Bloomberg Study: China Accelerates with Electric Trucks

The Chinese market for heavy trucks, the largest in the world, saw a dramatic increase in sales of battery-electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel cell trucks in 2021 – albeit from a low base.

We have seen this pattern before in the Chinese bus market. When it became clear that electric buses were a viable option, sales rose from 4,300 in 2013 to over 100,000 in 2018. Nowadays, almost 700,000 electric buses are in operation – about 30% of the fleet. And these e-buses avoid consuming around 230,000 barrels of oil per day. If the same happens with heavy trucks, this should lead to a fundamental discussion about how strong oil demand will be in this segment over the coming decades. (Colin McKerracher, Head of Transportation Analysis at BloombergNEF)

Starting from a low base

With the strong growth figures for electrified trucks at the beginning of the year, it must be noted that the start in 2022 was from a relatively low base. And despite the rising sales, their share of the overall market for heavy trucks is still low and will account for only about 1% of sales in China in 2021. Nevertheless, further development appears to be charted.

My colleagues in our Beijing office are confident that this trend will continue in 2022 and beyond. (McKerracher)

(Exchangeable) Battery Dominates

Also interesting and possibly an indicator of future customer purchasing behavior in Europe: Of the just over 10,000 heavy trucks with alternative drive technologies sold last year, 62% were conventional battery-electric vehicles, 31% were exchangeable battery vehicles, and 7% were fuel cell trucks.

Once China has found the right solutions, it will adjust political support and strongly accelerate the deployment of electrified trucks, BNEF is convinced. When that happens, the speed of transformation could be profound. BNEF's analysis also shows that electric trucks are already nearing cost competitiveness with diesel in urban areas and are expected to reach this in long-distance transport around 2030.

And in Europe?

This transformation process is already in its early stages in Europe as well. Volvo AB, Daimler Trucks, and Volkswagen subsidiary Traton expect that between 35% and 60% of their global sales will be electric and fuel cell vehicles by 2030. In 2020 alone, the three companies sold around 735,000 medium and heavy trucks – out of a global market of 4.6 million units.