truck market, which means there are more diesel truck options on the market to choose from than electric trucks. Electric trucks can also require more specialized equipment and technicians for maintenance and repairs than diesel trucks, although electric trucks tend to have lower maintenance requirements and experience fewer mechanical failures than their diesel counterparts.
Lukoschek co-founded Kabisa to address some of these challenges facing the electrification of freight transportation. Kabisa is a company that operates in East Africa, in countries like Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, and specializes in the sale and lease of electric vehicles. Kabisa is also working on installing more public charging infrastructure and provides specialized maintenance services for electric trucks. With Kabisa, Lukoschek hopes to create a reliable public charging network in East Africa to push the region towards electrification and sustainability.
Lukas Lukoschek is the co-founder and CFO of Kabisa and is passionate about tech solutions that help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. He has an MBA from Harvard University and has worked as an Engineer and Entrepreneur in the Energy industry. Previously, Lukoschek founded a solar mini-grid company operating in Africa and Asia.
Ethan : I’m Ethan Elkind, and you’re listening to Climate Break – climate solutions in a hurry. Today’s proposal? Transitioning East Africa’s diesel freight trucks to battery electric models. We caught up with Lukas Lukoschek, co-founder and CFO of electric truck company Kabisa, at New York City Climate Week.
Lukas : In East Africa, you have two main freight corridors, the northern corridor and central corridor, where over 15,000 diesel trucks are currently operating, and we are working on electrifying all these trucks.
Ethan : Freight corridors like in East Africa move commercial goods, and globally make up about 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the high costs of imported fossil fuels in this region are now making electric trucks cheaper to operate than diesel alternatives.
Lukas : The biggest challenge we have to overcome is just the perception of EVs. People are worried about battery degradation, people are worried about, uh, charging times, um, of course, range anxiety is still a big topic. Even though a lot of these, um, sort of fears are not founded in reality. And so, we are working, um, with early adopters to actually showcase that sort of the move to electric transport is a much easier step than they think.
Ethan : Long term, Lukoschek hopes to expand outside of East Africa.
Lukas : What really sort of made the East-African e-mobility market explode is, having a very clear, sort of policy that, uh, incentivizes EV adoption. So across East Africa, we have lower importation costs of electric vehicles as well as low electricity costs when charging electric.
Ethan : To learn more about Kabisa and electrifying Africa’s diesel trucks, visit climatebreak.org.
For a transcript of this episode, please visit https://climatebreak.org/electrifying-freight-with-lukas-lukoschek/
Ethan : I’m Ethan Elkind, and you’re listening to Climate Break – climate solutions in a hurry. Today’s proposal? Transitioning East Africa’s diesel freight trucks to battery electric models. We caught up with Lukas Lukoschek, co-founder and CFO of electric truck company Kabisa, at New York City Climate Week.
Lukas : So, in East Africa, you have two main freight corridors, the northern corridor and central corridor, where over 15,000 diesel trucks are currently operating, and we are working on electrifying all these trucks.
Ethan : Freight corridors like in East Africa move commercial goods, and globally make up about 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the high costs of imported fossil fuels in this region are now making electric trucks cheaper to operate than diesel alternatives.
Lukas : The biggest challenge we have to overcome is just the perception of EVs. People are worried about battery degradation, people are worried about charging times, of course, range anxiety is still a big topic. Even though a lot of these, um, sort of fears are not founded in reality. We are working with early adopters to actually showcase that sort-of the move to electric transport is a much easier step than they think.
Lukas : Hopefully as early as, uh, next year, we wanna expand beyond East Africa. What really sort of made the East Africa and e-mobility market explode is, having very clear, sort of policy that, uh, incentivizes EV adoption. So across East Africa, we have lower importation costs of electric vehicles as well as low electricity costs when charging electric.
Ethan : To learn more about Kabisa and electrifying Africa’s diesel trucks, visit climatebreak.org.