Electric Trucks Have Moved From Impossible to Inevitable

Electric trucks once considered impossible have now become inevitable in the transportation industry. Heavy-duty vehicles that were previously thought to require diesel, hydrogen, or renewable liquid fuels are now being powered by zero-emission batteries. According to data from the International Council on Clean Transportation, global sales of these vehicles increased by 86% in 2025, reaching over 520,000 units.

China accounted for nearly 90% of these sales, but the European market also saw a significant rise, with zero-emission trucks accounting for 4.5% of new sales compared to 2.5% in previous years. The share of battery-electric buses increased from 18.5% to 24.8%. While the absolute numbers are still small compared to the global diesel fleet, the shift is clear.

Electric heavy transport has moved from a technical possibility to commercial scaling. The question now is whether the necessary infrastructure can keep up with the demand. China has already broken the weight-and-range argument, selling approximately 457,300 zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in 2025, with battery-electric trucks alone reaching nearly 240,000 units, a more than doubling from the previous year.

Battery-electric models captured nearly 30% of China's heavy-truck market. The expansion in China can be attributed to policy support, competitive battery supply chains, and practical battery swapping in industries like mining and ports. However, policy alone cannot explain the rapid adoption. Commercial truck operators prioritize utilization, energy costs, maintenance, payload, and downtime.

When economic viability is compromised, trucks lose their appeal despite their green label. Advancements in battery prices and performance have changed the economic equation. Average battery prices fell by 8% in 2025, while battery demand for electric trucks more than doubled. Lithium iron phosphate batteries have improved durability, reduced dependence on nickel and cobalt, and increased range without a proportional increase in weight.

China's electric trucks have already achieved total-cost-of-ownership parity with diesel in several applications, and Europe is expected to reach similar parity by around 2030. Fuel cells, once presented as a natural zero-emission solution for heavy transport, are losing market ground. While technically feasible, commercially, batteries are outpacing them.

In 2024, the EU fleet had over 15,000 battery-electric trucks but only around 170 hydrogen trucks, with approximately 7,500 new battery trucks registered compared to just 106 hydrogen models. The gap is even wider in buses, with 6,600 new battery-electric buses versus 113 hydrogen buses. Across the broader European bus market, about 11,607 battery-electric buses were registered compared to 558 fuel-cell buses.

Hydrogen's growth is limited in some municipal fleets, but batteries outsold it by over twenty to one. Manufacturers are following the same trend, with more than 100 battery-electric truck models available in the EU in 2024 compared to around 20 fuel-cell models. The reason is not just vehicle cost. Producing, compressing, or liquefying green hydrogen, transporting, and dispensing it for conversion back into electricity in the vehicle is far more complex and expensive than using a battery, which uses electricity directly.

Hydrogen stations are expensive and underutilized when fleet sizes are small, keeping fuel prices high and delaying scale. Fuel cells may find niches where extreme range, remote operation, or very high utilization make charging difficult, but the growing electric market is shifting the burden of proof. Hydrogen is no longer the presumed winner for heavy transport, but a specialist alternative struggling to keep pace with the scaling electric market.

Renewable diesel and hydrotreated vegetable oil offer a different advantage by reducing emissions from existing diesel vehicles without requiring fleet replacement or charging infrastructure. However, they preserve the central weakness of combustion – the operator must continue purchasing fuel, and they compete for limited sustainable biomass supplies, including used cooking oil, animal fats, and vegetable oils.

Despite recent oil-market disruptions narrowing the price gap, European hydrotreated vegetable oil has traded at roughly twice the price of fossil diesel. The IEA projects global biofuel use to more than double by 2030, but this would still account for only around 6% of current global oil supply. While electricity is not unlimited, and grids require significant investment, renewable power can expand every year without waiting for another harvest of waste oils.

Electric drivetrains use this energy far more efficiently than converting biomass or renewable electricity.