China will sell more than twice as many electric trucks as the United States in 2022, according to new figures from Interact Analysis.

In 2021, China registered nearly 80,000 battery electric trucks, ahead of Europe where just over 60,000 were registered and well ahead of North America where only 4012 were registered.

The Interact AnalysisHybrid and Electric Truck and Bus report predicts current projections for 2022are over 200,000 for China, 139,000 for Europe and 91,000 for North America (of which 87,000 are forecast to be in the US).

By 2023-2024 the Americas, led by the US, is forecast to catch up and after that continue to grow and establish a lead over China. However, this forecast future lead by the US in electric trucks is largely because the “utility truck” category in the report includes pickup trucks such as the Ford F-150 Lighting and the Tesla Cybertruck, that in practice are not used only for businesses, thus creating a larger market.

When looking at only at medium and heavy-duty trucks, China is forecast to remain ahead to 2030. This is because China has a larger total market for these trucks, so it can beat Europe and US on electric truck volumes by having a similar penetration.

According to the report, China’s lead on electric vehicles also includes a strong position in related industries such as battery production (especially CATL, the world’s largest battery cell producer for electric vehicles) and solar panels.

China appears to have done relatively well mainly because of a central government plan to support the market for electric vehicles, which was acted upon and well advanced by 2015. In addition, there has been strong performance by some successful companies such as BYD.

While this particular insight focuses on battery electric vehicles, China also has a strong position on fuel cell vehicles, selling the majority of fuel cell trucks and buses registered in the world in 2021 and 2022.