Electromobility: Light e-trucks gain, trend towards electric buses

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The commercial vehicle market may not interest most people. And yet, it offers a glimpse into the future of electromobility because its purchasing decisions are unburdened by half-knowledge, prejudice, and emotions. For commercial users, a vehicle must primarily prove itself financially and possibly under the harshest possible operating conditions. The criteria that remain, besides the sheer suitability of a vehicle for the intended job, are boundary conditions such as energy costs, charging infrastructure, (tax incentives, and reliefs or subsidies. Commercially used electromobility can thus serve as an indicator for the development in this field within certain limits. The current figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (Acea) for the European commercial vehicle market 2025 show what has happened in the past year.

Pioneer Switzerland

Battery-electric commercial vehicles recorded a slight upward trend in Europe in 2025. Despite a slight decline in registrations, buses showed strong growth. This segment is now also seeing the largest growth in battery-electric cars, especially in Germany. In some markets, electric trucks are also increasing significantly, albeit on a much smaller scale. According to Acea, Switzerland is leading the way. The industry association blames politics for the slow progress: the slowly increasing share of electrically rechargeable vehicles is due to "insufficient infrastructure, high energy prices, unfavorable total operating expenses, and inconsistent political framework conditions," the association writes in its press release.

Slight decline overall

A total of 307,460 trucks sold caused the overall market in Europe to shrink by 6.2 percent compared to the previous year. German truck registrations, on the other hand, fell from 88,240 to 77,431 units year-on-year in 2024, a decrease of 12.2 percent. The opposite trend can be observed with buses, whose registrations increased by 7.5 percent across Europe to 38,238 units; Germany showed significantly above-average growth here with 28 percent. However, the overall share of the bus business is only just under 12.5 percent of the truck market.

Electrically powered buses accounted for 23.8 percent of all registrations in the EU in 2025. Including the countries in the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland – plus Great Britain, this figure is even 25.9 percent according to Acea. In other words: one in four new buses in Europe is electric. Electric trucks increased from 2.3 to 4.2 percent EU-wide between 2024 and 2025; with EFTA countries and the UK, they reach 4.8 percent.

Light electric trucks on the rise

The increase in electrically rechargeable vehicles (Acea does not differentiate between BEV and hybrid drives at this point) is distributed very unevenly across different weight classes. Particularly noteworthy in this context is the class between 3.5 and 16 tons. Although it sold 9.9 percent worse with only 52,972 new registrations according to Acea, with an increase of 7867 electric vehicles, there is a very considerable growth of 87 percent. This means that in 2025, 14.8 percent of commercial vehicles between 3.5 and 16 tons were (partially) electric. In Germany, the share was 43 percent of all EU-wide registered electrified vehicles between 3.5 and 16 tons, with 3368 units.

In terms of sales, significantly smaller markets often lag far behind Germany in terms of growth in 2025. The Netherlands, for example, achieved a large increase of 523 percent year-on-year with 1147 units, Sweden achieved 407 with 619 commercial vehicles, and Italy achieved 174 percent with 521 units. France sold 852 units in the 3.5 to 16-ton segment with electric drive and improved by 33 percent compared to the previous year, Denmark with 470 by 122. The United Kingdom, outside the EU, performed remarkably with 2562 units sold, which was 56 percent over 2024.

One explanation is the predominant area of use for such vehicles in distribution transport. There, low daily mileage, entry into emission-restricted areas, and a high proportion of delivery stops already provide strong arguments for using such vehicles. Germany, with its large population and high population density, offers a particularly large number of these conditions.

Electric heavy trucks remain rare

For trucks over 16 tons, the share of electrified trucks is only two percent of the total market. This is calculated from their sales figure of 4991 compared to 254,488 units in the total market, which came to a 5.4 percent lower sales share in 2025. In Germany, however, the share of heavy electric trucks was 28 percent, with 1398 units achieving a considerable increase of 38 percent. Austria performed even better with 405 units and 143 percent growth, and the Netherlands with 878 units and 83 percent growth compared to 2025. France achieved a moderate increase of 28 percent with 861 units.

The EFTA country Switzerland achieves the largest share with 21.3 percent, after 524 heavy e-trucks were sold there last year, corresponding to 71 percent growth. Incidentally, electric trucks from 3.5 tons also sold almost as well there, with 942 units improving the result by 64 percent. The Alpine country is followed by the Netherlands, which achieved 18.2 percent with just over 2000 new registrations. Norway had a share of 16.9 percent electric trucks of all classes.

Exceptional case: electric buses

BEV buses were most popular in Great Britain, with 2856 new registrations in total Europe. The country achieved 56.3 percent growth, followed by Germany with 1808 new electric buses, corresponding to 106.4 percent, while Sweden with 898 units and an increase of 262.1, and Belgium with 737 units and a 233.5-percent increase, recorded the most significant growth here. Italy achieved an increase of 16.8 percent with 1371 buses. The EU increased by 38.9 percent; including EFTA and the UK, it was 44.8 percent, mainly thanks to the British.

Remarkable: Hybrid buses are clearly on the decline across the EU. The decrease of 25 percent to the current market share of 6.9 percent cannot be explained by a weak economy. It is more likely because electric vehicles have caught up in terms of cost and performance, and municipalities have caught up in terms of charging infrastructure. The latter are likely to be the main driver of development, as they are obliged by regulations on emission protection in built-up areas to adapt local public transport accordingly. This can be achieved most easily by changing the driving energy, despite high initial investments.

(fpi)