Sitting in the cab of an electric lorry for the first time, I am struck by the silence.
The hum of the electric motor is imperceptible, and it is only at speed that the sound of the rolling wheels on the road breaks through.
Liam Ely is driving. He’s been with his firm, Welch’s Transport, for four years. This Renault e-Tech T is his primary workspace – one of the UK’s first electric heavy goods vehicles (eHGVs).
The firm has three in a fleet of 70 otherwise diesel lorries. Based in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, Welch operates across the UK.
Of the driving experience you get from an eHGV, Liam tells me he enjoys appreciates the “instant torque” helping him to pull away at junctions.
He also describes a “very smooth uptake of power”. That’s how it feels for me in the passenger seat.
This truck is as powerful as its diesel cousins, but the range is much more limited. Hauling a full load, these cabs can go as far as 200 miles (320km) on one charge, while the range of a diesel truck could be as much as 1,500 miles.
So Welch limits its three eHGVs to regional excursions within about two hours of the main depot – a radius of 160km.
Within that range, the mileage cost is cheaper than diesel – although it’s complicated when taking account other factors, such as higher capital costs, lower maintenance costs and the unclear impact of depreciation.
Liam highlights the operational challenges that being limited to 160km brings. “The range is the main thing – trying to plan that into your routes. It brings in differences for planning operations, as well as for me as the driver.”
But then it’s cleaner. There are no tailpipe emissions, and electric lorries also draw their power increasingly from renewable sources of energy.
Last year, renewable energy accounted for 50.8% of electricity generation in the UK, the first time it had exceeded half. And the figure globally in 2024 was 40%, according to one study.
The environmental aspect of eHGVs appeals to some operators, and especially their customers.
Liam’s assignment when I joined him was to collect samples and equipment from the British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS’s) research ship Sir David Attenborough, which was docked at the Port of Harwich in Essex. And then deliver them to the BAS warehouse near Cambridge.
BAS, the UK government organisation for polar research, is working towards a target of net zero by 2040. So it says that the collaboration with Welch and its electric haulage is “key to achieving that goal”.
Road freight is an essential part of the supply chain, essentially everywhere in the world. And every year millions of lorries cross borders, many of them on long-haul routes.
So why not use eHGVs which just stop and recharge as necessary? After 200 miles drivers are likely to need a break in any case. There are two big obstacles.
Firstly, specialist public charging facilities for eHGVs are currently few and far between; not just in the UK, but across Europe, and in much of the world.
Presently there are just two that are said to be operational in the UK, although many more are planned.
Meanwhile, there are now 1,100 public charging points for eHGVs across western Europe, including the UK, according to one study, which said that “expansion is essential”.
The other big issue is that the price of public charging for eHGVs is currently high. At the time of writing, Welch’s Transport was paying 17 pence per kilowatt hour (KWh) to charge at its base. This compares with 79 pence per KWh, the price offered by one of the public charging sites.
“The main barrier to operating our eHGV fleet more nationally is infrastructure,” says Welch’s managing director Chris Welch, the great grandson of the founder.
“There are very few HGV accessible public charging points. Add to that the pricing points of said infrastructure, it’s a very hard equation to crack.”
All this means eHGVs struggle to compete on the vehicle sales market, especially amongst long-haul operators. The capital cost, for a vehicle alone, is two or three times more than diesel HGVs.
Yet sales are growing. Last year were were 1,271 eHGVs in the UK, a 28% rise on 2023, according to one study. This contributes over a fifth to the rise in the total number of HGVs, up 0.2% to 742,316.
In the EU, 3,400 eHGVs were sold in 2024. In the US the figure was 2,000.
With all new HGVs in the UK and EU needing to be electric-powered by 2040, Chris Welsh says that the haulage industry needs to work together to ensure that the pathway to net zero is viable.
The UK’s Department of Transport says it is “determined to support the HGV sector to make the switch to electric vehicles become more reliable and affordable”. It has a new £30m grant to help pay for more depot charging, and another grant to help firms buy eHGVs.
Clean transport pressure group Transport & Environment says that boosting depot charging is key. This is because it finds that almost half of trucks on French, German and British roads could be electrified on depot charging alone as few travel more than 300km (186 miles) in a day.
Tom Parke is transport specialist at Green Finance Institute, a UK-based advisory group focused on increasing funding for schemes that transition to net zero. He expects to see affordable public charging for eHGVs “becoming more widely available” as more companies are encouraged to invest in such facilities.
He points to one new facility opened this year by European provider Milence in the Lincolnshire port of Immingham that is offering fast charging at around half the price seen elsewhere.
So electric vehicle roll-out is advancing, as is the charging infrastructure.
The next challenge? Growing electricity grid capacity fast enough to meet accelerating demand.
In a Europe-wide study, Transport & Environment concluded that grid extension plans underestimate the future demand for battery electric truck charging in depots. It’s an issue, they claim, “which needs urgently addressing by government”.
