Decarbonizing the European Union’s (EU) road freight sector will require a significant share of zero-emission trucks (ZET), covering a wide spectrum of trucking applications, from last-mile delivery to long-haul cross-border heavy trucks. In 2024, over 14,000 ZETs were registered, of which 3,400 were heavy trucks with gross vehicle weight (GVW) above 12 tonnes, representing 1.2% of heavy truck sales. Light- and medium-duty trucks below 12 tonnes recorded a 10% ZET market share in 2024, a significant increase from the 6% shares in 2023 (Mulholland & Ragon, 2025). This increase in ZETs sales has been mainly driven by the EU heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) CO2 standards Regulation (EU) 2024/1610, where the last review of the regulation – conducted in May 2024 - mandates a 45% reduction in CO2 emissions relative to 2019, a target truck manufacturers can only reach by ramping up their sales of ZETs.

Battery-electric trucks (BET) are expected to dominate the sales of ZETs due to their technology maturity and superior economic performance. The expected BET fleet will require an extensive charging infrastructure network to cover the fleet’s energy needs. To this end, the EU issued Regulation (EU) 2023/1804, referred to as the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR), to ensure minimum infrastructure support for alternative fuel vehicles. The AFIR is expected to be reviewed before the end of 2026, providing an opportunity to assess if the charging infrastructure targets are enough to accommodate the expected BET fleet by 2030.

This study estimates the needed charging infrastructure by 2030. The methodology is mainly composed of two main parts: (1) truck fleet sales and stocks analysis where the total annual sales and stocks of electric trucks are calculated, and (2) truck charging infrastructure needs assessment based on the energy needs, the charging infrastructure needs are estimated considering truck charging patterns and infrastructure utilization. By 2030, the analysis shows that more than 330,000 battery-electric trucks will be running on the European road network, distributed over light, medium, and heavy-duty trucks. Given this BET stock, close to 70,000 public chargers will be needed to cover the fleet energy and power needs, out of which 4,000 are MegaWatt chargers, 9,000 are fast DC chargers at 350 kW, and the rest are overnight chargers around 50 - 100 kW. In addition, the analysis shows that based on truck traffic data, some European countries like Germany, Poland, and Belgium are expected to host close to 40% of those chargers.

The analysis serves to inform experts and policymakers about the charging needs for battery-electric trucks in the EU, given the differences between European countries.