WattTonne Methodology

How we score electric trucks for European fleet buyers — the full, public ruleset behind every WattTonne Score.

Seven dimensions · weighted · 1–5 per dimension · score out of 100 · evidence dated 2026-08

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What WattTonne Score answers

One question: in Europe, can this truck be bought, run and kept today?

Every score is produced from clickable evidence, never from a manufacturer’s claims alone, and never for payment. Scores are never sponsored and never pre-reviewed.

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Which trucks qualify

A truck is eligible only if it meets all of these:

Gross vehicle weight over 3.5 tonnes.

Available or serviceable in Europe — a European type approval (WVTA) in progress or granted, or a confirmed European sales/service network. Trucks sold only in China with no European path are excluded.

Every scoring claim carries a clickable source. No source, no score.

Every data point carries an “as of” date (this edition: 2026-08).

Battery-swap and Qiji/CATL ecosystem trucks are listed separately — their TCO, refuelling and service logic cannot be compared like-for-like with charge trucks.

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The seven dimensions and weights

Key	Dimension	Weight	What it measures
perf	Performance	20	Measured energy use, range, charging capability
tco	TCO position	20	5-year corridor TCO vs a diesel baseline
price	Price transparency	10	Published price, or an obtainable binding quote
comp	Compliance & market access	15	Certification status and real deliveries
warr	Warranty	10	Battery years/km, SoH floor
serv	Service network	15	Corridor coverage, European parts
track	Track record	10	Deliveries vs claims, named fleets

Weights sum to 100. Service + warranty together are worth 25 — service carries more weight than price (15 vs 10), which reflects the judgement that European after-sales decides whether a manufacturer succeeds.

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Scoring anchors (1–5)

**5** — public, independent, reproducible evidence at the top of the field.

**4** — public evidence above the baseline for the dimension.

**3** — acceptable evidence at the “buyable and runnable” baseline.

**2** — weak evidence or a clear gap (undisclosed or unverified).

**1** — evidence at the lowest tier (e.g. no European pricing but a confirmed official absence).

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Three states, not a forced number

Missing information is not a low score. It is marked not scored.

**Scored** — normal 1–5.

**Not scored (evidence insufficient)** — the dimension is marked `n/a` and excluded from the total.

Evidence completeness is shown beside every total, calculated as *scored dimensions ÷ 7*.

Completeness below 60% (fewer than 5 dimensions scored) → the total carries a **provisional** badge.

Completeness at 60% or above → a **formal** total.

Total formula — the weighted average of the scored dimensions, scaled to 100, with `n/a` dimensions removed from the denominator. Missing data never counts as a score.

How it appears — every total is always shown with its evidence-completeness percentage. Provisional trucks are visually de-emphasised and do not join the formal ranking.

The effect is deliberate: a thin-information manufacturer is not “scored low” but “marked incomplete”. Their conversation with us begins from “what do I need to supply to be scored fully”, not “why did you score me low”.

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Evidence standards

**Source tiers** (most to least trusted):

– Tier 1 — regulator/type-approval records, independent media testing, published fleet operating data.

– Tier 2 — manufacturer official specification pages (labelled “manufacturer data”).

– Tier 3 — manufacturer press releases and show claims (leads only, never a scoring basis).

**Every claim = one clickable URL**, embedded in the scoring table.

**Conflicts** — where a manufacturer claim conflicts with independent testing, the independent result wins, and the difference is noted.

**Timeliness** — data carries an “as of” date; expired sources are updated or downgraded to “unverified”.

**Performance special rule** — measured data outranks advertised range. With no measurement, manufacturer data is downgraded one evidence tier and the reason states “no measurement, downgraded”.

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How a score is produced

Build an evidence file per truck, collecting sources per dimension.

Score each dimension (1–5, or `n/a`) with a written reason citing its source.

Calculate evidence completeness; below 60% gets the provisional badge.

Independent double-check — a second scorer reviews; any dimension differing by more than 1 point is re-checked against evidence.

Spot-audit — a sample of trucks has its evidence chain verified line by line.

Publish — score, reason (with source), completeness and provisional badge all update together.

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How this methodology was built

Three precedents shaped it:

**International Truck of the Year** — independence from manufacturers, and a “contribution to road-freight efficiency” standard rather than a single performance figure.

**ADAC Autotest** — traceable, reproducible criteria with versioned methodology; missing items are marked, not given a mid-point.

**Green Truck Award** — measured energy efficiency on real routes, not paper specifications.

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Battery-swap and Qiji listing

Swap trucks (including XCMG swap Europe edition and the Qiji/CATL ecosystem) depend on network density, so mixing them with charge trucks would distort the comparison.

**Separate table** — swap and Qiji trucks are listed on their own, never ranked against charge trucks.

**Side-by-side view** — buyers can still compare a swap truck against a charge truck dimension by dimension, but there is no cross-table ranking or cross-table total comparison.

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What we never do

Scores are never sold, never sponsored, never pre-reviewed.

No paid ranking — advertising and scoring are fully separated.

No source, no score — any claim without a URL is rejected until sourced.

The three-state rule, evidence completeness and the provisional badge are permanent — they apply to every truck, every dimension, going forward.

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*This edition: 2026-08. Editorial team: Antwerp, Belgium.*