On August 22, 2023, Volvo Trucks North America announced the launch of its Turnkey Charging Solutions program with two selected full-service partners: InCharge Energy and Gilbarco Veeder-Root. The program would be available to all Volvo Trucks North America customers purchasing electric vehicles.
The program provided a holistic fleet management process for developing EV charging infrastructure alongside truck purchases. Volvo positioned it as simplifying the transition to electric heavy-duty commercial vehicles by offering coordinated truck and charging infrastructure procurement through approved partners.
For InCharge, the selection represented competitive validation in the heavy-duty commercial trucking sector. Being chosen as one of only two partners alongside Gilbarco Veeder-Root—an established player in fuel dispensing and fleet management systems—positioned InCharge as a credible enterprise-scale infrastructure provider.
Volvo's decision to launch with exactly two partners rather than a broader vendor ecosystem suggested deliberate quality control. The OEM needed partners capable of handling complex depot planning, high-power charging installations, utility coordination, and ongoing service across North America. The program made Volvo's sales team accountable for the complete electrification solution, not just the trucks, which required high confidence in partner capabilities.
The announcement didn't specify technical requirements, pricing structures, or exclusive territory arrangements. It established InCharge as an approved vendor within Volvo's sales channel but left implementation details to be worked out between Volvo dealers, customers, and the charging partners.
Competing for Tier-1 OEM Relationships
This partnership reveals what it takes to become an approved vendor in a major OEM's channel program.
Volvo needed partners who could operate at scale across North America, manage complex utility interconnections, handle permitting and construction coordination, and provide ongoing service with uptime guarantees. These requirements eliminated most charging companies—startups with limited geographic coverage, companies without in-house engineering capabilities, and vendors that only provided hardware without full service.
Being selected alongside Gilbarco Veeder-Root is telling. Gilbarco had decades of experience in commercial fuel dispensing, existing relationships with fleet operators, nationwide service networks, and experience navigating industrial equipment installations. InCharge was competing against that incumbent advantage.
The product management insight is about enterprise sales in infrastructure markets: technical capability is table stakes, but operational execution determines who gets selected. Volvo wasn't evaluating charger specifications—they were evaluating whether a partner could handle a customer in Detroit, another in California, and a third in Texas simultaneously while maintaining consistent service quality.
InCharge's path to this partnership likely involved demonstrating several specific capabilities: existing multi-state deployments, utility relationships in major markets, 24/7 service operations, financial stability to support project financing, and references from comparable heavy-duty fleet customers. The ABB ownership (established in January 2022) probably mattered here—it signaled financial backing and connected InCharge to ABB's existing commercial relationships with large fleet operators.
The two-partner structure also limited InCharge's leverage. With only one alternative, Volvo could negotiate favorable terms and maintain price competition. If InCharge's pricing or service quality faltered, Volvo had an immediate fallback option. The partnership provided market access but not exclusivity.
The timing—August 2023—aligned with Volvo's VNR Electric truck production ramping up and customers making purchase decisions. Volvo needed charging solutions in place before truck deliveries, which meant the partner selection process likely started months earlier with extensive evaluation and pilot deployments.
For customers, the program reduced procurement complexity. Rather than separately sourcing trucks and charging infrastructure, they could work through Volvo's channel with pre-vetted partners. This mattered for fleet operators without in-house EV expertise who wanted a single point of accountability rather than coordinating multiple vendors.
Further Reading:
For analysis of commercial vehicle electrification and infrastructure requirements, see research from Dr. Venkat Viswanathan at Carnegie Mellon University on battery systems for heavy-duty transportation and the systems-level integration challenges in commercial fleet electrification.