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A new study by French think tank Équilibre des Énergies (EdEn) argues that battery-electric heavy goods vehicles could undercut diesel on total cost of ownership by 2030, provided battery-driven vehicle prices fall, and operators can access competitively priced electricity.
The research models a 44-tonne articulated tractor-unit in a long-haul scenario. In the study’s baseline year (2025), it estimates battery-electric at €0.82–€0.83 per kilometre, compared with €0.78–€0.79/km for diesel. By 2030, the model projects the price of electricity to fall to around €0.71/km, while diesel rises to €0.84–€0.85/km.
The long-haul baseline assumes a split between depot and en-route charging, and the study suggests that this charging mix is one reason diesel still has a small cost advantage in the model’s starting year
Purchase price remains the main barrier in the near term, and the report links it closely to battery cost. It cites a “catalogue” price of €320,000 for the reference long-haul electric tractor and suggests that if batteries fell to €100/kWh, the list price could drop to around €218,000. In the same scenario, the modelled long-haul TCO in the baseline year drops from €0.83/km to €0.79/km, which the authors describe as diesel parity.
Where the truck charges is another swing factor. The report assumes €0.14/kWh for depot charging, compared with around €0.40/kWh for motorway “en-route” charging. It warns that if a long-haul truck used 75% of its energy on the road, the modelled cost would rise to €0.96/km in the baseline year, well above diesel, underscoring why adepot charging strategy matters as much as vehicle choice.
In regional distribution, EdEn models a 19-tonne rigid and again projects electric moving ahead through the decade. It estimates €0.82–€0.83/km for electric in the baseline year versus €0.73–€0.85/km for diesel, before projecting €0.69–€0.70/km for electric by 2030, compared with €0.79–€0.92/km for diesel. It adds that higher annual mileage can bring some regional operations to parity even at the model’s baseline year, because the higher upfront cost is spread across more kilometres.
The study links the scale of the transition to EU CO₂ standards for new heavy-duty vehicles and estimates that meeting the 2030 target would likely require at least 35% of new truck sales to be zero-emission, compared with 2.0% of registrations in 2025 cited by the CSIAM trade body (mostly electric).
