No chargers, no deal: Europe's biggest truckmakers push back against the 2030 climate deadline

Europe's leading truckmakers have called on the European Union to push back its 2030 emissions targets for heavy vehicles by three years, arguing that a shortage of charging stations and high energy costs mean zero-emission trucks currently do not make business sense for buyers.

The appeal, made on Monday and reported by Reuters, comes from the chief executives of seven of Europe's biggest truck and bus manufacturers, including DAF Trucks, Daimler Truck, Iveco and Scania.

What do the current EU rules require?


Under existing European Union regulation, manufacturers must cut CO2 emissions from new heavy-duty vehicles by 43 per cent in 2030 compared with 2025 levels, rising to 64 per cent by 2035 and 90 per cent by 2040, with fines for non-compliance, Reuters reported.

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Manufacturers can offset shortfalls with emission credits earned between 2025 and 2029, but the industry says that cushion will not be enough to bridge the gap to 2030.

How far is the industry from meeting the 2030 target?

Reuters reported that just 2.4 per cent of new heavy-duty vehicles registered in the EU are currently zero-emission, well short of what the 2030 target requires, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, ACEA.

That shortfall is consistent with the association's own projections from October 2025, when it warned manufacturers would need roughly a tenfold jump in zero-emission truck sales within five years, from about 3.6 per cent to at least 35 per cent, to stay compliant.

Separate industry estimates presented at a Brussels event earlier this year suggested the EU may need around 400,000 electric trucks on its roads by 2030 to hit its climate goals, along with tens of thousands of public chargers.

What are the truckmakers asking Brussels to do?

In their joint statement, the CEOs said compliance with the 2030 target should be delayed by three years. They called on policymakers to accelerate the rollout of charging stations, speed up grid connections, expand CO2-based road tolls and reinvest revenue from the EU's emissions trading system into charging infrastructure and zero-emission vehicle uptake.

Why now?

The demand follows months of lobbying by truckmakers, who have previously flagged the mismatch between their compliance deadlines and the pace of charging infrastructure rollout. Scania and Traton chief executive Christian Levin, who also chairs ACEA's Commercial Vehicle Committee, said in December that the industry faced roughly €2 billion a year in fines if the rules were not eased, and that carmakers had already secured similar flexibility that heavy-vehicle manufacturers had not been granted.

Environmental group Transport & Environment has previously pushed back on such requests, estimating that an earlier round of truckmaker-sought concessions could cut zero-emission truck sales by as much as 27 per cent by 2030.

Is there a wider EU policy debate at play?

Reuters reported that EU policymakers are separately debating a European Commission proposal to drop the bloc's effective ban on new combustion-engine cars from 2035, following pressure from the broader auto sector to ease its green transition rules.

Truckmakers' demand for a similar reprieve comes as that wider debate over Europe's climate timelines for the auto industry continues, with a formal review of the heavy-duty vehicle CO2 rules already due in 2027.

(With inputs from Reuters)