Global South Center for Clean Transportation · UC Davis
Global Zero Emission Truck Supply Chains
Global medium- and heavy-duty zero-emission truck sales mapped against battery chemistry, pack size and cell supplier — and what OEM choices imply for how concentrated the supply chain has become.
- Date
- Dec 2025
- Role
- Co-author
- Methods
- Supply-chain mapping, Market segmentation, OEM–supplier mapping
- Tools
- Python, Power BI, Excel/VBA
Overview
Between 2023 and Q3 2025 the world sold about 382,000 medium- and heavy-duty zero-emission trucks. That is small beside the light-duty EV market, but the packs are not: 200–400 kWh against 50–100 kWh for a car, three to five times the battery per vehicle. Those 382,000 trucks took 70 GWh of cells, an average of 310 kWh per heavy-duty and 135 kWh per medium-duty truck. Truck electrification therefore buys battery demand out of all proportion to its vehicle count, which is what makes it an industrial-policy question rather than only a freight one.
Most supply-chain work on vehicle electrification looks at passenger cars. This brief, written with Aditya Ramji, assesses the truck segment instead: regional sales for China, Europe, the United States and India, the battery chemistries and pack sizes each market is choosing, and the relationships between truck manufacturers and the cell suppliers behind them.
What the market data shows
- 01
China is the market, and its competition is real
China took 94% of global heavy-duty ZET sales over the period. Its medium- and heavy-duty sales reached 114,800 units in January–September 2025, already 43% above the full 2024 year, and 92% of those were heavy trucks. Leadership is spread across FAW at 18.1%, XCMG at 15.8%, SANY at 14.9% and CNHTC at 10% — and two of those, XCMG and SANY, are construction and heavy-equipment makers that moved into trucks.
- 02
The US heavy-duty segment went backwards
US sales totalled 15,075 units in 2025 Q1–Q3, almost all medium-duty. Heavy-duty fell 80% year on year to 200 trucks. The commitments exist; the deliveries have not followed. What volume there is sits with very few players — Rivian, Ford and BrightDrop are about 89% of medium-duty, and BYD and Volvo over half of heavy-duty.
- 03
India now outsells the US on electric heavy trucks
India's medium- and heavy-duty sales are rising quickly, and over 2025 to date it has sold more electric heavy trucks than the United States. Europe grew steadily rather than sharply: about 9,330 units in Q1–Q3 2025, 19% up year on year, with ten countries making up roughly 92% of it and Germany anchoring at about a quarter.
- 04
Chemistry follows the duty cycle, not trade policy
LFP is 93% of heavy-duty sales, 98% of the high-volume 12–18 tonne class and 96% above 40 tonnes. NMC leads in the 26–40 tonne range, where energy density protects payload, and European OEMs chose NMC for medium-duty trucks because smaller packs already meet those duty cycles. These are performance and cost decisions, made without reference to where the cells come from.
- 05
Building the truck at home does not mean building the battery
In India 70–80% of medium- and heavy-duty ZETs run on Chinese cells. In the US, medium-duty is split about 50% South Korean and 45% Chinese, and heavy-duty is around 40% Chinese — with BYD and Daimler on 100% Chinese cells for their heavy-duty trucks and Rivian at 90% exposure in medium-duty. Europe's heavy-duty segment has the lowest Chinese dependence of any region.
Cell-supplier dependence by market
The dependence sits at the cell, not the vehicle. A truck assembled domestically can still carry an imported battery, either because there is no domestic production or because there is none for the chemistry that segment wants.
| Market | Segment | Chinese cells | Other leading suppliers |
|---|---|---|---|
| India | Medium & heavy duty | 70–80% | Largely undisclosed entrants |
| United States | Medium duty | 45% | South Korean, ~50% |
| United States | Heavy duty | ~40% | — |
| Europe | Medium duty | ~32% | South Korean, ~50% |
| Europe | Heavy duty | Lowest of any region | European and South Korean |
Source: Ramji & Jamhar (2025), Understanding Zero Emission Truck Manufacturing and Battery Supply Chains, Global South Center for Clean Transportation, UC Davis. Sales and supplier data from EV Volumes, 2025.
What it means for policy
Policy certainty on trucks does more for a battery industry than the vehicle numbers suggest, because each truck carries three to five cars' worth of cells. That scale is what de-risks a cell investment decision, so a government treating ZETs as a freight problem is leaving the industrial argument on the table.
The awkward part is that the chemistry trucks want is the one least available outside China. LFP dominates heavy-duty, and US domestic LFP cell capacity is thin and largely Chinese-controlled. Restricting Chinese suppliers in one market while they continue scaling in others leaves everyone else playing catch-up, which is why both Europe and India are weighing joint ventures confined to cell manufacturing, with local hiring conditions attached, rather than exclusion outright.
Part of an ongoing series on global EV market trends, vehicle production flows and battery supply chains.