In 2024, construction machinery underwent a milestone transformation—electric loaders experienced explosive growth, with annual sales of 11,220 units, a year-on-year increase of 212.1%, and a penetration rate of 10.37%. At the same time, the electrification of products such as aerial work platforms, mining machinery, and concrete mixer trucks also grew in a "blowout" manner, and the industry is expected to usher in a new round of peak competition in electrification in 2025.

1. What breakthroughs were made in the electrification of construction machinery in 2024?

In 2024, the electrification of construction machinery mainly achieved breakthroughs and development in the following three aspects:

1. Sales growth and product innovation

In 2024, electric construction machinery made major breakthroughs in the market on the one hand, with significant growth in products such as electric loaders, forklifts, and aerial work platforms. Loader sales broke through from the thousands to the tens of thousands, and the electrification process of some other products also accelerated greatly. For example, cumulative sales of new energy concrete mixer trucks from January to November exceeded 7,000 units, with a cumulative penetration rate of 48.6%.

On the other hand, major enterprises also successively launched heavyweight electrified products, continuously innovating in range, power consumption, and machine performance. For example, at bauma CHINA 2024, enterprises exhibited electric and other new energy products with their respective advantages. Zoomlion concentrated on displaying nearly 20 green new energy products, including several globally pioneering new energy products, such as the new energy pump truck with the world's longest boom; XCMG, with pure electric and hybrid technology routes as the core, displayed 48 green main machine products; Sany Group set up a new energy product exhibition area, displaying a full series of new energy products including pure electric, battery swap, plug-in, trolley, and hydrogen energy.

2. A more complete standards system

In early August, the first batch of seven national standards for electric construction machinery, including "Terminology for Electric Earthmoving Machinery," was released. In December, the second batch of six national standards for electric construction machinery was also approved and released, covering various aspects of the industrial chain such as terminology, complete machines, energy consumption test methods, and power battery safety. This filled the gap in the standards system for electric construction machinery and has a very important demonstrative and leading role in building a safe and stable industrial chain and supply chain and achieving green and low-carbon development.

3. Construction performance recognized

Time is the only criterion for testing truth, and market choice is the ultimate criterion for testing the achievements of construction machinery electrification. Electric loaders have become the vanguard of construction machinery electrification not only because of their economy and environmental friendliness, but even more because of their stable and reliable construction performance.

Nationwide, more than 200 LiuGong electric loaders have each worked more than 15,000 hours, and dozens of electric excavators have each exceeded 10,000 working hours while always maintaining stable operation. After operating for more than 15,000 hours at a Shanxi coking plant, the BRT958EV pure electric loader from Boleiton achieved a capacity retention rate of 86.4% according to official testing by CATL, with degradation of less than 14%, fully demonstrating the durability and stability of electric loaders.

2. Enterprises increase layout and investment, and electrification will welcome more development opportunities in 2025

With the improvement of environmental protection requirements and the development of intelligent technology, the wave of electrification in construction machinery products is accelerating and upgrading. In this process, the competitors are not only major OEMs but also major power battery manufacturers. As more and more construction machinery enterprises in China adopt power lithium batteries, and their cost accounts for about one-third of the complete machine cost, power lithium batteries may become one of the core components that reshape the competitive landscape of the construction machinery electrification market.

At present, major domestic power battery manufacturers such as CATL, BYD, Gotion High-tech, and EVE Energy are all actively exploring and making technological layouts in construction machinery batteries.

On December 6, at the Off-road Power Sub-forum of the 2025 Global Partners Conference, Weichai launched 10 battery products in a full series for construction machinery, with capacity covering 280–765 kWh, which can meet the electricity needs of different market segments such as loaders, excavators, and mining trucks.

During bauma CHINA 2024, CATL held a new product launch event and released four versions of the "Tianxing Heavy Truck Battery" for the heavy truck sector: super-fast charging version, long-life version, long-range version, and high-strength version. Among them, the high-strength version is specially built for construction machinery. It is understood that this battery has been applied to more than 20 models from multiple OEMs such as Tongli Heavy Industry, LiuGong, XCMG Mining Machinery, and Lingong Heavy Machinery.

EVE Energy brought its full-scenario solutions for construction machinery to bauma CHINA and released the new Open Source Battery—Construction Machinery Edition product; FinDreams Battery, a subsidiary of BYD, recently released three new construction machinery battery products, all using lithium iron phosphate blade batteries.

