Germany leads electric charge

Registrations of new electric trucks grew by 42.1 per cent in 2020 compared to the previous year, and it was Germany providing the lion's share of the momentum.

While the percentage growth came off a relatively small base – there were 1059 electrically-chargeable vehicles (ECVs) registered in the European Union last year, compared to 745 in the year before – it signifies that the uptake of electric trucks is increasing apace.

That trend should only accelerate as the technology improves, infrastructure rolls out and European markets intensify their efforts to realise their sustainability ambitions.

Germany accounted for 852 of those 1059 electric trucks registered in the EU last year, or 80.4% of the total, followed by Romania (76 trucks) and the Netherlands (41 trucks). Falling outside of the EU, other notable nations included the UK (189 trucks) and Switzerland (50 trucks).

Registrations of new hybrid electric trucks grew by 31.5% last year, from 267 trucks in 2019 to 351 trucks in 2020, while registrations of alternative-fuel trucks – 99% of which run on natural gas – rose by 5.8%, from 6485 trucks to 6861.

All up, some 8271 electric, hybrid electric or alternative-fuel trucks were registered in the EU in 2020. That figure is of course dwarfed by the 226,150 new diesel trucks registered, which itself represents a drop of 25.5% from the 303,393 trucks registered in 2019, courtesy of the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While there were still 12 EU nations that didn't register a single electric truck last year, the rise of battery-electric, fuel-cell electric and other alternative-fuel trucks only looks set to continue.

Volvo will offer a full range of electric trucks in Europe this year, Scania rolled out volume-production electric and hybrid models last year and Daimler is hard at work on electric and fuel-cell truck models too, even entering into a joint venture with Volvo Group to accelerate fuel cell R&D.

Meanwhile Fuso's eCanter is already widely available and Hino is collaborating with TRATON (VW, Scania and MAN) to further their e-mobility interests, while Hyundai recently put its first volume-production XCIENT fuel-cell trucks into service in Switzerland.