Cost competitiveness of alternative heavy-duty truck technologies under real-world utilisation profiles.

Authors

Johanna Hoppe, Falko Ueckerdt, Patrick Plötz, Steffen Link, Daniel Speth, Bastian Weißenburger, Pei Zhao, Robert Pietzcker

Published in

Nature communications. Volume 17. Issue 1. Aug 08, 2026. Epub Aug 08, 2026.

Abstract

Road freight transport is essential to modern economies, yet its decarbonization remains challenging. While previous studies often focused on average-duty or long-haul applications, the logistics sector is highly heterogeneous, spanning a wide range of truck usage patterns. This study assesses the economic viability of battery electric trucks (BETs) and fuel cell electric trucks (FCETs) using microdata from four million trucks across Europe. Under baseline assumptions for cost and technical maturity, BETs outperform diesel trucks in total cost of ownership for 70-90% of heavy-duty road freight activity by 2030. When accounting for limited charging infrastructure until 2030, 25% of kilometres, corresponding to 19% of vehicles, remain economically and technically feasible-substantially higher than the 5-9% share of the total truck fleet expected under the 2030 EU CO₂ standards. By 2035, infrastructure roll-out and improved costs increase the share of kilometres to 77%. In contrast, the window for FCET cost-competitiveness is narrow.

PMID:
42570945
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 09 Aug 2026.

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