Since 2024, central and local governments have frequently introduced subsidy policies, including purchase subsidies, tax reductions and exemptions, and infrastructure construction subsidies, providing huge opportunities for the development of construction machinery electrification. In 2025, in addition to policy support, advances in battery technology will gradually reduce the production and purchase costs of electric construction machinery, and increased market and user acceptance of electrified products will also become development opportunities for electric construction machinery.

3. 25% penetration rate in 2025? The road to electrification still has a long way to go

According to previous industry forecasts, the electrification rate of construction machinery will increase significantly in 2025, with the penetration rate reaching 20% or even 25%! Now that 2025 has arrived, judging from the actual situation, can this goal be achieved this year?

For some construction machinery products with relatively good electrification development, such as aerial work platforms, forklifts, and concrete mixer trucks, available data show that their penetration rates are all higher than the 25% target. For example, the electrification penetration rate of aerial work platforms exceeds 90%, the penetration rate of electric forklifts exceeded 70% in the first half of 2024, and the penetration rate of electric mixer trucks reached 48.6% from January to November 2024...

However, from the perspective of the construction machinery industry as a whole, the electrification rate is still relatively low, and the electrification replacement process of other construction machinery products is relatively slow. Even for electric loaders, the "vanguard" of construction machinery electrification, after a substantial increase in share in 2024, their penetration rate was only 10.37%, and the growth rate has shown signs of slowing. Sales in December were only 854 units, with both sales and growth rate being the lowest in the second half of the year. As the "barometer" of construction machinery, excavators have an even slower electrification process, with average monthly sales in 2024 only in the single digits.

Therefore, despite being optimistic about the prospects of electrification, we must also admit that it will probably be difficult for the overall electrification penetration rate of construction machinery to reach 25% in 2025. On the path of development, construction machinery electrification still faces some challenges that affect the rapid increase of its penetration rate.

Deteriorating market competition: In pursuit of market share, some manufacturers have adopted aggressive sales strategies and engaged in bottomless price competition, which has greatly reduced product quality and after-market service quality, ultimately affecting new machine sales. For example, sales in the aerial work platform market turned negative for the first time in 2024, rental prices continued to decline, and in just a few years the industry competition has moved from a "blue ocean" to a "red ocean" stage.

High purchase cost and uncertain operating cost: Due to the high cost of batteries, the purchase cost of electric construction machinery is much higher than that of traditional fuel equipment, and its advantage of low operating cost needs to be reflected over long periods of operation. However, in actual work, not all construction machinery has relatively fixed working scenarios and long, uninterrupted operation needs like loaders. 

Technology needs further improvement: In terms of certification standards for high-end markets and the performance of core components, electric construction machinery still needs further improvement. For example, in special environments such as extreme cold and heavy-load mines, there are still prominent problems such as weak high-power discharge capability of batteries, poor adaptability of three-electric components to extreme cold environments, and short range.

The industrial standards system needs to be improved: The improvement of the electric industry standards system is a dynamic process that requires the joint efforts of the government, enterprises, research institutions, and other parties to adapt to constantly changing market demands and technological development.

At the same time, Liu Peng, Meng Long, Long Xiaoping, and others proposed at the "New Energy Special Forum," a sub-forum of the 2024 China Construction Machinery Marketing Conference & After-market Conference, some risks accompanying the electrification process that are also worthy of industry attention:

Lack of reverence for electricity: There is currently an underestimation in the market of the risks of electrical applications, with the belief that electrification is simple and easy. However, electrical applications, especially high-voltage and large-capacity electricity, carry extremely high safety risks. Therefore, reverence for electrical applications should be emphasized, and ensuring safety should be the primary task in the electrification process.

Superstition about technological progress: New energy is low-density energy, and compressing it into high-density energy involves technical challenges and safety risks. Excessive pursuit of high-density energy storage may lead to safety hazards. Therefore, the electrification process should focus on how to use low-density energy efficiently and safely.

The contradiction between emerging technologies and outdated concepts: The electrification process requires conceptual innovation and cannot be promoted by following the thinking of traditional petroleum energy. The outdated concept of compressing low-density energy into high-density energy should be abandoned, and attention should instead be paid to how to better utilize low-density energy.

Driven by both policy and market demand, electrification will become the main direction of industry development. We believe that electric construction machinery will still be in a period of rapid development in 2025. Although the industry still faces many challenges in technology, market, and operations, through technological innovation, market optimization, and international cooperation, China's construction machinery industry is expected to achieve comprehensive upgrading in the future and contribute to global green development.