Electric commercial vehicles have the potential to help mitigate climate change and reduce air pollution. The European Green Deal strategy excludes zero-emission trucks, and current national recovery programmes incorrectly assume that the only short-term technology is new efficient diesel trucks. However, for the majority of urban and regional delivery applications, battery electric trucks are already commercially available, technically and economically appealing, and provide significant environmental benefits, making them the preferred technological pathway for these applications.
Half of the total truck activity in the EU (in tonnes.km, a good proxy for CO 2 emissions) is driven over less than 300 km. These trips could now be covered by electric trucks, thanks to new models on the market that have a range of about 300 kilometres (enough to cover nine trips out of ten). However, limited supply and a lack of charging strategy are currently slowing adoption. The available range of electric trucks is expected to quickly increase to 500 km, covering roughly two-thirds of the kilometres and 19 trips out of 20.
T&E introduces a new concept in this report, demonstrating that with the right policy and charging infrastructure, a large number of trucks can be electrified right now. Based on EU truck traffic flows, it provides a quantitative analysis of how much charging infrastructure electric trucks will require over the next decade to electrify urban and regional delivery.
