New Study Says 1 out of 3 Trucks need to be Zero Emission in EU by 2030

A new study which was commissioned by the Dutch Environment Ministry and conducted by TNO, commissioned by the Dutch Environment Ministry has found that at least 1 out of 3 trucks in Europe need to be either electric or zero emissions by 2030. This is the only way that the EU will be able to meet the commitments it has made at the 2015 Paris climate conference (COP21). At the summit, all the participating countries agreed to implement an action plan that would limit global warming to an increase within 1.5 degrees.

This would mean that the members of the EU will need to take steps like improving logistics to reduce the distance covered by freight vehicles, deploy zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) to a greater extent in the road freight sector and use to the maximum potential the capacity of conventional vehicles to reduce fuel emissions by use of fuels with lower CO2 content or a greater amount of sustainably produced biofuels.

According to the study, the CO2 emissions from conventional HDVs can be reduced by 2030 by 28 percent (excluding trailer-based measures) to 33 per cent when compared to 2015 figures at net negative costs to society and end-user.
The report also projects that battery-electric heavy-duty vehicles will be technically viable and might even make sense from an economic standpoint by 2025 for a limited number of market segments. By 2030 battery-electric HDVs are likely to be economically competitive for many types of use.