ICCT releases new study about the impact of road tolls on the adoption of electric trucks in the major EU countries

The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has released quite an interesting study regarding the possible impact of road tolls, and road tolls exemption, on the adoption of electric trucks in some given European countries. More into details, the ICCT analyzed six different scenarios in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. The full study, curated by Albert Alonso-Villar and Hussein Basma, is available here.

Toll exemption is a key issue

“Analyzing six key markets, we find that full toll exemptions for electric trucks would be sufficient to bring total cost of ownership to parity with diesel for 2026 regional trucks in France, Germany, and Sweden, and reduce the cost gap to gap to 9% in Italy, 7% in Poland, and 5% in Spain. Looking ahead to 2030, toll exemptions alone achieve cost parity across all six markets“, stated the ICCT.

Indeed, the EU’s Eurovignette Directive gives Member States a practical tool to act: a 2022 revision allows EU Member States to exempt zero-emission trucks from road tolls and requires CO₂-based toll differentiation in distance-based toll systems. Germany is already applying this approach, demonstrating its effectiveness in bringing electric trucks to the market. Other countries like Austria, Belgium, and the Czech Republic are following. 

The analysis from ICCT: some practical examples in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain

To make some practical examples, in Germany, the projected TCO of electric trucks is lower than that of diesel trucks for both regional (-4.8%) and long-haul (-6.8%) applications for model year 2026 vehicles. In France, for long-haul trucks, a full road-toll exemption would make model year 2026 electric trucks 4.9% cheaper to operate than diesel trucks. By model year 2030, this same exemption would make electric trucks 14.5% cheaper than diesel trucks over the vehicle lifetime.

In Italy, for long‑haul trucks, a full road-toll exemption for electric trucks narrows the TCO gap with diesel trucks from 27.4% to 14.6% for model year 2026 vehicles, and from 17.1% to 3.8% for model year 2030 vehicles. Something quite similar would happen in Spain, where a full road-toll exemption for electric trucks narrows the TCO gap with diesel trucks from 26.7% to 12.8% for model year 2026 vehicles, and from 14.6% to 0.3% for model year 2030 vehicles

According to the ICCT, to sum up, making full use of the Eurovignette provisions represents a significant opportunity for Member States to accelerate the shift to zero-emission trucks.