Today, Traton is a company in transition. A subsidiary of Volkswagen, it is made up of a collection of commercial vehicle brands, including Scania, MAN, and International. While it still manufactures conventional trucks that run on fossil fuels, it’s making rapid progress in the EV space. Some of Scania’s long-haul electric semis can travel about 350 miles before needing to recharge, for example.
Its EV models are also starting to pick up in terms of sales. In the first half of 2025, Traton sold 1,250 electric models globally, which was twice as many as during the same period last year. That puts it not far behind Volvo, another market leader. Traton is now ramping up production—MAN recently opened a new factory line that can assemble electric and diesel trucks interchangeably. That should also help bring costs down, key to success for the sector—today, the price of an electric truck can be several times higher than for diesel ones.
What’s more, Traton is working to install hundreds of publicly available chargers across Europe through an industry partnership called Milence. That group has also invested in high-powered chargers that can deliver more than 1 megawatt of power to heavy-duty trucks, allowing trucks to recharge in 45 minutes or less (for comparison, rapid chargers available for cars today deliver between 50 and 350 kilowatts).
Key indicators
- Industry: Electric vehicles
- Founded: 2015
- Headquarters: Munich, Germany
- Notable fact: One of Traton’s subsidiaries is a leading school bus manufacturer in the US and Canada, where it debuted its first electric school bus in 2021.
Potential for impact
Moving freight produces about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Most of that pollution (65%) comes from trucks and vans—more than cargo ships, trains, and planes combined. And the World Economic Forum expects demand for road freight will triple by 2050.
Electric trucks do have a climate impact from the mining and manufacturing processes required to build them. The source of electricity that powers them—whether renewable or fossil fuels—also matters. Even so, battery-electric trucks operating in Europe today reduce emissions on average by 63% compared with diesel trucks, according to an analysis by the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation.