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Caught in the net: commercial transport move to battery power held up by cost issues
25/6/2025
8 min read
Feature
Large goods vehicles (LGVs or HGVs) currently account for around 18% of UK CO2 emissions, so they are an important target in the quest for net zero. Many barriers face the adoption of any type of zero-emission truck: a report from the Green Finance Institute (GFI) last year identified issues ranging from operational restrictions to inadequate charging/fuelling infrastructure and – most of all – high initial purchase price, writes Toby Clark.
Diesel-powered trucks have in some cases been replaced by natural gas-powered trucks, for lower tailpipe emissions, and some operators use renewable biodiesel or other synthetic fuels, but these options are limited There is a decent choice of battery-electric HGVs available in the UK: around 35 models at the moment, and increasing quickly. However, some manufacturers are looking at sustainably-sourced green hydrogen as a fuel source, with a fuel cell to generate electricity (see Box 1). A few companies – notably JCB – are developing hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engines, although these are largely targeted at off-road construction and mining activities.
Still, the number of electric HGVs on British roads is almost vanishingly small: just 97 were sold in the first three months of this year, and while this is almost double the number from the same period in 2024, still less than 1% of the UK HGV fleet is electric.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) says zero-emission HGVs ‘must grow rapidly over the next decade if the UK is to achieve its target for all new HGVs up to 26 tonnes – the majority of the market – to be zero emission by 2035, with the remainder of the sector following by 2040’.