From January to September this year, 225,483 thousand trucks were registered in Europe — 9.8% fewer than in the same period of 2024.

Two leading markets — Germany and France — recorded declines deeper than the European average. In Germany, truck registrations fell by nearly 18% year-on-year in Q1–Q3 2025, while France saw a drop of just over 13%. Declines were slightly smaller in Southern Europe — Italy and Spain — where registrations fell by 8% and 7.9% respectively.

Poland Moves Up

Lower sales in Italy and Spain allowed Poland to overtake both markets in truck sales. Traditionally ranked fifth in the EU, Poland recorded a 3.4% increase in registrations, reaching almost 27,100 vehicles. This result placed Poland third in Europe in terms of sales volume.

The Polish market was one of the few in the EU where sales from January to September 2025 were higher than a year earlier. A similar situation occurred in Cyprus, Estonia, Denmark, Latvia, Sweden, and Lithuania. The latter completely ignored the European slump — truck registrations in Lithuania soared by as much as 81% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2025! That’s around 8,900 vehicles compared to 4,900 a year earlier — confirming the dynamic growth of Lithuanian transport companies.

In the segment of the heaviest trucks, the decline was smaller than in medium-duty trucks — registrations dropped by 9% year-on-year for the former and by 13.5% for the latter. Heavy-duty trucks, however, account for the vast majority of the market — as much as 83%.

Registrations of trucks in selected European Union markets (units)

Źródło: ACEA

Decarbonization Still Crawling

Despite loud declarations and the EU’s ambitious green policy, transport decarbonization is progressing slowly. Diesel trucks still accounted for over 210,000 new registrations — 93.5% of all new vehicles. Though, year-on-year, diesel truck registrations did fall by 11.5%. The drop here is therefore sharper than the overall market decline.

Electric trucks represented 3.8% of new sales in the first three quarters of 2025, compared with 2.1% a year earlier. Over two-thirds of all electric truck registrations took place in Germany, the Netherlands, and France.

Van Market Down Too

Like trucks, the light commercial vehicle market also recorded a decline. In the first nine months of the year, 1.074 million vans were sold across Europe — 8.2% fewer year-on-year. The biggest markets in Western Europe all shrank: France (a sharp 8.3% drop), Germany (6%), and Italy (6.1%).

Spain, on the other hand, stood out positively, becoming one of the few “green islands” in Europe. From January to September 2025, van sales in Spain rose by more than 13% year-on-year. Belgium also performed strongly, with a 12.8% increase, ranking fifth in the registration leaderboard.

Poland also saw growth in the van segment — just as in the truck market. In 2025, 49,200 vans found buyers in Poland — 2.3% more than in the same period of 2024.

And while diesel vans still dominate, decarbonization in this category is progressing faster than in heavy trucks. In Q1–Q3 2025, slightly over 10% of vans sold in Europe were electric.

Fot. Pixabay/Alexas_Fotos