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How Truck Electrification Varies With Weight and Application

Numerous barriers and challenges have made trucks (both medium and heavy-duty) more difficult to electrify than lighter vehicle segments. However, within these categories, some considerations make specific applications more easily electrifiable with current technologies, while other applications will require further improvements to electric vehicle (EV) technologies to become viable.

IDTechEx’s new report, “Electric and Fuel Cell Trucks 2025-2045: Technologies, Markets, Forecasts,” forecasts and analyzes the unit sales, physical requirements, market value, and different technologies of electric medium—and heavy-duty trucks.

Medium-Duty Trucks to Electrify Faster

Owing to their lower overall weight (approximately 3.5-16 tonnes in Europe, Class 4-7 in the US) compared to their heavy-duty counterparts, medium-duty trucks are generally easier to electrify. Batteries for trucks typically weigh multiple tonnes, increasing the vehicle’s overall weight and making propulsion more challenging.

At the same time, the energy density limitations in EV batteries also create a bottleneck in terms of the range the battery can achieve. Therefore, each application should have an ‘ideal’ battery capacity, accounting for daily duty cycles, available charging infrastructure, and payload requirements.

With a smaller average battery capacity than heavy-duty trucks, MW charging is not necessarily required to fit charging into truck drivers’ mandated break times.

The primary appeal of fuel cell trucks is the superior energy density of hydrogen fuel compared to Li-ion battery packs.

However, because medium-duty trucks are generally not used as much for long-haul journeys and have lesser range, payload, and charging time requirements, IDTechEx expects them to electrify faster than heavy-duty trucks. By 2045, over 50% of new medium-duty truck sales will be battery electric.

In 2024, fewer than 2% of new medium-duty truck sales were battery electric. Fuel cell trucks will also play a part in this sector, with almost 10% of new sales in 2045, primarily focused in regions such as China, California, and Japan, where heavy investments are being placed in hydrogen refueling infrastructure.

The medium-duty electric truck market is forecast to grow from 22,000 Sales in 2024 to over 650,000 in 2045—Source: IDTechEx.
Heavy-Duty Trucks Vary in Challenge and Application

Generally, trucks can be split up into five main application categories: distribution, waste, regional transport, construction, and long haul.

Distribution trucks primarily operate in urban areas and transport goods such as groceries and retail. These trucks are likely to enter low/zero-emission city regions, which have increased in recent years and exist in London, Amsterdam, and Berlin, among many others.

Since these trucks operate over a smaller area, they usually cover less distance per day than other heavy-duty trucks.

With a higher density of EV chargers in urban areas and fossil fuel vehicle bans in cities, IDTechEx expects initial electrification of heavy-duty trucks to begin with local distribution trucks. Waste collection trucks operate under similar conditions and rarely at full load.

Urban waste collection trucks will also be one of the first heavy-duty truck applications to electrify, with numerous deployments in the UK, Germany, China, and the US already as of January 2025.

Trucks used for regional transport vary in payload and range requirements. The key considerations for this vehicle segment are the distance between regional centers and the availability of on-route charging. The current landscape of charging infrastructure, including the deployments of MW chargers in 2024, with plenty more expected in 2025, will drive electrification for such vehicles.

While grid upgrades are a likely requirement for trucks charging in less than one hour, regional centers and hubs with a large volume of trucks stopping and passing can become the focus of initial investment to accelerate growth.

Construction work requires the transportation of heavy goods between building sites, factories, and distribution centers. Therefore, many trucks will operate at high payloads for at least a portion of their operating time. In addition, some construction sites are difficult to reach. An on-site fuel tank can refuel internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

The lack of reliable grid power for chargers in remote locations can pose a challenge for BE trucks with a lower range than an ICE equivalent. Off-grid charging solutions, portable EV chargers, and diesel generators are all potential solutions to provide the necessary electrical power, but all come with challenges. Electric trucks remain challenging to integrate in remote locations and operations where sites move around.

However, with effective operations planning and improvements in charging infrastructure and off-grid chargers, IDTechEx expects EVs to penetrate this sector, initially at a slower rate than waste collection, regional transport, and distribution trucks.

Long-Haul Trucks to Remain a Challenge for Battery Electric Trucks

Long-haul trucks drive hundreds or potentially over a thousand miles daily. They transfer goods, often in heavy loads, across different terrain and borders and can drive for over 10 hours daily. Even accounting for forecasted improvements in battery energy density, long-haul trucks are by far the most challenging on-road vehicle type to electrify.

Current battery technologies are unlikely to achieve the required range for these applications, making reliance on the development of charging infrastructure and, most importantly, MW charging vital to yield the necessary daily mileage for long-haul trucking. MW charging will allow charging to fit into the approximately 30-45 minutes of break time a truck driver typically receives.

With MW charging still in its pilot stages as of January 2025, IDTechEx believes that heavy-duty, long-haul trucks are where fuel-cell trucks could emerge as a zero-emissions solution. Currently, battery-electric dominates all zero-emission vehicle segments, with fuel cell cars notably shrinking in the little volume they had in the past two years. However, refueling a fuel cell truck would usually fit comfortably into a 30-minute break.

Furthermore, hydrogen’s high gravimetric energy density as a fuel means that a fuel cell vehicle’s range and potential payload advantage make the most sense for heavy-duty, long-haul trucks.

IDTechEx forecasts that by 2045, almost 20% of heavy-duty electric truck sales will be from fuel cell vehicles, of which trucks used for long-haul applications will make up a significant proportion.

IDTechEx’s new report, “Electric and Fuel Cell Trucks 2025-2045: Technologies, Markets, Forecasts,” provides further analysis of the markets and requirements for battery electric and fuel cell medium—and heavy-duty trucks.

Hassan Soukar

Hassan Soukar is a veteran automotive, and tech journalist, as well as a professional photographer. A man with a keen sense for innovation and a great sense of humour. He is the pro that reviews the latest gadgets from smartphones and VR headsets to fitness bands. Hassan has a generous number of lists, reviews and latest industry leaks.

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