Driven by the "dual wheels" of the market and policies, new energy heavy-duty trucks have witnessed explosive growth and have become the most outstanding growth pole in the commercial vehicle sector.

 

According to the sales volume of heavy-duty trucks with Beidou operation licenses, in July, a total of 16,200 new energy heavy-duty trucks were added across the country, representing a year-on-year increase of 185%. From January to July, the cumulative sales of new energy heavy-duty trucks reached 82,200 units, a year-on-year increase of 191%. Moreover, based on historical data, the penetration rate of new energy heavy-duty trucks has been continuously rising. It increased from 5.69% in June 2023 to 14.82% in 2024, and by June 2025, it had already reached 26.07%. The penetration rate has seen a doubling increase, achieving a rapid "comeback".

 

New energy heavy-duty trucks are entering a period of rapid development

 

The large-scale promotion and application of new energy heavy-duty trucks is the result of the combined efforts of continuous technological upgrades, policy-driven forces, operational costs, and market demands. In an interview with China Automotive News, Yang Jinguo, the founder of the China Automotive Truck Brothers Club, said that the rapid replacement of traditional energy commercial vehicles by new energy commercial vehicles is an inevitable trend. Currently, logistics enterprises and users have shifted from passive acceptance to active choice of new energy vehicles, based on the advantages of full products and the entire process throughout the life cycle. Make new energy commercial vehicles one of the most important options for cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

 

Firstly, from the perspective of policy, the national "dual carbon" strategy has set a clear development path for the industry. This year, the policy "combination punch" has been continuously strengthened. The scope of subsidies for the scrapping and renewal of old commercial diesel trucks has been further expanded from the National III and below emission standards in 2024 to the National IV and below emission standards. Vehicle owners who scrap their vehicles ahead of schedule and update them to new energy heavy-duty trucks can receive a maximum subsidy of 140,000 yuan per vehicle, further promoting the new energy transformation of heavy-duty trucks.

 

Secondly, there is the continuous breakthrough in technology. Currently, the energy density of batteries for new energy heavy-duty trucks is constantly increasing, the charging infrastructure is continuously improving, and the energy-saving technology of the entire vehicle is iteratively upgraded. This has further consolidated the product foundation and met the operational needs of some users.

 

Especially in terms of operating costs, the advantages of new energy heavy-duty trucks are becoming increasingly prominent. At present, the purchase cost of new energy heavy-duty trucks has dropped significantly. In terms of usage cost, data shows that, based on an annual operating mileage of 150,000 kilometers, pure electric heavy-duty trucks save 191,000 yuan compared to fuel-powered heavy-duty trucks and 42,000 yuan compared to gas-powered heavy-duty trucks. In addition, the maintenance and repair costs of electric heavy-duty trucks are relatively low, and the electricity price is more stable than that of gas, further reducing the total operating costs.

 

The application scenarios are also constantly expanding. New energy heavy-duty trucks are widely used in scenarios such as ports, mining areas, and urban construction waste transportation. In these scenarios, the transportation routes are fixed and the charging facilities are easy to layout, providing a stable demand for electric heavy-duty trucks.

 

In addition, traditional automakers (such as FAW Jiefang, Sinotruk, etc.), construction machinery enterprises (such as XCMG, Sany, etc.) and new car-making forces (such as DeepWay, Zero, etc.) have all increased their investment in the research and development of new energy heavy-duty trucks, launched diversified products to meet the needs of different users, and further promoted market growth.

 

In the future, as technology matures and infrastructure improves, its market penetration rate is expected to increase further. Yang Jinguo said. Li Dakai, a member of the China Automotive Consulting Committee and honorary president of the China Gear and Electric Drive Association, also pointed out that the landscape of heavy trucks is being reshaped. He predicted that by 2026, the penetration rate of new energy heavy-duty trucks would further increase to 35%. By 2027, the penetration rate is expected to exceed 50%.

 

Shi Jianhua, the director of the Research Institute of Chebai Think Tank, said that after years of accumulation, China's electric vehicle industry has achieved a qualitative leap in all ecological elements including technology, products, business models, supply chains and scale. He analyzed that the growth momentum of pure electric heavy-duty trucks not only stems from the policy support for scrapping and renewal and the increased preferential policies of enterprises, but also benefits from the decline in manufacturing costs, the prominence of cost advantages in use, the improvement in user awareness, as well as significant progress in terms of driving range, charging efficiency, reliability and environmental adaptability.

 

02 Charging and battery swapping "Dual-track Parallel"

 

The market for new energy heavy-duty trucks is entering a new stage of rapid development. According to the technical route, China's new energy heavy-duty trucks mainly include hybrid heavy-duty trucks, pure electric heavy-duty trucks (charging/battery swapping), and fuel cell heavy-duty trucks. From the perspective of market sales share, pure electric heavy-duty trucks have become the mainstream products in China's new energy heavy-duty truck market, thanks to their advantages such as zero emissions and low fuel costs.

 

While the price of pure electric heavy-duty trucks is on the rise, whether to use charging or battery swapping as a charging method has also become a choice for some users.

 

By comparing the characteristics of the two, it is not difficult to find that the advantages of charging heavy-duty trucks lie in the relatively flexible and simple infrastructure construction, low investment, users can charge in multiple scenarios, and the current megawatt ultra-fast charging technology can break through the current industrial development breakpoints, achieve a commercial closed loop, and promote the development of electric heavy-duty trucks from short-distance charging scenarios to medium and long-distance scenarios. The disadvantages are that the initial purchase cost is high for users, battery damage is irreversible, performance will decline over long-term use, the cost of battery replacement in the later stage is relatively high, and it does not have an advantage in terms of charging time cost.

