China Environment News

July 23, 2026

China’s major roll-out of electric heavy-duty trucks

China has set its first nationwide targets to accelerate the green, low-carbon transformation of the heavy truck sector. It aims to ensure that electric trucks account for at least 40 per cent of new heavy-goods vehicle sales by 2030, as part of a broader effort to reduce carbon emissions in its vast transport sector. That translates to at least 1.6 million electric new energy heavy trucks on the road by the end of this decade – 20 percent of the nation’s entire heavy truck fleet.

The targets were set out in a recently released plan, jointly issued by the Ministry of Transport and 10 other central government authorities. The central government has rolled out supporting infrastructure targets to underpin the plan, including building a 30,000 Km zero-carbon highway transport network covering key national expressways, accompanied by around 3,000 dedicated charging and battery swap stations that exclusively serve heavy trucks.

For regions, including the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster, which are prioritized under national air pollution control initiatives, over 80 percent of fixed-route short-distance shuttle transport will be electrified.

First-quarter 2026 sales of new-energy heavy trucks rose about 45% year on year to around 44,000 units, and reached roughly 27% of new heavy-truck sales.

Between January 2025 and May 2026, cumulative sales of new-energy heavy trucks reached 337,000 units, pushing segment penetration above 30% in April and May.

In late June 2026, Chinese company Sany Truck, the world’s largest new energy heavy truck manufacturer, exported 883 battery-electric heavy trucks, the largest single export shipment of Chinese new-energy tractor trucks on record. That one shipment exceeded the entire Chinese industry’s export total for 2025, which stood at 877 vehicles.

According to US-based CleanTechnica media outlet, the growth of Chinese new energy truck represents a crucial point for global freight. “China is not simply selling more electric trucks. It is building the industrial ecosystem that makes them cheap enough, rugged enough and scalable enough to take on diesel in ports, mines, construction sites, logistics hubs and, increasingly, line-haul freight.”

CleanTechnica analysts argue that large export orders represent “the moment when China’s heavy-truck electrification shifts from a domestic experiment to an export industry, as it did for all vehicles six years ago.”