There are no signs on North America’s heavy-duty trucking highway of diesel being displaced as freight’s main driver anytime soon. If ever.
However, electrification continues to make inroads in the difficult-to-decarbonize long-haul trucking sector.
It is also gaining momentum in other vehicle categories elsewhere in the world, especially China.
As the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global EV Outlook 2025 notes, EV car sales are on a roll.
More than 17 million EVs were sold in 2024. That, according to the IEA, gives EVs a 20% market share.
Progress indeed, considering that, as the report points out, the additional 3.5 million electric cars sold in 2024 compared with 2023 is more than 2020’s total EV sales.
The IEA projects global EV car sales to hit 20 million – a quarter of the market – in 2025.
China is the runaway leader in EV sales and production.
EVs accounted for roughly 50% of its domestic car sales in 2024. According to the IEA report, one in 10 cars in China is now electric.
China is also the world’s EV manufacturing hub; more than 70% of EVs are made there.
How has China built such a big EV market lead?
For starters: price range and model options offered. Add in government focus, ruthless labour pool exploitation and anti-competitive market distortion, along with ambitious air pollution reduction targets.
Western manufacturing complacency, inefficiency and blind allegiance to traditional internal combustion engine technology have also accelerated China’s EV domination.
Geopolitical turmoil, trade and tariff conflicts, especially in the United States, have slowed EV sales and adoption. For example, April numbers compiled by automotive services company Cox Automotive show EV sales down 5.6% year over year.
But the IEA predicts that EVs will capture sales market shares of 40% worldwide and 80% in China by 2030.
However, electrification is nowhere near those percentages in the commercial trucking sector.
Hauling freight long distances in a competitive, low-margin business complicates the vehicle electrification equation. Those complications include battery size, range restrictions, recharging times, recharging infrastructure availability, and initial capital costs.
However, there are positive signs on the road ahead. According to the IEA report, global electric truck sales rose for the third consecutive year and topped 90,000 in 2024. That is an 80% sales increase compared with 2023.
But it’s still a tiny fraction of the truck market.
Consider, for example, that there are now around 30,000 zero-emission trucks in the U.S. in a commercial truck fleet of 13 million.
Electric truck sales in the U.S. in 2024 were similar to what they were in 2023, around 1,700. But that, according to the IEA, was more than the cumulative number of electric trucks sold in America between 2015 and 2022.
EV truck advocates will take whatever servings of good news that are on offer, no matter how small.
Here’s another serving: There are now close to 800 heavy-duty electric truck models available today; 450 of those are in China. North America has around 140.
Truck battery prices have also dropped by 30% since 2020.
And while the upfront cost of a battery-powered heavy-duty truck in 2024 was still two to three times that of its diesel counterpart, the TOC (total ownership cost) gap between the two is narrowing.
According to the IEA report, the TOC for battery-electric heavy-duty trucks in China “is already lower than that of diesel trucks in a number of applications.”
China also has 1.6 million public charging stations. The U.S. has 200,000; Canada has around 13,000.
North America’s mediocre mobility electrification infrastructure investment is another reason it is so low down on the EV adoption curve, especially in the heavy-duty truck category.
Although, as The Substack Shipping News story has reported, investments are being made in zero-emission freight corridors that service container terminal hubs along North America’s West Coast.
The IEA report projects that electric truck sales will reach approximately 13% of the global market by 2030, but only 3% of the fleet will be electric.
Progress perhaps, but confirmation that diesel will remain the heavy-duty truck sector’s undisputed king of the road for decades, if not forever.
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