 

Battery swap heavy-duty trucks adopt a vehicle-battery separation mode, which can significantly reduce the initial purchase cost. Battery assets are held by operators, and users do not need to bear the risk of depreciation throughout the battery's entire life cycle. Coupled with the advantage of electricity prices being lower than oil prices, the comprehensive operating cost can be reduced by 30,000 to 60,000 yuan per year. However, there is also the problem of inconsistent battery standards for battery swap heavy-duty trucks, which leads to poor compatibility of battery swap stations. The asset investment is heavy, with the cost of a single battery swap station exceeding one million yuan. There are three challenges: the benefit distribution mechanism among operators, car manufacturers and users needs to be improved.

 

At present, high-power charging and rapid battery swapping facilities suitable for pure electric heavy-duty trucks are in a period of explosive growth, among which the charging mode is the more widely used method at present. With the popularization of high-power DC fast charging technology (such as 360kW or even higher power), combined with the improvement of the vehicle's own charging performance (supporting high-rate charging), electric heavy-duty trucks can achieve the goal of "charging for one hour and replenishing energy for hundreds of kilometers" at dedicated charging stations, effectively enhancing operational efficiency. Leading charging operators such as State Grid and Teldrive are accelerating the layout of high-power charging piles in high-frequency areas for heavy trucks, including logistics parks, ports, and expressway service areas.

 

In terms of battery swapping, the performance of battery swapping heavy-duty trucks has also been particularly outstanding this year. Its core advantage lies in the extremely fast charging speed - the entire battery swapping process only takes 3 to 5 minutes, which is comparable to the refueling time of diesel vehicles, completely solving the range anxiety and perfectly meeting the high-frequency and high-intensity transportation needs (such as container transfer at ports, transportation of sand and gravel aggregates in mines, and urban construction waste removal).

 

In sharp contrast to the extremely low proportion of battery swapping in passenger vehicles, in terms of the detailed technical routes, the proportion of charging models and battery swapping models in electric heavy-duty trucks has remained stable at around 7:3 from 2023 to the first half of 2025, indicating that both technical routes have found suitable application scenarios in the field of electric heavy-duty trucks and achieved good promotion. Wu Xiqing, director of the New Energy Vehicle Research Department of China Automotive Policy Research Institute, said.

 

The promotion of the application of new energy heavy-duty trucks still requires comprehensive efforts

 

Despite its rapid development momentum, for new energy heavy-duty trucks to truly achieve large-scale replacement of traditional fuel heavy-duty trucks, several key obstacles still need to be overcome.

 

Li Kaiguo, the supervisor of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China and the director of the Expert Committee of the Commercial Vehicle Carbon Neutrality Collaborative Innovation Platform, pointed out that new energy heavy-duty trucks still have shortcomings and challenges in the medium and long-distance scene market, which has a large number of vehicles in use, high transportation intensity and large carbon emissions.

 

Fan Zhixian, deputy director of the Strategic Planning Department of Sinotruk Group, also pointed out that the penetration rate of new energy heavy-duty trucks in medium and short-distance transportation scenarios has been rapidly increasing, but in the medium and long-distance trunk logistics sector, which accounts for nearly 50%, the penetration rate is still less than 0.1%. They are facing four major challenges: range anxiety, low charging efficiency, severe tonnage shortage, and scarce infrastructure. He suggested that the industry should unify standards from the top level to address the issues of incomplete and missing implementation. Promote the inclusion of heavy-duty truck charging and battery swapping stations in the new power system to lower the threshold for energy storage and the transaction cost of green electricity. Strengthen top-level planning for infrastructure and provide supportive policies.

 

Wang Lei, the director of Sany Heavy Truck Research Institute, believes that in 2025, the sales of pure electric heavy trucks will enter a period of explosive growth. Before purchasing a vehicle, customers first pay attention to whether the charging facilities are in place and the charging locations. However, the construction of charging facilities faces multiple challenges such as power access, tight land resources, and complex approval processes. Even if they are familiar with the process, the construction period of the station generally takes two to three months, which seriously restricts the promotion of electric heavy trucks. At the same time, he called on the automakers to work together to promote the implementation of battery swapping standards and avoid the waste of resources caused by "acting independently".

 

Zhang Xuan, the director of the Technology Management Department of Shaanxi Heavy Duty Truck, analyzed that currently, pure electric heavy trucks have a prominent cost advantage in short-distance or closed scenarios, such as the transportation of sand and gravel, coal, and steel mills. The penetration rate in some scenarios exceeds 60%, but the problems of high purchase costs and users' reluctance to bear heavy assets still exist.

 

In the view of the above-mentioned industry insiders, the promotion and application of new energy heavy-duty trucks is a systematic project, which requires the coordinated advancement of three aspects: technical routes, incentive policies and infrastructure, to further consolidate the development path of precise policy implementation and full industrial chain collaboration.

 

For a considerable period of time, new energy heavy-duty trucks will continue to follow a development strategy that involves the coordinated advancement of multiple technologies and energy sources. With the continuous upgrading of technology and the gradual improvement of infrastructure, economic and practical technological development paths can be selected in stages and with emphasis based on the characteristics of the scenarios. Li Kaiguo said.

 

Originally published on China Automotive News Network on August 14, 2025