Mack Doubles EV Infrastructure Partner Network to Four Providers

Mack Trucks expanded its battery-electric infrastructure program from two providers to four, adding ABM and Lane Valente Industries to the existing roster of InCharge Energy and Heliox. The four companies will offer turnkey charging solutions — site assessment, equipment procurement, installation, and service — for fleets buying Mack's LR Electric refuse chassis and MD Electric medium-duty models.

What does the expanded partner network cost per install?

Mack did not disclose pricing, installation lead times, or service-level agreements for the four providers. Fleet managers evaluating the LR Electric or MD Electric still need to request quotes directly from each partner to compare depot-charging costs — a process that typically surfaces wide variance in DC fast-charger hardware cost (ranging from $50,000 to $150,000 per dispenser depending on power rating and site electrical capacity), utility demand-charge exposure, and ongoing maintenance terms.

The original two partners — InCharge Energy and Heliox — have been supporting Mack EV customers since the LR Electric launched in 2021. InCharge Energy focuses on fleet depot charging and has installed systems for municipal refuse fleets running the LR Electric in California and the Northeast. Heliox manufactures DC fast chargers and has deployed units at transit and refuse depots in North America and Europe.

Who are the two new infrastructure providers?

ABM is a facility-services contractor with a commercial EV charging division that handles site design, permitting, utility interconnection, and charger installation for corporate and municipal fleets. The company has installed charging infrastructure for electric shuttle and transit buses but has not publicly disclosed truck-specific depot projects or uptime data for Class 8 refuse operations.

Lane Valente Industries is a construction and energy-services firm that entered the EV charging market in 2023. The company offers design-build services for fleet charging depots, including electrical upgrades and utility coordination. Lane Valente has not published case studies or performance data for heavy-duty truck charging installations.

Why turnkey matters for small municipal fleets

Municipal refuse fleets — the primary customer base for the Mack LR Electric — often lack in-house electrical engineering staff to scope depot charging projects. A turnkey provider handles the full stack: load calculation to determine whether the existing service panel can support multiple 150 kW or 350 kW chargers, utility interconnection paperwork (which can add six to eighteen months to project timelines in congested metro grids), transformer and switchgear upgrades if the site requires a service increase, charger procurement, installation, commissioning, and post-install service.

The risk for small fleets is that turnkey pricing bundles all those line items into a single quote with limited transparency. A fleet that accepts the first bid may pay 30 to 50 percent more than a fleet that solicits competitive quotes and negotiates utility demand-charge mitigation — such as load-management software that staggers charging to flatten peak draw and avoid monthly demand penalties that can exceed $10,000 per site.

What Mack's EV models require at the depot

The Mack LR Electric uses a 376 kWh battery pack and supports DC fast charging up to 150 kW. A full recharge from 20 percent state of charge takes roughly two hours at 150 kW, or four to five hours on a 50 kW Level 2 charger. Refuse routes typically run 60 to 80 miles per day, well within the LR Electric's 120-mile range, so most fleets charge overnight on Level 2 and reserve DC fast charging for midday top-ups or backup.

The MD Electric — Mack's Class 6 and Class 7 cab-over model launched in 2023 — uses a smaller battery (up to 266 kWh depending on configuration) and also supports DC fast charging. Delivery and utility fleets running the MD Electric on urban routes of 100 miles or less typically install one DC fast charger per five trucks and rely on Level 2 for the rest of the fleet.

Both models require depot electrical infrastructure capable of simultaneous charging if the fleet plans to electrify more than two or three trucks. A ten-truck LR Electric fleet charging overnight on 50 kW Level 2 units draws 500 kW at peak — equivalent to adding a small industrial facility to the site's electrical load. Fleets in older urban depots with 200-amp or 400-amp service panels face five-figure utility service upgrades before the first charger goes in.

No disclosed uptime guarantees or parts-availability terms

Mack's announcement did not specify whether the four infrastructure partners commit to uptime service-level agreements or stock replacement parts locally. Charger downtime is the top operational risk cited by early EV fleet adopters: a single failed dispenser can strand multiple trucks if the depot has no backup charging capacity, and replacement circuit boards for DC fast chargers often ship from overseas with lead times of four to eight weeks.

Fleets evaluating the expanded partner network should ask each provider for uptime guarantees (typically 95 to 98 percent for commercial charger networks), mean time to repair, and whether critical spares — contactors, power modules, charging cables — are warehoused within a two-day ship radius of the depot.

What this means for Mack EV buyers

Doubling the infrastructure partner count gives Mack LR Electric and MD Electric customers more quotes to compare and potentially faster installation if one provider has near-term crew availability. But the lack of disclosed pricing, lead times, or performance benchmarks means fleet managers still carry the full due-diligence burden — requesting itemized bids, checking references from existing customers, and negotiating warranty and service terms that Mack itself does not standardize across the four providers.

Fleets that skip competitive bidding or accept the first turnkey quote risk paying materially more for depot charging infrastructure than the truck itself costs to operate over five years. The expanded partner network is a step toward easier EV adoption, but only if buyers treat each provider's proposal with the same skepticism they apply to a used-truck listing.