AVIGUS · For the battery ecosystems team in Ningde · October 2026

The other 88%.

The 20 biggest names move about 12% of Europe's €434bn road freight market. I work with, and have driven for, the companies that move the rest.

Europe's road freight market in 2024: who earns itA grid of 100 squares, each one percent of the €434bn market. One dark square is DHL Freight (1.2%). Five squares are the rest of the top five (4.7%). Six squares are ranks 6 to 20 (5.9%). The other 88 squares, about €383bn, are mid-sized hauliers and owner-operators.
  • 1.2%€5bnDHL Freight, #2 in Europe
  • 4.7%€20bnrest of the top 5
  • 5.9%€25bnranks 6 to 20
  • 88%€383bnmid-sized hauliers and owner-operators

Source: Ti Insight 2025 and 2026; shares are AVIGUS estimates (sources 1 to 4)

Five minutes, step by step

The market

Europe's road freight is a €440bn market with no owner.

Road freight in Europe was worth €440bn in 2025. The 20 biggest providers together earn about 12% of it. None of them holds 2%.

Even DHL Freight, number two in Europe with about 1,700 low-emission vehicles, is 1.2% of the market.

The rest, about €383bn, is earned by hundreds of thousands of mid-sized hauliers and owner-operators. New truck registrations fell 6% in 2025, and only 4.2% of the new trucks can plug in. The switch has not started there yet.

€440bn

Europe's road freight market in 2025

Source: Ti Insight, 25 Jun 2026 (1)

12%

share of the 20 biggest providers in 2024

Source: AVIGUS estimate from Ti's top-20 chart (3, 4)

1.2%

DHL Freight, number two in Europe, in 2024

Source: Ti Insight 2025, AVIGUS calculation (3, 4)

20.6%

the top five together in Germany, the biggest national market

Source: Mordor Intelligence, 29 Feb 2024 (5)

The 20 biggest road transport providers in Europe

€bn, 2024

The 20 biggest road transport providers in Europe, 2024 revenue in billion euroHorizontal bars sorted by 2024 European road revenue: DB Schenker 7.8, DHL Freight 5.2, Dachser 4.8, DSV Road 4.2, Rhenus 3.7, FedEx Freight International 3.4, Gefco (CEVA) 3.0, Kuehne+Nagel Overland 2.8, XPO Europe 2.8, LKW Walter 2.8, Girteka 1.7, Raben 1.4, Nagel 1.4, Geodis 1.3, H.Essers 1.1, Ziegler 1.0, Hellmann 0.9, NTG 0.8, Cargoline 0.8, Gebrüder Weiss 0.7. Together about 51 billion euro, 12% of the market.DB Schenker7.8DHL Freight5.2Dachser4.8DSV Road4.2Rhenus3.6FedEx Freight Int.3.4Gefco (CEVA)3.0K+N Overland2.8XPO Europe2.8LKW Walter2.8Girteka1.7Raben1.4Nagel1.4Geodis1.3H.Essers1.1Ziegler0.9Hellmann0.9NTG0.8Cargoline0.8Gebrüder Weiss0.7
Read from Ti's published chart, about ±5% per bar. Own drawing, AVIGUS estimate (sources 3, 4).

Where the 88% lives

Not one market. Thousands of small companies that work the same way.

The EU counts 587,000 road freight companies. Nine in ten have fewer than ten people. Ti calls the market highly fragmented.

Most of the top 20 are networks, not fleets. DSV, number one, writes in its annual report that transport services are subcontracted to road hauliers. A large part of the line-haul and distribution of the big names is driven by trucks of the 88%.

So the two routes end on the same trucks. Battery makers and truck OEMs reach the top 20 as key accounts. I reach the 88% as an ecosystem.

Source: DSV Annual Report 2024: "Transport services are subcontracted to container carriers, airlines, road hauliers and railway operators" (7). The share of line-haul driven by subcontractors is not published by the networks: an estimate, marked as such.

587,000

road freight companies in the EU in 2022

Source: Eurostat, structural business statistics (6)

89%

of them have fewer than ten people

Source: Eurostat, structural business statistics (6)

Clusters

One cluster, one way of working, one charging plan.

A cluster is a group of companies that run their trucks the same way. One hub, one battery spec and one TCO model then fit all of them.

Source: Daily km, depots and charging windows: AVIGUS field estimates from the cab and the planning desk, to be confirmed cluster by cluster (source 10).

Port container hauliers

Antwerp-Bruges and Rotterdam

How they work
Fixed shuttles between the terminal and an inland depot
Daily km
150 to 300 km a day (estimate)
Where the truck sleeps
At the depot, every night
Battery and charging
Medium battery. The waiting time at the terminal is the charging window
From a battery partner
A charger at the terminal gate and one at the depot

Regional distribution and groupage

Benelux and North Rhine-Westphalia, subcontractors of the networks

How they work
One depot, the same rounds every day
Daily km
200 to 350 km a day (estimate)
Where the truck sleeps
At the home depot, every night
Battery and charging
Medium battery, charged at the depot overnight
From a battery partner
Depot chargers and a battery lease

Owner-operators, 1 to 5 trucks

Fixed night line-haul for the networks

How they work
The same lane every night, loaded both ways
Daily km
400 to 600 km a night (estimate)
Where the truck sleeps
In the cab, on the lane
Battery and charging
Big battery and one megawatt stop on the lane
From a battery partner
Public megawatt charging on the lane, and battery financing: they cannot carry the capex

What I deliver

A cluster at a time: hauliers, chargers, batteries, numbers.

