Decarbonising heavy-duty road transport: State of the enabling conditions

Europe’s truck and bus manufacturers are driving the continent’s green transition, with a broad and continuously growing range of zero-emission models now available for all use cases ranging from city distribution to long-haul transport. Yet, the market uptake of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) currently remains too slow, too concentrated, and too fragmented across member states to set the sector firmly on track to meeting the EU’s 2030 CO2 reduction targets.

ACEA’s report on the state of the enabling conditions for heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) shows that most of the necessary enabling conditions, from truck-suitable infrastructure and grid access to cost parity for ZEVs, remain bottlenecks in the race for HDV decarbonisation.

In the first half of 2025, zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty trucks represented just 3.6% of new registrations across the EU, up from 2.1% in 2024. Almost four out of five of these vehicles were registered in only five markets namely Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, and France. Notably, two non-EU countries, Switzerland and Norway, outperform EU peers because of more favourable enabling conditions. To comply with the 2030 CO2 target, Europe will need roughly 400,000 zero-emission trucks on the road by the end of the decade. By then, at least one out of every three new trucks must be zero-emission every year.

According to ACEA data, which is supported by other similar assessments, only about 1,100 public charging points (of 350kW and above) across Europe are suitable for heavy-duty trucks. This is only a fraction of what is needed. To power the required fleet by 2030, around 50,000 publicly accessible HDV chargers, including 35,000 Megawatt Charging System (MCS) chargers, and at least 700 hydrogen refuelling stations (with 6 tonnes per day capacity) will be needed. Although most of today’s truck charging occurs in depots, public and semi-public chargers are essential to unlock a rapid market uptake of long-haul trucks.

Favourable total costs of ownership (TCO) for ZEVs are another crucial challenge. Heavy-duty transport operators run on razor-thin margins, and without robust business cases across all segments, fleet operators will struggle to switch. Today, the TCO of zero-emission trucks are more expensive than conventional diesel in far too many use cases and member states, and depend on supportive policy measures. While targeted policies, like CO2-differentiated road tolls (Eurovignette), fiscal incentives, and the upcoming ETS2 will help narrow the gap, these measures are not yet implemented or remain insufficient to firmly drive demand. The lack of progress on essential policy files, notably the Weights and Dimensions Directive, the Energy Taxation Directive, and others further limits ZEV market uptake.

ACEA’s analysis makes clear that achieving Europe’s climate ambitions for heavy-duty road transport depends on well-coordinated, coherent, and decisive action. Manufacturers are delivering the vehicles, but policy frameworks, infrastructure deployment, and cost-competitiveness measures lag behind. Unless the missing conditions are urgently addressed, from grid readiness to widely implemented toll incentives and many others, the EU risks falling short of its 2030 targets. Decarbonising heavy-duty road transport requires all stakeholders to match the ambition already shown by and set for Europe’s HDV manufacturers.