Germany’s Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA) has warned that truck charging infrastructure across the EU falls critically short of electrification requirements, with just 730 charging points above 350 kW currently operational against a projected need of up to 50,000 by 2030. The association is calling for urgent regulatory action before Europe’s heavy-duty fleet targets become unachievable.

According to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), 35,000 Megawatt Charging System (MCS) fast-charging points will be needed across Europe by 2030, a 48-fold increase on the current total. Germany has 355 charging points across 88 locations against a VDA-projected national need of 4,000 MCS points by 2030.

Distribution compounds the shortfall. Some 65% of EU charging capacity dedicated exclusively to heavy-duty vehicles is concentrated in Sweden, Germany and France, leaving transit nations including Poland and the Czech Republic with no heavy-duty charging infrastructure at the required power class.

In a statement, Hildegard Müller, President of the VDA, said: “Inadequate charging infrastructure is the key bottleneck hindering the market ramp-up of electric commercial vehicles. Neither the currently available charging infrastructure nor existing expansion plans at the national or European level are sufficient for the widespread use of battery-electric commercial vehicles in long-haul transport.”

The VDA estimates 2,000 hydrogen refuelling stations will be needed across Europe by 2030, against approximately 318 currently operational at 350 or 700 bar. Depot charging represents a further gap, with more than 11 GW of Germany’s projected 14 GW total charging demand by 2030 falling outside current public infrastructure plans.

Why this matters:

• Public infrastructure alone cannot cover the projected demand, making depot access the binding constraint.With over 11GW of the 14GW total capacity needed in Germany expected to come from private depot charging rather than public networks, the industry’s electrification timeline depends more on resolving grid connection delays than on public charger rollout targets alone.
• A decade-long grid connection timeline for depots effectively caps how fast fleets can electrify regardless of vehicle availability.German manufacturers already offer trucks with over 500km range, so the bottleneck VDA describes is not product readiness but the permitting and grid capacity process, meaning current electrification pace is constrained by infrastructure bureaucracy rather than automaker output.
• Uneven charging distribution across the EU threatens the economics of cross-border freight specifically.With 65% of dedicated heavy-duty charging concentrated in just three countries and key transit nations like Poland and Czechia having none, operators running international routes face route-planning uncertainty that could discourage electric truck adoption even where infrastructure exists domestically.