Hydrogen Freight Fizzles As Batteries Take Over Global Trucking

The debate over whether hydrogen or batteries will dominate freight trucking has been settled by the market, not by opinion. The BloombergNEF 2025 Factbook on zero emission commercial vehicles released September 18th provides another clear set of signals that the argument for hydrogen in road freight is collapsing. Almost 90,000 zero emission trucks were sold in the first half of 2025, more than in all of 2024, and 97% of them were battery-electric. Only about 1,000 fuel cell trucks were sold globally in that period and that figure is half of the already low volumes from a year before. If hydrogen were the future of freight, these numbers would not look like that.

The story is strongest in China. In the first half of this year, the country sold close to 80,000 electric trucks, more than double the entire volume of 2023. This was supported by battery supply chains, scrappage incentives, and a clear focus on lowering costs. At the same time the Chinese hydrogen truck market, once seen as a possible bridge to heavy duty decarbonization, is shrinking. Subsidies and perks like toll exemptions have not kept them competitive against battery trucks with falling costs and expanding range. When the most aggressive industrial policy in the world cannot keep hydrogen trucks afloat, the technology is failing in the market.

Europe provides a similar lesson. Electric truck sales grew more than 50% year on year in the first half of 2025. Adoption in countries like the Netherlands, the Nordics, and the UK is surging, driven by charging infrastructure programs and urban zero emission zones. Fuel cell trucks, meanwhile, are stalled. Daimler has delayed its liquid hydrogen truck program from 2027 to the 2030s, and lowered target production volumes. As the decade progresses the hydrogen truck plan will be quietly shelved permanently. Volvo and DAF are still only trialing hydrogen combustion concepts that are far from commercial readiness. The EU is pouring billions into megawatt-scale charging stations for trucks and has binding infrastructure targets that make electric freight inevitable. That level of policy clarity leaves no space for hydrogen.

The United States is the outlier, as it is globally on so many fronts this year, and not in a positive sense. Only 200 electric trucks were sold in the first half of 2025, down 80% from a year earlier. Policy reversals, cancelled sales mandates, and stalled waivers have left the domestic market in limbo. Hydrogen is not filling that gap either. The collapse of Nikola and Hyzon ended the illusion that fuel cells were waiting to scale. What is left is a shrinking set of pilot projects while the rest of the world races ahead on batteries.

The economics tell the same story. Battery pack prices for trucks in China fell to $90/kWh in 2024. That level was reached through the shift to lithium iron phosphate chemistry and massive overcapacity in cell manufacturing. Outside China the costs are higher, often above $190/kWh, but even there the trend is clear. As costs fall toward $80/kWh by 2030, the total cost of ownership of a 500-mile battery truck converges with diesel. Electricity at industrial rates in Europe and the US is already cheap enough that batteries can beat diesel at high utilization. Hydrogen fuel, by contrast, has to be produced, compressed or liquefied, distributed, and then run through inefficient stacks. That value chain keeps the cost per kilometer far above both diesel and batteries.

Technology has also closed the so-called long haul gap. The Mercedes eActros 600, Volvo FH Aero Electric, Tesla Semi, and MAN eTGX all offer 480 to 600 kilometer ranges today, with gross combination weights in the 37 to 48 ton class. They support megawatt charging standards that can restore range during mandated rest breaks. Their energy efficiency is two to three times better than diesel trucks. Fuel cell advocates once claimed long haul was their protected niche, but that claim does not survive contact with this generation of vehicles.

Residual value is another overlooked factor. Batteries can be repurposed into stationary storage when they no longer meet freight duty cycles. They can then be recycled into new cells, closing the loop on materials. That creates asset value for fleet operators and lowers financing risk. Hydrogen trucks have no such path. Once the stacks and tanks degrade, there is nothing left to repurpose. The stranded asset problem is built into the technology.

This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. I was involved in the 2035 European freight trucking decarbonization study led by Sweden’s RISE, which compared battery-electric and hydrogen pathways across the continent’s logistics networks. The analysis modeled vehicle economics, infrastructure requirements, and energy system impacts, and the results were conclusive. Battery-electric trucking was projected to dominate nearly all freight segments, from urban delivery to long haul, because of higher efficiency, lower operating costs, and the scalability of charging tied to the existing grid. Hydrogen trucks, on the other hand, required an entirely separate and vastly more expensive fueling network, and their well-to-wheels energy losses made them uncompetitive even in long haul use cases. The study’s findings aligned with what we now see in the market: a steady retreat of hydrogen freight programs and an accelerating buildout of battery electric solutions.

At the beginning of 2025, I started what I have called the hydrogen transportation death watch, a running assessment of where the technology is failing in real markets. Each collapse of a fuel cell trucking program, each bankruptcy of a startup, and each delay by a legacy manufacturer adds to the record. The latest BloombergNEF factbook data is just more evidence supporting that thesis. Fuel cell truck sales halved year over year, even in China where subsidies remain strong, and global volumes are vanishingly small compared to the surge of battery trucks. The pattern is unmistakable. Hydrogen is not scaling, not delivering on cost, and not building viable infrastructure, while battery-electric freight moves forward on every front.

The table from my hydrogen transportation death watch makes clear that hydrogen heavy trucks and work vans are not just losing ground but putting companies at risk of collapse. In heavy trucks, four firms have already gone bankrupt and three more have abandoned hydrogen altogether. Of the remaining players, most are clustered at higher risk levels, meaning their focus on hydrogen freight is pulling them toward potential insolvency. Work vans look even more stark. Two companies have already failed, one has exited hydrogen, and only a single player is assessed as having strong prospects. The rest are in categories where the odds of bankruptcy are high. In both heavy and light commercial freight, hydrogen is proving to be not just a bad technology choice but a threat to the survival of the firms pursuing it.

When you add up the numbers, the policies, the costs, and the infrastructure, the outcome is obvious. Hydrogen is losing every battle in freight. Batteries are winning not because of ideology but because of physics, economics, and industrial momentum. The market has made its choice and the choice is electric.