China’s next EV boom: trucks

China’s e-truck boom is already having — and will continue to have — profound, tangible domestic and global impact, as well as significant symbolic value.

For one, as Zhao put it, China has proven to the world that decarbonizing trucks at scale is possible. Heavy trucks form the backbone of a country’s economy, but are particularly hard to decarbonize, not only because they have high energy requirements, but also because their owners are often extremely sensitive to price fluctuations and are reluctant to commit to major cost outlays for untested technology. The sheer size of a truck’s battery can also limit the amount of goods it can carry, potentially eating into company profits.

“They are a different ballgame to passenger cars when it comes to electrification,” Mao Shiyue, a Beijing-based researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation, told Semafor.

Domestically, the growth of the Chinese e-truck sector helps the country’s battery manufacturers cement their dominance by building a new sector for them to expand into. It also drives firms across the supply chain to develop more efficient charging systems, and incentivizes the development of homegrown AI-enabled driving systems.

As with other EVs, China’s e-truck boom has benefited from a huge domestic market and tight-knit supply chains. But at the heart of the advancement is the country’s war against air pollution.

Since 2020, the central government has required factories in key industries, such as steel, cement, and coal power, to use a certain percentage of new-energy heavy trucks or face production restrictions on heavily polluted days. Beijing also introduced generous purchase subsidies to incentivize companies to trade in diesel trucks for electric ones, helping drive sales.

It is a combination of market size, relentless domestic competition, and long-term policy support. Truck manufacturers have gleaned from that experience, and are now starting to expand to overseas markets like EV makers before them. Sany Group, a major Chinese manufacturer for heavy machinery, has opened an industrial park in South Africa to make electric trucks. It has also established a bank in Brazil, SANY Banco, to help customers finance their e-trucks. And EV giant BYD is expanding its factory in western Hungary to boost production of electric buses and trucks for Europe.

The energy impact of this shift cannot be understated, particularly in a country that is the world’s biggest importer of fossil fuels, that maintains the world’s largest highway network, and where road freight accounts for nearly three-quarters of all freight by volume. By 2030, the rollout of e-trucks will lead to a 20% drop in Chinese diesel demand compared to current levels, Rystad Energy projected, accelerating an oil demand decline. (Mao, the ICCT researcher, was more cautious: “This will not happen overnight,” he told me.)

In January, 16,100 new-energy heavy trucks were sold in China, more than double the number from the same period last year, according to CV World, a Beijing-based outlet tracking the commercial vehicle sector. The overall sales remain small compared to the millions of passenger EVs that BYD, for example, sells every year, and represent a tiny fraction of the nine million trucks on China’s roads.

But the figures — driven by companies such as Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group, Sany Group, and China National Heavy Duty Truck Group — dwarf those of international competitors: The total number of e-trucks Volvo sold worldwide between 2019 and late 2025 was 5,700.

As lithium-ion battery prices plunge, e-trucks are becoming more economically viable, while China’s low electricity prices mean their day-to-day use is significantly cheaper than internal-combustion engine counterparts. One estimate showed that the per-kilometer fuel cost of an e-truck in China was just one-third of its diesel counterpart, so even though an e-truck costs twice as much, the difference can be offset in about two years.

Breakneck innovation means that e-truck ranges have also increased greatly. A typical 49-ton e-truck, often tasked with carrying garbage or working inside a port, can travel 200 to 300 kilometers (125 to185 miles) on a single charge, enough to cover several trips.

Dedicated charging networks for trucks, known as “green corridors,” have mushroomed along highways. One of the longest, built by Shanghai-based Qiyuan Green Power, entered into service in December, links the eastern port city of Tianjin and the northwestern industrial region of Gansu with 27 charging stations along the 2,200-kilometer (1,350-mile) journey.

CATL, the Chinese company that is the world’s dominant EV battery manufacturer, has, meanwhile, developed a swapping technology that allows an e-truck to exchange its drained battery for a fully-charged one in five minutes. The firm has built more than 300 charging stations to deliver the technology across China.

Challenges remain, though: Trucks operating short and fixed routes have spearheaded the transition, but long-haul trucks that cover up to 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) a day face hurdles, namely insufficient range and battery capacity. Their conversion is “highly challenging,” Xue Lulu, a senior associate at World Resources Institute China, told Semafor.