Factory-visit reporting in June put hard numbers on the scale gap: SANY has sold around 11,000 electric trucks in China so far in 2026 and targets 40,000 by year-end. Against that, ACEA’s Q1 data shows EU truck registrations of 81,766 with electrically-chargeable trucks at 4.4% — roughly 3,600 electric trucks in the quarter, an annualised ~14,400 for all of Europe.

One Chinese manufacturer is therefore targeting nearly three times Europe’s total annual electric-truck volume. The industrial implications run through everything: at 40,000 units, fixed costs amortise across a base European plants (typically 40,000–80,000 units for all fuels) can’t match for electric alone; learning curves steepen; supplier pricing shifts; and the cost structure that lets SANY’s European team promise ‘significantly more affordable’ trucks (price unpublished, per-customer — the deduction our scorecard records) is built.

For European fleets the gap is leverage, not threat: a supplier with 3× your market’s volume needs export sales more than you need his truck. For European OEMs it’s the opposite — the business-model analysis is blunt that no amount of diesel-era efficiency closes a structural volume gap. The CO₂ framework and public infrastructure money are Europe’s answers; volume commitments are the missing one.