Driving towards zero emission freight: The outlook for electrification in the European trucking sector

Sales of commercial EVs have risen steadily in Europe over the past three years but are still heavily skewed towards small vans with a gross weight of less than 2.5 tonnes. With further advances in battery technologies, we expect sales of e-trucks to accelerate rapidly in the light and medium truck segments but to continue to lag for heavy trucks over 16 tonnes. As heavy trucking dominates overall freight movements, and hence fuel consumption, the challenge remains on how best to decarbonise the European commercial road sector. This insight presents our base case outlook for fuel demand in the European commercial road sector. It explores the outlook for e-trucks in the various segments and how this will impact on European oil demand.