Electric truck sales are surging despite Donald Trump’s oil industry-favored policies
JULY 29, 2026 BY ROCKY KISTNER
These days, the news media are filled with doom-and-gloom stories about the U.S. electric-vehicle (EV) market. An article in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine went so far as to declare that “The American EV Has Been Crushed.”
To be sure, after the Trump administration pulled the plug on the $7,500 EV tax credit and started to roll back tailpipe emissions standards, EV sales fell 27 percent from the first quarter of 2025 to the first quarter of 2026. By contrast, EV sales quadrupled during the first three years of the EV-friendly Biden administration.
In response, U.S. automakers have simply stopped making many EV models, switched assembly lines back to gas-powered vehicles, and sustained huge tax losses, even as sales of EVs outside the United States have soared.
But there is one bright spot for the domestic EV market that has received little attention: Commercial electric trucks and delivery vans are rolling off assembly lines in record numbers. Deployments of zero-emission trucks (ZET), which include vans and delivery trucks as well as large semis, are booming. The number of ZETs on the nation’s roads jumped 37 percent from 2024 to 2025, according to CALSTART, a national consortium of clean transportation companies. The group expects this trend to continue as high fuel costs and more efficient battery technology combine to make EV trucks more competitive and affordable.
“2026 will be a decisive year for understanding the next phase of ZET adoption,” CALSTART predicts. “Financial support, infrastructure planning, policy certainty, and education will remain important in determining how quickly the market continues to expand.”
