The trucking sector plays a critical role in India’s economy, transporting goods, connecting businesses, creating jobs, and fueling economic growth. Currently, India moves around 4.6 billion tons of freight every year. As population, urbanization, and income levels rise, the trucking market is expected to grow fourfold by 2050. Given the size of the market, continued reliance on diesel trucks, which currently account for more than 90% of Indian trucks, will lead to irreversible air pollution, worsen public health, and accelerate global warming.
India is actively progressing toward the deployment of zero-emission trucks, with battery electric trucks (BETs) leading the charge. At least 500 BETs have been deployed or were in the pipeline by the end of 2025. This growing momentum is reflected in an expanding lineup of market-ready models, new pilot announcements, supportive government incentives under the PM E-Drive scheme, and rising interest from financiers.
In addition to BETs, hydrogen-based technologies, including fuel cell electric trucks (FCETs) and hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE) trucks, offer another potential technology pathway for India’s trucking sector to reduce its carbon emissions. Although hydrogen has been used as fuel in the road transport sector for passenger cars and buses on a small scale, the use of hydrogen in the trucking sector is still in its early stages in India. However, multiple vehicle models and pilot projects have been developed in other geographies across the world.
India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy approved $23 million under the National Green H2 mission to support five pilot projects including 37 buses and trucks. The funds will be dispersed over the next 18-24 months. In early 2025, Tata Motors and Adani Enterprises started piloting hydrogen trucks along several key freight routes around Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, and other areas.
This brief “Hydrogen trucking for India: economics, opportunities, and way forward” published by RMI assesses the techno-economic potential of hydrogen trucking to decarbonize the freight sector in India. The study finds that while FCETs will be more cost competitive than diesel trucks in long-haul, heavy-duty applications by 2040, they are unlikely to reach cost parity with BETs without a significant reduction in hydrogen fuel costs.
Overall, strategic policy and finance support, infrastructure development, and stakeholder alignment will be essential to unlock hydrogen’s potential as a complement to electrification in India’s freight decarbonization journey.
Access the brief here
