Almost 30% of all new heavy trucks sold in China last year were new-energy models — a category that includes hybrids and hydrogen-fueled versions but is mostly populated by pure electric vehicles. That figure isn’t just
(12.9% of new heavy trucks in China were new-energy in 2024, and just 0.7% in 2021, according to a Wuhan-based research firm), it’s light years ahead of the rest of the world. In Europe, electric heavy trucks represent around 4% of new sales, while in California, the leading e-truck market in the US, annual sales are just the hundreds, according to Rystad Energy, an Oslo-based research and consulting firm. China’s adoption of e-trucks is so rapid, it “leaves the rest of the world in the dust,” said Zhao Pei, a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In January, 16,100 new-energy heavy trucks were sold in China,
, 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
.
