Shandong province plays catch-up on electric heavy trucks
Subsidies and tax incentives are helping to boost electric truck usage in the province.
Shandong, the Chinese province that moved the most freight by road in 2025 and home to the truck maker Sinotruk (中国重汽), added 17,900 operating electric heavy trucks from January to September, up more than 200% from a year earlier. Their penetration rate rose to 36.6% from 16.9% at the end of 2025, according to the provincial transport department.
Shandong is playing catch-up. In April it set a goal of reaching the national average penetration rate within two years, IT Home reported. The latest figures, reported by China Traffic News (中国交通报), don't define the rate.
In the port city of Rizhao, about 1,500 electric trucks run at the port and two steel works, the city's transport bureau chief said on Oct. 20, Qilu Evening News reported (齐鲁晚报). Buyers in Rizhao can get subsidies of up to 140,000 yuan (about US$20,900) per electric heavy truck from national, provincial and city programs, plus a halved purchase tax, the city said.
In April, a provincial transport official said Shandong had no charging built for electric heavy trucks on its expressways, China News Service reported. By the end of August it had finished its first 88 high-power stations for the trucks, 20 of them at expressway service areas, a deputy director of the department told reporters in September.
Shandong Heavy Industry Group (山东重工集团), the parent of Sinotruk, sold 54,000 electric heavy trucks from January to August, the deputy director said, without saying where they were sold.
Nationally, 11 government departments have set a target of 40% penetration by 2030 for new-energy heavy trucks, China's term for battery-electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell models, China Energy News reported (中国能源报). Central and southwest China are among the regions with the highest penetration rates this year, Cui Dongshu (崔东树), secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association (乘联分会), said, according to the paper. In Yunnan, in the southwest, more than 20,000 electrified heavy trucks were in use at the end of September.
Sources: 中国交通报 China Traffic News, 新黄河 Xinhuang He (via ifeng), 山东交通 Shandong Transport (Dazhong News platform), 齐鲁晚报 Qilu Evening News (via 10jqka), IT之家 IT Home, 中国能源报 China Energy News [1], [2], 中新网 China News Service (via Tencent News), Sinotruk (China National Heavy Duty Truck Group, new-energy product page)
Editor: Ian Lamont
