Every fleet accountant knows the number that really drives cost per kilometre is not the purchase price — it is the residual value, what the truck is worth when you sell it. For diesel, decades of data make that a confident estimate. For electric trucks, it is an educated guess, and that uncertainty ripples through every decision.
Why residuals are so hard to call
- Battery health is the asset: a used electric truck is worth what its battery still holds — and standardised state-of-health reporting is only now emerging.
- No history: the first big wave of electric tractors is barely three years old; the used market is thin.
- Moving technology: rapid range and cost improvements can devalue older models faster than diesel equivalents.
- Policy risk: city-access rules and incentives can lift or crater used demand region by region.
Why it matters even if you buy new
Uncertain residuals raise the effective cost of ownership and push risk onto whoever holds the truck at end of life. That is exactly why leasing and manufacturer buy-back offers are disproportionately attractive for first electric deployments, as our buy-versus-lease guide and TCO analysis both note — you are effectively paying someone else to absorb the residual guess.
What will settle it
- Trusted, portable battery state-of-health certificates.
- Second-life demand pulling value from retired packs (stationary storage).
- A maturing used market as fleet-cycle trucks come off first leases.
- Battery warranty terms that transfer to second owners.
Until those arrive, treat electric-truck residuals as a risk to be managed — through leasing, buy-back clauses and honest TCO modelling — not a number to be assumed.
Cover photo: Lars Ardarve via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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