Exclusive: No Clear Truck Fuel Winner for Next Five Years, Says Valeo

Valeo does not see a clear winner emerging among truck powertrain technologies over the next five years, with diesel, battery-electric, hydrogen, fuel cells and LNG likely to coexist as fleet economics, infrastructure and operating requirements determine adoption across markets.

“In the next five years, you will have BEV, you will have fuel-cell trucks, you will have hydrogen ICE and classical ICE,” Thierry Simonin, Group Customer Vice President, Commercial Vehicles, Valeo, told Autocar Professional on the sidelines of IAA Transportation. “The mix is difficult to predict.”

Simonin’s comments come as Europe’s zero-emission truck transition faces growing scrutiny from the industry. Daimler Truck CEO Karin Rådström, speaking at IAA Transportation, called for policy to be aligned with market realities, pointing out that only around 2% of trucks registered in Europe in 2025 were electric, while the industry would need roughly 35% of new registrations to be battery-electric or hydrogen-powered by 2030 to meet CO2 targets.

15-Year Picture Favours Battery-Electric

The picture becomes clearer when the horizon is extended. Asked how he sees the market developing over the next 15 years, Simonin said Valeo expects battery-electric technology to eventually take the largest share.

“If you tell me 15 years, I can tell you, long term, it will be electric,” he said. “We are convinced that most of the cake” will be battery-electric.

Hydrogen could continue to have a role, he added, but Valeo sees battery-electric trucks making sense over the longer term when the complete energy chain, sustainability and technology development are considered.

The contrast between the five-year and 15-year outlook reflects the complexity of the commercial vehicle market. Simonin said Europe, China and India could follow different transition paths, while truck powertrain choices will also depend heavily on how vehicles are used.

TCO Could Change the Equation

For the near term, Simonin said the central issue is total cost of ownership. The technologies needed for the transition are already available, including battery-electric trucks, but making them economically competitive with conventional trucks remains critical to accelerating adoption.

“It’s about making the technology more competitive,” he said. “What we need to focus on now, together with our customers, is to put on the market more competitive solutions so that you have, between ICE and BEV trucks, a kind of break-even.”

In some applications, Simonin said that point has effectively already been reached.

“Already now, in some mission profiles, you may have a better TCO with a BEV truck,” he said. “It will always depend on the mission.”

That makes the transition particularly different for commercial vehicles, where routes, utilisation, payload requirements, charging availability and energy costs can significantly alter the economics for individual fleet operators.

Simonin expects the equation to improve further towards the end of the decade as battery costs decline, potentially triggering a much faster shift once electric trucks become economically competitive across a wider range of applications.

“If we can bring the break-even, like 2028, then the increase in sales can be very, very quick,” he said.

Infrastructure will have to develop alongside vehicle economics. Simonin pointed out that while Europe has built extensive charging infrastructure for passenger cars, trucks require significantly higher charging power and infrastructure designed around commercial vehicle operations.

Valeo Ready for a Mixed Market

For Valeo, uncertainty over which technology will dominate in the near term does not necessarily require choosing one powertrain pathway. Simonin said its ICE-related and electrification products use separate production lines, allowing the supplier to respond as demand develops.

“If ICE continues to grow, we can support ICE, and when the BEV market grows, we can support the BEV truck market,” he said.

LNG and hydrogen combustion also remain within the broader internal-combustion architecture from the perspective of some of Valeo’s products, while battery-electric and fuel-cell vehicles form part of its electrified technology portfolio.

“As a Tier 1, we have only to be flexible,” Simonin said. “The good news is we have the technology. Whatever direction it goes, we can support.”

Simonin expects commercial vehicles to remain considerably more diverse in their technology mix than passenger cars as the transition progresses.

“For the truck business, it will be more a patchwork of solutions,” he said. “It is linked to operation, it is linked to your TCO, the country, so it will be a mix of solutions.”

That leaves the next five years without an obvious global winner. Over a 15-year horizon, however, Valeo’s view is considerably clearer: battery-electric trucks are expected to emerge as the leading powertrain technology.