Battery electric trucks best option to cut transport emissions

Battery-electric trucks are the best option to reduce emissions from road freight transport, and market forces are working in their favour, according to a report by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in collaboration with the Technical University of Dresden and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg.

While battery-electric trucks are slowly gaining market share, and a growing range of models come onto the market, hydrogen fuel cell models on German roads were “almost non-existent,” said the researchers.

Freight transport is responsible for six per cent of Germany’s total greenhouse gas emissions, and 40 percent of transport-related emissions – yet trucks lag behind cars in the transition to electric mobility. 2.3 percent of German trucks are battery-powered if heavy trailer trucks are excluded, compared to a hydrogen market share of 0.006 percent, according to DIW.