ICCT’s Berlin analysis of 2025 puts the first CO₂-standards year on the record: nearly 24,000 electric trucks and buses registered across Europe, +60% year-on-year even as total truck and bus registrations fell 5%. Electric trucks took 4.5% of truck sales, buses 25%, and urban buses 58% — with Slovenia, Romania, the Netherlands, Estonia and Denmark buying only zero-emission city buses.

The heavy-truck detail validates the regulation’s mechanism: ZE heavy-truck (12t+) sales shares rose to 2.7% in Q4 2025 from 1.5% in Q4 2024, accelerating precisely after the standards took effect in July 2025. Medium trucks and vans were the quiet explosion — 21% share, tenfold growth in three years, led by heavy vans with Northern Europe’s last-quarter shares at 63–72% in the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

Why this report anchors our coverage: it separates the regulation’s effect from the hype cycle. The market grew because the standards forced supply, and the supply found buyers where national incentives stack — the exact pattern our country guides map. The 2026 follow-ups (Q1 and H1 monitors) show the trend continuing; this is the baseline document fleets should cite internally when boards ask ‘is this real?’.