Watch the full 4 minute broadcast and opinions here on YouTube: <https://youtu.be/VUXd4sy1Q-8>
Sales of zero-emission HGVs jumped 170% year-on-year in 2025, with more than 1,000 electric trucks registered. Sounds great, until you zoom out and realise they still represent less than 2% of the UK HGV market.
According to the SMMT, the vehicles are no longer the problem. Product availability is improving fast. The real blocker is infrastructure, specifically grid connections.
Fleet operators are reporting waits of up to 15 years to connect depot charging to the grid.
Meanwhile, overall HGV registrations fell 10% in 2025, making the strong growth in electric trucks even more impressive and even more frustrating.
The SMMT is now calling on Government to fast-track depot connections in the same way it plans to accelerate power access for AI data centres and renewable projects.
Financial support exists:
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Plug-in Truck Grant (up to £25k per vehicle)
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£30m Depot Charging Scheme (up to 75% of install costs, capped at £1m)
But grants don’t mean much if the electrons can’t reach the depot.\
From the EV Café sofa
“The vehicles aren’t the problem anymore, it’s the infrastructure. You can’t ask fleets to invest millions when they don’t even know when the power’s turning up".
-Paul Kirby
Electric HGVs are ready. Fleets are ready. What isn’t ready is the grid.
You cannot ask operators to commit millions to zero-emission trucks while telling them their power connection might arrive sometime in the 2040s. That’s not policy, that’s parody.
If Government is serious about freight decarbonisation, grid access needs the same priority status as data centres and renewables. Otherwise, we’ll keep celebrating triple-digit growth that still goes absolutely nowhere.