I have sat on both sides: the DHL Supply Chain head office in Brussels, and the cab of an 88% company's truck, three months full-time this year.

  • Cluster building: I know these companies from the cab and the planning desk
  • Charging hubs where the 88% already park: battery-buffered, with mobile or containerised storage and megawatt chargers, open before the grid connection arrives
  • Money from outside transport: hubs and batteries financed by investors, not by the haulier's balance sheet
  • Numbers: TCO per cluster, truck and charger specs, storage for megawatt charging, on three live sites
  • Field feedback from drivers and planners, in plain words, every month

How I work:

  • I report what I see: no truck maker pays me a salary
  • Every number with its source, every claim marked as mine or someone else's
  • Short written notes, in English and Chinese

Four live websites

  • eTrucksAndChargers.com Every heavy electric truck and charger of IAA Transportation 2026, with the trucks we drove ourselves. 96 listings · 16 charging systemsLIVE
  • eTruckTCO.eu What an electric truck really costs, per country: diesel, tolls, charging, plus a charge planner with temperature and load. 11 countries · 13 toll zonesLIVE
  • bess4mcs.com Battery storage for megawatt truck charging: the hub plan, and what I ask the storage suppliers for. 3.75 MW per megawatt plugLIVE
  • ecosystems4megatrucks The first page for the same team: the European voice of the logistics side.LIVE

After this meeting

Three steps from this page to a first cluster.

  1. 1The team picks one cluster from this page.
  2. 2Within a month: a written profile of ten named hauliers in that cluster. Fleet, lanes, daily km, depot, charging options, what they would sign up for.
  3. 3We agree a pilot: one hub, one cluster, one battery spec, one TCO.

Write to me

Bart Van den Keybus

AVIGUS BV · Brussels, Belgium

bart@avigus.comAvigus.com
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Sources · data as of October 2026

Every number on this page, with its source.

  1. Ti Insight, European road freight market, 25 June 2026: €440,388m in 2025 (+1.4% real); domestic €303,633m, international €136,754m; forecast €447,638m for 2026 and €483,468m for 2030. ti-insight.com
  2. 2024 market of about €434bn: derived by AVIGUS, €440.4bn ÷ 1.014.
  3. Ti Insight, European road freight transport financial analysis: DHL Freight 2024 revenue €5,196m (+0.7%); DSV and Schenker combined about €11,918m (2024 estimate). ti-insight.com
  4. Top 20 by 2024 European road revenue, read from Ti's published chart (AVIGUS estimate, about ±5% per bar), €m: DB Schenker 7,750 · DHL Freight 5,196 · Dachser 4,750 · DSV Road 4,150 · Rhenus 3,650 · FedEx Freight International 3,400 · Gefco (CEVA) 3,000 · Kuehne+Nagel Overland 2,750 · XPO Europe 2,750 · LKW Walter 2,750 · Girteka 1,700 · Raben 1,400 · Nagel 1,350 · Geodis 1,250 · H.Essers 1,100 · Ziegler 950 · Hellmann 900 · NTG 800 · Cargoline 750 · Gebrüder Weiss 650. Sum about €51bn, 12% of €434bn; top five about €25.5bn, 6%. Hence DHL Freight 1.2%, rest of the top five 4.7% (€20bn), ranks 6 to 20 5.9% (€25bn), everyone else 88% (€383bn).
  5. Mordor Intelligence via ResearchAndMarkets, 29 February 2024: the top five (Dachser, DB Schenker, DHL Group, DSV, Kuehne+Nagel) hold 20.62% of the German road freight market. globenewswire.com
  6. Eurostat, structural business statistics by size class (sbs_sc_ovw), NACE H49.4 freight transport by road and removal services, EU-27, 2022: 586,857 enterprises, of which 523,396 with 0 to 9 persons employed (89%). ec.europa.eu
  7. DSV Annual Report 2024, business model: "Transport services are subcontracted to container carriers, airlines, road hauliers and railway operators." investor.dsv.com
  8. ACEA, 29 January 2026: new EU truck registrations 2025: 307,460 (−6.2%); electrically chargeable trucks (battery electric and plug-in hybrid) 4.2% of the market, up from 2.3%; heavy trucks of 16 t and over: 254,488, of which 4,991 electrically chargeable. acea.auto
  9. DHL Group press release, 30 July 2026: DHL Freight runs about 1,700 low-emission vehicles; the first Europe-built SuperPanther eTopas 600 in service in the Netherlands from September 2026. group.dhl.com
  10. Bart Van den Keybus (AVIGUS): the DHL Supply Chain head office in Brussels, three months full-time in the cab of an 88% company's truck in 2026, and the cluster descriptions with their daily km ranges. His statements, marked as estimates where they are.

AVIGUS

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