Let us accelerate the electrification of heavy transport, trucks and buses, in France
Jérôme Stubler, Chief Executive Officer at Equans on LinkedInLet us accelerate the electrification of heavy transport, trucks and buses, in France
Jérôme Stubler, Chief Executive Officer at Equans on LinkedIn
An investment that serves both the economy and the environment
Almost everything we consume each day first travelled by truck: the goods on our shop shelves, the parts in our factories, the materials on our building sites. Yet road transport accounts for 22.6% of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe and weighs on the carbon footprint of the goods we buy.
The electric truck is no longer an experiment. It now offers a range that is more than sufficient for most needs and a running cost that makes it competitive per kilometre. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) , 25% of heavy goods vehicles sold in China in 2025 were electric. In Europe, that share reached 3%. For buses, almost 100% of new urban buses are electric in northern Europe, against around 49% in France in 2025.
We are at a tipping point. Europe's major manufacturers now have competitive electric ranges. Rising volumes will drive prices down and accelerate the shift. The stakes are environmental and public health related (road transport accounts for 32% of France's nitrogen oxide emissions, of which around a fifth comes from heavy goods vehicles), but also industrial: the competitiveness of Europe's trucks, and their capacity to avoid obsolescence, is at stake.
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Electrifying all road transport would sharply cut emissions, by around 120 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, close to 1.7 tonnes per inhabitant. It would also bring a major gain for France's trade balance, in the order of 30 billion euros.
To make this electrification possible, we need trucks, which are arriving, and high-power charging points, from 100 to 500 kW and up to a few MW per point.
Technically, we know how to do this. Across five European countries, Equans has already built hubs able to recharge up to twenty trucks at once. In France and Belgium, we have installed shore-side electrical connections that let ships switch off their diesel generators, with far more powerful terminals reaching up to 40 MW. Behind the charging points lie grids to reinforce, engineering and power electronics equipment.
“ We have the technologies, the engineers and the industrial base. The task now is execution: connecting faster, investing in grids, giving visibility on the price of electricity and training the skills we need. The electric car has led the way. It is now for heavy transport, trucks and buses, to take electrification into the phase of intensive use. Europe no longer lacks electrification plans. It is time to plug them into reality. ”
